I can't say I agree or that I find this analogy valid. Tenant eviction protection is, in part, to protect human life acknowledging the necessity of shelter. The same just doesn't apply to cloud computing.
My lesson here is that the Internet is essential infrastructure, and once companies reach a certain size (Google, Facebook, AWS), they should be regulated similarly to public utilities.
An electric company shouldn't be able to cut off electricity to a crack house or brothel unless law enforcement first asks for it. Law enforcement should have due process appropriate to the situation; a terrorist attack should be cut off right now. A company making pirated copies of Windows should have their day in court. Your propaganda-believing gun-toting drunk crazy uncle should probably keep their electricity (which isn't to say he shouldn't be handled somehow, but perhaps committed to a medical facility).
I don't feel good or bad about them being taken off-line, since I don't actually know what they hosted. I do feel bad about that decision being made by corporations behind closed doors.
It's more than just an analogy when the parent comment claimed that if you support one, you should support the other. I'm not disagreeing that the scenarios aren't analogous. I'm disagreeing that the same logic that makes one of those things essential to a functioning society should be tried to be wedged in as an argument for the other.
No one is entitled to income from their source of choosing. Government provides welfare, not whoever you want to do business with.
Yeah! The employees of organized criminal gangs need to feed their families too!
They're honest, hardworking people. Why should they be penalized because the repressive system in which they live persecutes them for extortion, robbery, murder, sex trafficking and the like.
Arresting them and putting them in jail is just cruel and unfair!
Isn't this the point?
It isn't a responsibility of the electricity company or the landlord to investigate or apply punishments in criminal matters. Arresting them and putting them in jail is something the lawful authorities do, and there is a due process for it.
I don't think 'organized criminal gangs' is an apt description of Parler given that.
Even though it's only a few hours ago, I'm not really sure exactly what point I was trying to make.
Which is kind of sad. I think I need some sleep.
If I can remember what the hell I was blathering on about after I wake up, I'll post again.
Thanks for calling me out.
Parler is not some rube. They are a company with access to legal counsel. They agreed to moderate their end users in accordance with Amazon’s content policy and chose not to. They made extremely stupid decisions they do not deserve to be coddled for.
The government, at some point, decided to regulate utilities. It certainly didn't create them or their monopolies. Most have a natural monopoly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly).
It was a good idea, at the time, and it's just helpful to update our list of what constitutes a utility.
Even this might be a slippery slope – in the URSS at some point it was common to put political dissidents in mad houses.
But it's not a problem as long as there is due process… which wasn't the case for Parler !
Commercial leases usually have limited contractual clauses to allow eviction of paying tenants within the, usually 10 year, term.
Of course because AWS/GCS/MCS are sort of an oligopoly, they don't have long duration terms.
Regardless of what end of this debate you're on, I wouldn't be surprised if more customers didn't start asking for lease terms.
If I were really any right-leaning media organization I'd really hesitate going to a cloud provider without some sort of durable contract. Think about - is Fox News at risk if it's on AWS? What about The Wall Street Journal? Even Bloomberg has pretty right-leaning opinion pieces often... should they be worried about their content triggering a backlash since there's no contract?
...or maybe we'll just see a resurgence self-hosted platforms?
It's an analogy unto it's own, and it needs new guidelines. We're seeing them made as we progress.