Tim Cook Defends Parler App Suspension: ‘We Don’t Consider That Free Speech’ | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook Defends Parler App Suspension: ‘We Don’t Consider That Free Speech’

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42 pointstheduder99126 comments

For some more context about how Parler might not actually be free speech:

"the lack of moderation on Parler is not the issue. they actually have very robust moderation tools and all new users start out shadowbanned until enough of their post get approved for rightthink by their user moderators" [0]

"This is not an ad network. This is a system where their most "influential" users can get paid to post organic-looking sponsored content. Their CEO talks about it here" [1]

[0] https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1347939939120533506

[1] https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1346565749977051136 https://cnbc.com/2020/07/02/how-parler-app-plans-to-make-mon...

EDIT: Updated the first tweet to include the full tweet. If Parler actually has robust and capable moderation tools, as documented by the person who led the effort to archive their entire site before it went down, it's worth noting Amazon's position as stated in the article:

“Instead, this case is about Parler’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove from the servers of Amazon Web Services (‘AWS’) content that threatens the public safety, such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture and assassination of named public officials and private citizens.” [2]

[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664...

If you look at their suit against Amazon, linked in the article but here too: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664...

Parler notes 3 times AWS complained about specific messages and Parler removed all of them within 24 hours each time, some within a few hours and each time AWS noted they were satisfied.

"Parler had no moderation!" and "Parler wouldn't moderate!" are clearly untrue. If the complaint is "not enough moderation" that could be legit.

Regardless of your feeling on Parler, we NEED our legal system, contracts, and contract enforcement to be based on facts.

> "Parler had no moderation!" and "Parler wouldn't moderate!" are clearly untrue. If the complaint is "not enough moderation" that could be legit.

Has anyone been saying otherwise? I've always heard it reported that violent/bigoted posts stayed up too long, thus leading to the platform being awash in them. Not that there's literally zero moderation, but just too little.

Parler's own marketing works against their reputation here, since they liked to talk up being a 'free speech app', which implies a more 'anything goes' attitude towards moderation.

> Parler notes 3 times AWS complained about specific messages and Parler removed all of them within 24 hours each time, some within a few hours and each time AWS noted they were satisfied.

I mean c'mon man, that's just not great reasoning. Of course they're going to quickly remove the things AWS specifically points out to them. The real issue is how quick they are to remove rule-breaking content in general.

A better test would be AWS employees or whoever noting rule-breaking content themselves, then seeing how long it takes Parler to remove them. Or simply seeing how common rule-breaking content is to start with.

But the standards being promoted here, Twitter and Facebook itself would clearly fail at. None of them claim to have instant perfectly precise moderation and most of them got planet-scale when they had basically no company-driven moderation at all, just user flags. The double standards here are plain to see :(

This isn't a double standard; it's just the natural tendency of rules, regulations, and market requirements to become stricter over time. It's quite common for early entrants to a market to get away with behavior that late arrivals are accountable for.

Facebook and Twitter probably couldn't be introduced today with the level of moderation they had at the time.

The bicycle is a nontechnical example of this phenomenon. You couldn't bring it to market today because of liability concerns and safety laws.

Sounds like the issue was AWS had to keep complaining, effectively using them as their moderation review, rather than doing it themselves

Parler's CEO was interviewed by Megyn Kelly on her podcast a couple days ago, and if what he said is true, AWS is not being truthful. Of course we don't know who is telling the truth, but Parler is asking to release all the correspondence between the two companies, and AWS will not consent. It could very well just be standard legal best practice (since there is a lawsuit in progress), but it does give Parler some credibility. As soon as there is evidence I will re-evaluate where I can stand (not that it matters of course, but to me personally it does :-)

Among the big mistruths from AWS alleged by Parler, Parler does do moderation. They have a company principle of not surveilling every single thing their users do and vacuuming up data on them (which I would think most on HN would praise).

They have a group of about 600 moderators that review and take down reported posts. Over the last couple months given the in flux of new users and violent content, they did develop some machine learning tools that would identify potential violent posts and send them to a moderator for pre-approval. AWS told them that wasn't good enough. So Parler said, "how about we just use AWS Rekognition, your own product?" To which AWS said, "no, not good enough." I wonder, what is "good enough" to AWS? They clearly don't apply the same standard to Twitter.

He also talked about how just a week prior the AWS rep was doing the standard AWS rep thing of, "we love you, what can we do to get you deeper into AWS ecosystem?" Per Parler's CEO, Amazon had previously been satisfied but suddenly after the capitol riot, nothing would satisfy them.

It's remarkable to me how much disinformation there is out there over this. Although after the CentOS disinformation fiasco, I shouldn't be all that surprised.

I hope they release all of the correspondence soon so we can know who is telling the truth. It is a matter of great consequence in my opinion.

> Parler's CEO was interviewed by Megyn Kelly on her podcast a couple days ago, and if what he said is true, AWS is not being truthful. Of course we don't know who is telling the truth, but Parler is asking to release all the correspondence between the two companies, and AWS will not consent. It could very well just be standard legal best practice (since there is a lawsuit in progress), but it does give Parler some credibility. As soon as there is evidence I will re-evaluate where I can stand (not that it matters of course, but to me personally it does :-)

I don't think this adds to Parler's credibility. I'd say it's consistent with their self-portrayal as the innocent victim of a liberal conspiracy.

Parler's moderators were fine with content like https://i.redd.it/om90nwadqca61.png - it's not surprising that Apple, AWS, and Google found it unacceptable.

Making these emails public (even in a censored form) could expose AWS employees to doxxing, harassment, and worse. An email system administrator, for example, could use the text of an emails to identify which AWS employees corresponded with Parler.

"X exists on Parler" and "Parler's moderators were fine with X" are completely different statements and the first does not imply the second.

To make such a claim, I assume you have a quote or Like (whatever the Parler equivalent was) from a moderator supporting it. Care to share it?

It's possible that Parler's moderators liked that comment but that seems unlikely; I'm sure some people are already going through their dataset looking for such things. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the left is creating/has created blacklists based on Parler accounts and postings.

My claim is that Parler's moderators and/or management is fine with such content existing on Parler - Amazon, Apple, and Google are not. Twitter has its own issues but comments like that aren't going to last 2 days.

I understood your claim. I hoped it was based on facts vs what you imagine others think. Thanks for clarifying.

> as the innocent victim of a liberal conspiracy

It's fair to say that tech is majority liberal and it'd be simply dumb to contradict liberal orthodoxy to say unconscious bias doesn't exist.

So it's certainly fair to say that tech has an unconscious liberal bias and their actions are going to be harmful towards conservatives.

I was referring to the comments by Parler's CEO that Amazon, Apple, Google and others banning them or ending service within a narrow window was the result of collusion.

I think it's a combination of avoiding liability and Parler's failing to comply with moderation policies.

Having robust moderation tools doesn't necessarily mean moderation there works well. You actually need enough people with the right policies using said tools.

According to articles, Parler had some huge backlog of reports that they were planning on using volunteer mods to get through.

I don't necessarily think using volunteer mods is always a bad idea. But you have to be aware of the biases of your demographic, and in this case that means users who are likely to be tolerant of calls for violence, as long as they're targeted at 'bad people' (read: people with different political views).

> According to articles, Parler had some huge backlog of reports that they were planning on using volunteer mods to get through.

You also have to keep in mind that this was at a period of time when they were experiencing significant growth, and companies get behind when that happens as a rule. So they were permanently booted over what it would be completely reasonable to expect was a temporary problem.

The article makes it clear that they weren't permanently booted.

> Asked by Wallace whether Apple’s booting of Parler, which had become popular among Trump loyalists as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, would only serve to drive the app’s users “underground,” Cook responded, “Well, we’ve only suspended them, Chris. And so, if they get their moderation together, they would be back on there.”

It would be nice if people commenting on an article actually read it.

If we still had journalists, the most obvious follow up question is, "what are the moderation standards you've set that they need to meet, after which you will allow them back in?"

I think most people (fairly in my opinion) see that as PR/legal talk and that the bar (much like AWS) is set so high that they'll never make it (nor could Twitter/Facebook/etc).

If they want to go beyond PR/legal empty talk, they could provide a specific written standard. We could then evaluate it on its merits and compare it to other platforms to see if it's being evenly applied.

This is a perfectly fair suggestion, though I'm not sure what this would actually look like in practice.

"No more than 20 bigotry/incitement to violence points per user per day"?

Yeah it would be hard to define, no doubt, although with Apple's limitless resources and huge power, I think they need to at least try. The current subjective whims are clearly not good enough and they've gotten so powerful that human judgment isn't acceptable. I would say the same about Twitter/Facebook/Youtube/etc.

I suspect the hardest part would be defining it in such a way as to disallow Parler but still allow Twitter et al. Which, kind of proves the point of people who are suggesting Parler is being held to a different standard than the others.

IIWM (which of course it is not) I would start with something like, "Platform has a system in place to provide early detection of explicitly violent content at a rate of at least ${x}%. Platform has a system in place to allow users to report content in violation of the platform, and review of reports is completed within ${y} hours."

Of course what is "violent" is subjective too. To some people talking about hanging a person is not violent, while to others calling someone by the wrong pronouns is violence. A common standard would indeed be hard, but I think it is important.

In principle, I have no problem with that. Transparency is good, and it can lead to better business behavior without more ham-fisted regulations that simply force businesses to do what the government wants. It's the "nutrition facts label" strategy.

But I really think a better solution is just allowing more app stores or third party app installation. Let people choose who they want curating their content. Apple can still enforce their own store policies like they want, and if enough consumers revolt, they have somewhere else to go.

Agree completely. Competition is the real solution. Apple surely won't do it by choice, but maybe the recent antitrust action will force their hand and this will all be moot.

> The article makes it clear that they weren't permanently booted.

Should I say permanently destroyed? Certainly permanently damaged, whether past the point of even surviving remains to be seen.

And Twitter is any different? It’s overflowing with simplistic racist drivel and ridiculous calls for violence. All of social media is the problem - it spreads viral antisocial ideas faster than they can be countered, let’s like-minded sociopaths connect with similarly deluded people faster than their friends can check them, and has in many ways broken free speech. Parler was just the most recent and obvious symptom. How many researchers from Facebook and Twitter have quit their jobs to say it before we believe it?

Also, IIRC there was an interview where the CEO talked about how he was banning "left wing trolls"[1], not to mention they obviously don't allow pornographic images (which are not, in the large, illegal).

Parler is about free speech the same way Fox News is fair and balanced. They say that because that's what their target demographic wants to hear, not because there's any truth to the statement.

[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/06/27/parlers-f...

OnlyFans is a bigger threat to society than 10,000 Parlers.

And how long until my edgey, morally bankrupt idea gets banned because a few rich people decided to act as their own hired politician to do “what’s right” for us?

This is a slippery slope, we used it to silence a sitting president.. these same companies won’t hesitate to silence you

Apple has had minimum standards since the app store was made, so...since over a decade ago?

> This is a slippery slope, we used it to silence a sitting president..

Maybe if he didn't want to get banned from a platform, he should've avoided constantly lying and breaking the rules of said platform?

Like, you're literally suggesting "the president should be above the rules".

Nope. I am able to open my eyes and see that in the future this situation may be well exist again but under a different context. And we will point back to today as an example of why we should allow it.

PS if he was breaking rules of the platform for so long why ban him only after they know he lost the election? Seems to go along with my “powerful people make the rules” complaint.

Because he went further than just lying, and was also inciting violence.

Personally, I feel like they should've just banned him to begin with for all the lying, but being a private business, they have the right to decide who gets to speak on their own platform.

> PS if he was breaking rules of the platform for so long why ban him only after they know he lost the election? Seems to go along with my “powerful people make the rules” complaint.

If you ban him before the election and he wins, then he has 4 years to retaliate against you.

Homophobic politicians are a bigger threat to society than 10,000 OnlyFans.

Let’s ban homophobic politicians from the App Store then. And AWS. And Twitter. Don’t worry we aren’t restricting their free speech, they can say whatever they want in the public square...

Correct. If Apple and Google want to do that, maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's not.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with the principle of free speech.

You have peaked my curiosity please explain? I have not used either app.

what do you mean by this?

He means to say OnlyFans contributes directly to the fraying of America’s moral fibers.

If that is what the OP was inferring:

Personally, I think America is overly concerned with "moral integrity". Maybe it's due to the high Christian population.

I think many European countries that are very sexually open such as Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark are doing just fine. I also think that OnlyFans is an important service that gives sex workers the power to work for themselves in their own homes as opposed to having to make a living through less safe options. Customers get more personalized content and sex workers get a higher percentage of their payments while avoiding potentially physically or emotionally abusive situations - seems like a win-win to me.

An America without concern for moral integrity would be a hellish place. People already lament about how American capitalism crushes souls and promotes rampant inequality, imagine if the last bits of moral obligation were to be removed.

And “doing just fine” is still debatable.

The more "moral America" of the past used to include beating up and arresting gay people at bars for the crime of being gay.

Good riddance, I say.

Not sure what this means but Tim must had not been on Twitter last year. There was a moment that went on for 4+ months of wild endless violence against federal agents.

We live in a conspiracy theory with neoliberal corporate racketeers proclaiming they’re saving us from the ill affects of their own corporate communication platforms for not the public but for woke leftists that vote for Democratic party establishment figures.

Not Bernie, that guy’s a socialist and a threat to my 401k.

Good thing they were shut down. Lots and lots of wrongthink being expressed on that network.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Just build your own internet, financial system, and government, goy.

The internet is open. You can peer with whomever you like, that isn’t the problem. Pickup a few million $$$, peer with equinox and you have unfettered access to the internet. Fintech, use crypto. Don’t want government, then move to Christmas Island.

It’s not impossible, thepiratebay is still accessible years after being banned. Instead of parroting 4chan memes maybe start investing in companies that align with your viewpoints

Until Google or a backbone provider BGP announce that they own your IP ranges. And then add your site to SafeBrowsing. And then your domain provider suspends your domain. Sure.

HN has been kind of absurd to watch on this topic over the past few years. At first it was, "if you don't like Twitter's policies build your own Twitter". So people did. Now it's literally build your own internet and smartphone ecosystem. I wonder if those people ever go back and re-visit their old positions to re-evaluate if it was reasonable.

For anyone who doesn't know:

Wiki: In modern Hebrew and Yiddish goy (/ ɡɔɪ /, Hebrew: גוי ‎, regular plural goyim / ˈɡɔɪ.ɪm /, גוים ‎ or גויים ‎) is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English (often pluralised as goys) also to mean gentile, sometimes with a pejorative sense.

1984 is about government censorship and psychological control.

Exactly. And Apple is in bed with the government. And many of us carry around Apple branded microphones (or telescreens I should say?) in our pocket. And Apple allows indirect government backdoors (unencrypted iCloud "backups", etc).

> until enough of their post get approved for rightthink

People keep posting this bullshit tweet but it's not getting any less bullshit. From my previous reply [1]:

> Based on the screenshot you linked to, their "moderation" categories are "spam", "ads", "impersonation", "defamation", "nudity", "pornography", "illegal", "terrorism", "trademark" and "threat".

> Can you please explain how they use that to "ensure ideological conformity in their posts"?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tomp&next=25731453

I doubt he knows what incitement to violence means[1], or can point to an example on parler. One of Apple's laywers probably told him to say that. But let's assume he does know and can point to some instances there.

Does he know there's incitement to violence elsewhere on the internet? Time for iOS and macOS to whitelist certain trustworthy ip blocks belonging to "reputable" internet companies which police content, and prevent apps from connecting anywhere else.

For our safety.

Please save us, Tim!

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/free-speec...

They asked them to moderate their forum and suspended them until the situation changed.

Admittedly that was a lazy way to say it’s speech he vehemently disagrees with.

However, it shows a nonchalant willingness to redefine what free speech is. That’s scary.

No, we’re not curbing free speech because that’s not free speech. Just redefine the terms so you can do what you want.

Not going to go into free speech = government because I think that point has been beaten to death.

Was there speech on Parler that was above board in the sense that it wasn’t people up to no good? I’m sure there was. It’s unrealistic to think that everyone there was advocating for a violent act to happen. Unfortunately, Apple and Amazon (Amazon documenting cases of threatened murder, rape, etc. that Parler wouldn’t remove) allegedly had been requesting that Parler clean up the more extreme content which allegedly they refused to/didn’t do. To Apple, that’s probably no different than an application being riddled in bugs and as such they don’t want it on their app store.

Every private platform has some standards, this is hardly anything new.

Do you think Blizzard banning WoW idiots yelling racial slurs is abrogating their right to free speech too?

It is, but that's not the point. Blizzard isn't trying to redefine free speech, Apple is.

Seriously? So Blizzard getting rid of someone yelling "n----- n----- n-----" nonstop in general chat, you really think that's violating your right to free speech?

Lemme guess, dang banning trolls here on HN is also a violation of free speech, and he should let people say whatever they want, whenever they want?

You realize how insane this stance sounds, right?

To the free speech absolutist, everything should be allowed everywhere.

To someone like me, private corporations can kick people off their services at their pleasure -- and if that did become a problem (but not before), I'd suggest regulating them or building a public alternative. To someone like me, you also can't make false medical claims or falsely advertise your services or falsely label food.

To someone further away from free speech absolutism, private companies should have a department of censorship that responds to the government, the zeitgeist, whatever.

To someone like me, though, there's a lot of knobs and dials to turn on the "what amount of speech lets people thrive and not die" machine and I'm content to have society keep fiddling with them in various ways, as a process and not an end-point.

Technically, it IS violating free speech when anything is censored. That doesn't mean that particular speech is condoned. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that, you just don't want to understand it.

Apple isn't simply moderating misc examples of speech they don't condone, they're attempting to install your (incorrect) version of what free speech means. This is some serious 1984 stuff in action, and a lot of smart people are too ignorant to see what's happening in front of their eyes.

Businesses are in no way obligated to not discriminate (so long as it's not a reason that's due to a protected class). It seems like you disagree.

Apple has a private platform. Apple can do what it wants, whether they use the typical definition of free speech or they redefine terms. The bigger problem is that there are no public platforms despite this technology. And I don't know if governments have ever given citizens more than rights (like, do they have these rights and a platform to express those rights).

So if your private water utility company decides to cut off your water access because they don't agree with your politics, would you say "welp, they're a private company and they can do as they please."?

Cutting communication channels is historically an act of war.

The private water utility company is a false equivocation. Government regulations view this as a natural resource and regulate it heavily. Privatization of natural resources often raises the specter or threat of cut-off as you suggest and is traditionally subject to government intervention.

I believe you are right - cutting communication channels of a sovereign state can be an act of war. But these are private channels. I don't think we are anywhere near classifying these platforms as public utilities, much less natural resources, at least in the United States.

You're argument is a lazy argument that accepts the weaponization of free speech, which is even more scary. Parler was never about free speech. If you read up on its making, it was dark money, russian bots, alt-right hate groups and their cover is this absurdly stupid front of free speech that no alt-right fascist person actually wants. They just use it against you.

Your*

Most of the people who are saying this never actually looked at the site, the reality is the majority of the content seen was no worse than that of Twitter, in some ways better and more politer (that's what you get with an echo chamber), but every argument leveraged against Parler could be leveraged 10x over against Twitter. So no matter what intentions are, the effect is the same. You can't in good faith argue Parler deserves to be taken down anymore than Twitter and many other sites. Twitter does not enforce many of its own rules, even when reported a lot of violent, hateful content stays up for days or weeks while very minor infractions will get enforced. So even what they do enforce is very inconsistently enforced.

Given how bad Twitter is and has been over the course of its history, you can't really argue in good faith this wasn't just a pretext from eliminating a competitor to the dominance of SV big tech from the market.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho...

Your* entire argument actually supports what I said.

Twitters goal was never to weaponize freedom of speech. You can't blame twitter for being anti-free speech when the basis for kicking off Trump was violation of TOS. It was never a freedom of speech issue to begin with.

Parler on the other hand weaponizes freedom of speech does so in a very juvenile way to confuse people. The GOP runs with this too.

It's how conspiracy theorists thrive - they weaponize authority in every way - be it authority because of comprehensive study, understanding and scientific evidence or authority because of governance, speech, status quo.

It's pathetic really... and i have to laugh that you seem to suggest you have some pillar to stand on merely because you corrected what my iphone chose to autocorrect.

lol

Seems rather obvious that this 'Big Tech bloc' will eventually turn out to be a pyrrhic victory.

No. One can make the argument that there are kinds of speech that need to be restricted because of reasons x, y and z and still recognize that they are speech.

His take is rather fascistic in that he just redefines what a thing is to avoid dealing with the unpleasant parts.

No, it’s not a sterilization campaign, it’s family planning.

I would say the only thing lazy here is your interpretation of this situation. Speech can be used to sow conspiratorial rage and foment/plan real life harm. At some point it can't be tolerated. That cutoff line is not easy to define, but that doesn't mean it doesn't or shouldn't exist.

Nothing you said is relevant to what they're talking about. This is about Apple trying to redefine commonly used words to avoid any discussions about limiting free speech. It's like when Verizon claimed that "Unlimited" is just a marketing term, and doesn't actually mean no limit.

Corporations don't have to protect first amendment rights of others, they actually have them in the US.

The Supreme Court has granted corporations in the US at least a partial right to free speech and political speech in special. Even against protected minorities (Gay wedding cake decision).

Maybe Tim Cook could say that Apple is using it's free speech rights as a corporation when denying service.

You’re going on a tangent. He’s saying it’s not a speech issue because what he banned is not considered speech, so it does not fit under that umbrella and thus irrelevant to discuss a a speech issue at all.

I think Tim Cook is sidestepping for PR purposes. We should not discuss the issue in his terms.

The question is not if this particular speech is protected or not, because it does not apply to Apple at all.

The only question is if Apple has right. It has.

Ok... but we know, for a fact now, that most of the Capitol Riots were planned on Facebook. Where is their slap on the wrist?

And, frankly, you can find truly awful stuff on Twitter without much searching. "Hang Mike Pence" was trending, for example. Twitter removed it from trending, but didn't delete tweets containing that phrase. Will AWS take them down for this?

Rules for thee but not for me.

Hang Mike Pence was trending because a video came out showing people chanting it during the riots. People then quoted the video saying it was a bad thing, which made the trending algorithm trip. It was not people for hanging Mike Pence, it was people surprised that actually happened.

That video was on Twitter too, and YouTube. What's your point?

My point is that the parent post was talking like people were advocating violence against Mike Pence and that's why it was trending, but that's not true.

How about ... https://twitter.com/search?q=%23KillAllMen&src=typed_query

Perhaps, but this would not be the first incident. Also, I guarantee you that you could have found plenty of people on Twitter agreeing.

Not to mention, (just trying to find an example), how many threats against Trump or his family have you seen on Twitter?

And lastly, you didn't address my Facebook point. It is factual knowledge now that most of the people attending the riots at the Capitol were organized on Facebook, not Parler. Why did Parler get the blame? Where's Facebook's punishment?

I'm thinking all of these bans on the major platforms are simply a result of risk mitigation rather than deliberate stifling of free speech (although it has become evident that the platforms hold too much power over it).

The attack on the US Capitol sent the big wigs into panic - nobody wants to be linked to something like that. The easiest solution is to completely ban, deny service and deny affiliation with anyone involved. Much lower risk of the US government blaming them for enabling people to do what they did.

I don't think anyone high up in these companies gives a rat's ass about freedom of speech, incitement to violence or hate online, every platform was (and still is) full of that.

Up until this incident they maintained the usual "we're a neutral platform" spiel, sometimes banning people who were too aggressive, trolling or being reported a lot by others. But now that "shit got real", they're covering their asses.

Executives don't want to be blamed for bad shit. That's obviously priority #1.

They also don't want to actually have been responsible for bad shit. They're still human, and have human interests.

(This is the point where someone jumps in to loudly point out every bad thing Google/Apple/FB/etc has ever done)

This is mostly my assessment also, and I don’t think it would’ve happened as fast or as (seemingly) lightly if it happened at some point during the Trump term before the election. Possibly it wouldn’t have happened at all for fear of costly reprisals from the administration.

My personal opinion is: good riddance. I believe in free speech, but I also believe in the paradox of tolerance and that something’s gotta give. While I do believe in free speech, I don’t believe that’s the same thing as everyone having a right to be listened to, or having the right to a megaphone.

I have no answers to any of the problems that come with moderating forums, I think it’s a hard (impossible perhaps?) problem to solve. But I’m also glad that hard as it may be, the places online that are worth hanging out seem to be doing a mostly pretty good job of it. (Thank you dang! <3)

I mean, why go there? App Store is Apple's playground where Apple can and do enforce arbitrary rules. Of course Apple can suspend Parler, they don't need any reason whatsoever. It shows how bad Apple is, not how bad Parler is.

Suspending a social media app for having shit moderation is bad now? Jesus, people.

Next stop for Apple: Block Twitter. You can find a violent threat against anybody and the place is just a cesspool of hate.

The number of commenters here who apparently believe "free speech means businesses have to let me say whatever I want inside their business" is both sad and disappointing.

The mobile world has trained users to think that they should only be able to run sanctioned software approved by the device maker -- so much for the personal computer era.

Now, people pay a higher price but they have less control over their devices than ever before. Why is Apple even involved here? If people want a nasty app on their phone, then they should be able to have it.

This idea of the vendor dictating terms (and taking profits) has now become normalized. I see no real fight against it, so far, which is sad. Personally, I install hardly any apps (literally only 3) for my phone.

Tim Cook is free to have his opinion, but his company should play no role in suppressing others' opinions. He should not have to host an app he hates, but he should not dictate that to all his customers. Who elected him?

> Why is Apple even involved here? If people want a nasty app on their phone, then they should be able to have it.

Exactly. The real problem isn't that Apple has some policy about moderation for their app store -- it's their app store, some amount of curation is completely necessary, that they have policies to that end is completely fine. That's how stores work.

The real problem is that people don't have a choice to use any other app store, or independently install an app some other way (e.g. directly downloading it from a webpage or transferring it over a USB cable).

In Androidland, once Parler is back up on some web host, it will be technically possible to get their apk from somewhere else and install it, if you want it. Just like I can get NewPipe somewhere other than Google's app store.

If you check my comments you will find similar reactions. But recently I have revisioned my view on Big Tech. Big Tech has money and budgets of a small countries. They obviously are part of political spectrum and will be the gateway and control outlet for 4th Industrial Revolution. I highly recommend everyone to read this:"A Framework for Developing a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy" - WEF link - (https://tinyurl.com/y6lwfdcy). They are using current political stage to test and establish (normalise) the idea of censoring in the name of security, privacy and common good.

Tried and tested techniques by the Soviet Union and the CCP, for sure.

Yep, as individual who has lived under communistic regime, I can confirm this.

I see no real fight against it, so far, which is sad

In fairness, Android was specifically created to be nothing but fight against it. First the pre-smartphone carriers acting as gateways (and they were absolutely happy to do what Apple are doing now), and then Apple when the iPhone came out. Google put billions into establishing a parallel ecosystem where you can install apps outside of the Play Store and even fork the entire OS.

They did this because the creators of Android were very wise. They knew that total power over what apps could be run would corrupt them, so they made sure to put in back doors so if they did become corrupted, users could still escape. And indeed they were correct about that: Google is now fully corrupted in the same way Apple is. However, you can still install the Parler app on Android if you want. It's not as convenient as through the Play Store but it's not much worse than the experience of doing so on a PC or Mac.

When I used to be a Democrat, "Question Authority" was a popular slogan, and was on a lot of bumper stickers.

Now, the left and Democrats embrace authoritarianism, and want to limit speech, and create authoritarian technology to pervasively enforce it.

Sad for us, this thinking is now in a (bare) majority.

The extent to which conservatives now believe this utter nonsense is pretty crazy.

For decades they've talked up how businesses should be able to decide whatever they want for their business. Their business, their rules.

Now when it goes against them, suddenly private businesses making decisions for their own platforms is now "authoritarianism". Funny how people getting mysteriously fired when bringing up unions with colleagues wasn't authoritarianism. Getting fired from your job because you're gay? Also not authoritarianism, obviously.

Or put another way, why is it okay that baker can refuse to bake the cake for a gay wedding, but Apple must be compelled to work with Parler?

>"Asked by Wallace whether Apple’s booting of Parler would only serve to drive the app’s users “underground,”"

I hope it does. They can rediscover that the internet at its' core has no rules and is open to anyone willing to put in the technical effort. There's nothing stopping them from building their own platform from the ground up. However, that requires a modicum of technical skill, which by the looks of every "Parler-like" community that has been stood up, is non-existent among these people. Similar to things like ISIL, these type of people are great at taking over existing infrastructure and crowding out voices of reason, however left to their own devices, they crumble due to total technical incompetency.

The so called community may not have the skills, however there are plenty of people,who can see an opportunity in such a crowd, and they do have money,skills,and resources.Also, it's very dangerous to underestimate a motivated fool.

>The so called community may not have the skills, however there are plenty of people,who can see an opportunity in such a crowd, and they do have money,skills,and resources.

And I hope they do. Show everyone that Big Tech doesn't have nearly the power we all seem to think they do. But don't cry foul when you get kicked from a ready-made platform and are forced to go your own way.

What I do care more about is how the country that has almost anything it could wish for will find a way to stop tearing itself apart from within.

How does skill help you get connected to the internet, if nobody is willing to connect you?

>How does skill help you get connected to the internet, if nobody is willing to connect you?

It would be trivial for a group of competent engineers to set up their own physical infrastructure across multiple redundant internationally based ISPs if they had such people willing to work on this. There was a recent article about the Pirate Bay's founder chiding them for an inability to stay online [0]. If you want to fight the system, you're either gonna need to know how to do it or you're out of luck.

[0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an7pn/pirate-bay-founder-th...

You know Tim that every argument against Parler can also be applied to Twitter, right?

After reading a bunch of back-and-forth debate on HN about this free speech vs. private speech saga, what still confuses me is the role of corporations in this.

Some responses say “corporations don’t legally have to protect speech” others say “corporations are people so this is 1st amendment”.

What I gather is that corporations are in this nebulous legal chasm of technically-a-person while also not-a-person?

So corporations can be a person at times (ex. political contributions) while not at other times (ex. limited liability)?

I admit my ignorance of not knowing how corporate law works. Maybe someone can explain.

I'm so glad that our free speech is whatever Tim Cook decides it is.

Will Tim Cook kick out Twitter because we can read daily homophobic, racist, hate, etc. messages on that app?

As I have said in other, similar discussions, there are a lot of different (forms of) freedoms. There is no absolute freedom and deciding what form of freedom to rank higher than another is a value judgement.

Collective freedoms intrude on individual freedoms (and vice versa).

So if a society decides, that (absolut) free speech is the most important value, it also says, that everybody must endure everything another person does say about them. Taken to the extrem every form of lie, verbal abuse, and so on is ok.

So you can either have (absolut) free speech. Or you can have some forms of things that are not allowed to say (at least not without potentially facing consequences).

As these are value calls/judgments this will always be a topic of debate. And that is good. Because in the end every generation, every society and every group needs to define what is the major consensus. What is allowed and what is not. What are the value hierarchies.

In the USA, for example, it is perfectly legal to deny the Holocaust. In Germany, this is a punishable offense.

If Apple, as a private company, now determines what is permissible speech within their ecosystem and what no longer falls under free speech, then that is their right. Just as it is then the customers' right to no longer buy the company's products.

The question could be, at what point is a company perhaps more than a purely private company and more arrived at the status of infrastructure. And should different rules then apply? Is it permissible to dictate to Apple, for example, that they are not allowed to make such deletions. Should we (be allowed to) intervene so far in private-sector freedom as a company? And should the USA then be allowed to intervene differently than China, for example?

A much simpler and elegant solution compared to mandating changes for Apple's app store policies, is simply requiring them to allow users to install apps from other sources (e.g. directly from webpages, or from other app stores).

You could do this on the basis that the real problem isn't that Apple has some particular policy for their store, but rather the problem is that their store is a monopoly within the iOS ecosystem. And the government has a history of intervening when it comes to monopolies (at least some of the time), so it matches precedent.

In principle, I agree. Of course, I prefer the freer model, where I can install whatever software I want on my computing device.

I grew up with this possibility since I was 14 (first apple, later Linux and Windows). I'm still irritated by app stores today and I personally don't understand the appeal of a "walled garden".

This leads to the following value question, which I will illustrate with an example: Should a company like Nestle be prevented from contracting with a municipality to pump and sell its spring water? Why would anyone want to regulate this? I am not forced to buy this water and support such business practices. No consumer is forced to do so. And if the people in such a community have democratically decided that short-term profit is worth more to them than the long-term supply of groundwater, no one should be able to prevent this community from selling their water either.

And that's how I see Apple.Every company has the right to set the rules for their platform that they see fit. And every user has the right to go to the self-imposed prison that protects him from "evil software", pornography, fake news (and what else). Or not to enter this ecosystem.

[edit typo]

It used to be that free speech was an ideal to strive for and not just a law companies could hide behind as private entities; the argument that the first amendement only applies to the government. Up until 2016 Silicon Valley was full of libertarians fully believing in free speech principles. The ACLU even defended the right of nazis to march through the streets. It seems things have changed.

https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp...

The extent to which commenters don't understand the principle of free speech is truly shocking here.

> The ACLU even defended the right of nazis to march through the streets.

Gee, I wonder what the difference is between this and Apple banning an app on their own store? Truly, it is a stupefying mystery.

> Gee, I wonder what the difference is between this and Apple banning an app on their own store? Truly, it is a stupefying mystery.

Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Alright, that's fair.

I'm talking about free speech in general. Will the ACLU today defend Trump supporters? No, they won't. But they used to defend _actual_ nazis. Similarly, Apple would have never banned this app 10 years ago.

> I'm talking about free speech in general.

No, you're not.

> they used to defend _actual_ nazis

On public streets.

Are Trump supporters fighting for their right to peacefully march on public streets now?

I _am_ talking about free speech in general. There has been in shift in how mainstream media and politicians (and companies) view free speech. Some newspapers and politicians are even calling for the abolishment of the first first amendment. Unimaginable 10 years ago.

Case in point:

>The 2018 guidelines claim that “the ACLU is committed to defending speech rights without regard to whether the views expressed are consistent with or opposed to the ACLU’s core values, priorities and goals.” But directly contradicting that assertion, they also cite as a reason to decline taking a free-speech case “the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...

> I _am_ talking about free speech in general.

No, you're not.

Historically, the principle of free speech was never about "businesses have to let you say whatever you want inside their property", because that's ridiculous.

Nobody was ever arguing that Nazis should be able to hold rallies inside McDonald's restaurants. Nobody was arguing that newspapers are obligated to reprint every letter to the editor they receive, rather than picking and choosing. It's pretty much always been about government interference, which is why cases like that were about public spaces, not private ones.

Acting like free speech is about what businesses let you say on their property is ahistorical, and reveals that the speaker is either ignorant of this history, or being deliberately disingenuous.

You keep missing my point. Stop focussing on the specifics of this case, that's not relevant to my argument.

Tech in 2010: We don't agree with what they're saying but we believe in their right to say it. -> The American ideal of free speech.

Tech in 2020: Ban them all!

ACLU in 1978: We defend everyone.

ACLU in 2020: We defend people who think like us.

A shift in society. That is my point. Historically free speech was seen as an ideal to strive for. Now it's considered a bad thing.

> You keep missing my point. Stop focussing on the specifics of this case, that's not relevant to my argument.

Seriously? You blame me for using the very example you brought up in the first place? Well, that's a new low.

> A shift in society. That is my point. Historically free speech was seen as an ideal to strive for. Now it's considered a bad thing.

Again, that's not free speech. Whether Twitter or Facebook or a random IRC channel lets you post there has nothing to do with free speech.

It has to do with their own internal policies, but they're not the government, and never have been.

Freedom of expression includes the right to pornographic images, but that never stopped Apple and Google from banning such apps; they always had a number of different limits on their app stores. Sure, they've probably changed a bit over time. That...basically always happens with services, especially when they scale up. What works when you're small doesn't always work when you're big.

>Seriously? You blame me for using the very example you brought up in the first place? Well, that's a new low.

My very first comment was not about Parler but in general. Which you keep misunderstanding.

You also seem to not understand the difference between the ideal of free speech and the law. When I'm talking about free speech I'm not talking about the government.

>Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The term "freedom of expression" is sometimes used synonymously but includes any act of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.

Nor is the definition of freedom of speech mentioning anything about the government.

Actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...

> Freedom of speech, also called free speech, means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government.

You're welcome to check how the principle of free speech is protected in other democracies as well. I think you'll find it's largely the same: it's about government interference, not the freedom to say whatever you want within any business.

> My very first comment was not about Parler but in general. Which you keep misunderstanding.

No, your first comment was implicitly comparing the content of the article this thread is based on -- which is about Parler -- with the ACLU defending Nazis marching in the streets.

Which is an absurd comparison that ignores the historical definition of free speech.

> Freedom of speech, also called free speech, means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government.

> You're welcome to check how the principle of free speech is protected in other democracies as well. I think you'll find it's largely the same: it's about government interference, not the freedom to say whatever you want within any business.

And if a private platform bans a form of speech at the behest of the government, would it then be considered government interference?

Yes, things have changed, unfortunately.

Leftist Alec Baldwin is Tweeting today about a dream where Donald Trump is tried, a noose awaits him.

Is that violent enough? What's out of bounds and what's not?

I suppose I could rationalize my continued use of Apple products and even stock ownership with the TOS argument: people voluntarily decide to use Apple products and accept their ToS, and henceforth they are not living in "free speech land", but in "Apple ToS land".

So it's just Apple kicking an app for violating the ToS. Nothing to see here.

Only the timing seemed rather odd.

And of course if I want to use that rationalization, I also have to accept that I live in "Apple ToS land", which I actually do.

Edit: I wonder if apps will start to have vendor specific moderation. Instead of deleting messages, they could just be flagged with "deleted on iOS" or "deleted in China"? I suppose with the China example, they already do that? Certainly news sites already do that, I get "this content is not available in the EU" a lot.

I don't understand why "rationalization" is necessary. Of course any app store platform is going to have some minimum standards, it's both right and sensible that they be allowed to have such.

You can disagree with some of Apple's policies (I think their policy on emulators is dumb), but to me the solution would just be to allow other app stores so consumers can choose.

It’s only “free speech” when Twitter is used to plan violent riots in Seattle for the past year.

Got it.

That Apple, Google, and Amazon continue to host Twitter despite its continued use in planning violence speaks to the double standard conservatives have long alleged. They treated Parler differently than Twitter purely due to partisanship.

That Twitter and Facebook allow the CCP to spread messages of genocide (such as saying the CCP “emancipated the minds of Uyghur women in Xinjiang”) while silencing Donald Trump for telling his supporters to go home peacefully speaks to the actual morals of tech companies.

This is absurd and infuriating that people are sheepishly agreeing with a mega-corporation as they literally attempt to change the definition of something in front of our eyes. Has no-one read 1984? All based around selectively curated emotional political topics. Do you really think the gun won't be turned on you as soon as it suits them? Time to tear the entire fucking system down and redistribute power.

And I consider iMessages and the philosophical design limits of Apple as gross, creepy, anti-utilitarian and predatory.

iMessages should be open platform. Apple won’t exist in 20 years because even current technology implemented in a better system would displace all telecoms and all social media companies within 18 months.

Prediction: 2025 end of the Valley

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