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Comment by andrewzah | Hacker News Reader

And do what? Force people and businesses to have clients they don't want (outside of protected characteristics)?

I don't get why people think that the government here can actually do anything without severely impinging on personal freedoms. As a government contractor, I see first hand how f'ing useless our cronyist, bureaucratic government is. Anything they try to do will backfire and make things worse for the average citizen.

The only real solution is to get people to stop treating facebook like the one and only place for messaging people or posting things. They're only "overlords" so long as people only use facebook or twitter.

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Facebook and Twitter is just a tip of the iceberg. Even if you tried to do something different, other companies you have to rely on will either force you to follow what Facebook and Twitter does or shut you down. I'm talking about services like:

> banks, domain registrars, payment processors, cloud services, DDOS protection services etc.

> As a government contractor, I see first hand how f'ing useless our cronyist, bureaucratic government is. Anything they try to do will backfire and make things worse for the average citizen.

I don't completely disagree with you there either, but it will also get just worse and worse if you don't take any action at all. Pick your poison, I guess?

The First Amendment does not prohibit the private sector from restricting speech. Parler is free to (and did) find another vendor in the free market. If this option isn't realistic, bust up the monopoly that prevents it.

If 1A was extended to private individuals and entities, should the NFL be forced to keep Colin Kaepernick employed after taking a knee?

> The First Amendment does not prohibit the private sector from restricting speech.

If it did I wouldn't be here arguing that it should. And let's stop pretending like we are so considered about the private sector and private companies aren't ever subjected to any regulations whatsoever.

> If 1A was extended to private individuals and entities, should the NFL be forced to keep Colin Kaepernick employed after taking a knee?

I honestly couldn't care less about some sports controversies. I'm talking specifically about the banks and basic services like I listed. They simply shouldn't be allowed to gang up on anyone and remove you from a polite society just like that.

> I honestly couldn't care less about some sports controversies

I didn't ask if you did, I provided an excellent example of what you're describing.

In your scenario, the 1A would prohibit a business (the NFL), from restricting speech by an employee (Kapernick). This principle is what you're in favor of, correct?

"DDOS protection services" are not a "basic" service for the majority of private entities. So how is your new 1A written to prohibit DDOS protection companies from restricting speech?

> I'm talking specifically about the banks and basic services like I listed.

I'm not trying to be mean, but what part of this statement should I clarify for you to understand? Should barbershops be subjected to the regulations of auto industry? It doesn't make any sense.

> "DDOS protection services" are not a "basic" service for the majority of private entities. So how is your new 1A written to prohibit DDOS protection companies from restricting speech?

I'm not talking about literally rewriting the 1A, I'm taking about regulating the tech industry.

    what part of this statement should I clarify for you to understand

"DDOS protection services" are not a "basic" service, so why would you include them in this list?

    I'm taking about regulating the tech industry

...by extending 1A rights. So what would meet your legal standard of "tech," since now we've suddenly shifted to only regulating those? Banks are not "tech" companies.

Are you dodging the NFL example so hard because the NFL would be excluded from your legislation? They have $91B market cap and actively develop new tech.

https://operations.nfl.com/gameday/technology/technology-and...

I'm "dodging" the NFL example, because again, I do not care about NFL. At all. They can be forced to keep Colin or not, pick whatever answer you want. It's has nothing to do with it. And nothing has shifted, I'm still talking about:

> banks, domain registrars, payment processors, cloud services, DDOS protection services etc.

If you expect me to come up on a spot with a bunch of legalspeak to precisely define what would be the target of such legislation(s), it's not going to happen as I am not a lawyer. If you disagree with my opinion and you think that tech companies like the ones listed above and most importantly the banks should be able to just arbitrarily shut down anyone they dislike in the era of Covid, just say so. But don't give me that hairsplitting in an attempt to portray it as something that's either impossible or "illogical" to do, as it's simply not true and this entire argument is just stupid, if not dishonest. It's just semantics.

> tech companies like the ones listed above and most importantly the banks should be able to just arbitrarily shut down anyone they dislike

Yes. If you want to be served by good companies who genuinely value you as a customer because they view doing business with you as beneficial, that's the easiest way to get there.

The alternative is bad companies providing the worst possible service they legally can to customers they don't really want because the law forces them to, which makes it more difficult for good companies to compete with them for market share.

But if the bad companies arbitrarily refuse to do business with anyone they dislike, the rejected customers will go to the good companies instead, which helps them grow and improve their service.

Note that this is exactly what happened with Parler: "bad" AWS refused them, so they went to a "good" hoster instead.

> If you want to be served by good companies who genuinely value you as a customer because they view doing business with you as beneficial, that's the easiest way to get there.

We are already here. Generally speaking this is most often true when the client is forced to use certain services, not the other way around. Like public healthcare or public institutions in general. On the other hand, in Europe my bank is legally obligated to provide me a basic service and they treated me very nicely whenever I had any problems, I can't complain. Also we can circle back to the Google example - they treat everyone like garbage precisely because they can arbitrarily shut down anyone, anytime, for no reason at all.

> Note that this is exactly what happened with Parler: "bad" AWS refused them, so they went to a "good" hoster instead.

Almost everyone, if not everyone, does the same thing. Parler will either have to become just a second Twitter or they will be kicked off their new hosting too.

> in Europe my bank is legally obligated to provide me a basic service and they treated me very nicely

Most likely you're not the kind of customer they'd rather not be doing business with.

> they treat everyone like garbage precisely because they can arbitrarily shut down anyone

Do you expect them to treat people they'd prefer to shut down better than garbage if they weren't allowed to shut them down?

> Parler will either have to become just a second Twitter or they will be kicked off their new hosting too.

Is there nobody among Parler's millions of users who'd be able and willing to host them so they don't have to worry about alignment of interests anymore?

> Do you expect them to treat people they'd prefer to shut down better than garbage if they weren't allowed to shut them down?

Yes, because they would at least have to come up with a valid reason for refusing you a service. You won't just wake up one day to see everything completely gone, without any explanation.

> Is there nobody among Parler's millions of users who'd be able and willing to host them so they don't have to worry about alignment of interests anymore?

Maybe there is, I don't know. But it doesn't end on hosting. Even if you manage to successfully keep your hosting, someone else will come after you. Like the domain registrar, payment processor, DDOS protection and the final bosses - Visa and MasterCard.

    I'm "dodging" the NFL example, because again, I do not care about NFL. At all

Never asked if you did. It's a perfect example that you can't argue against.

    I'm taking about regulating the tech industry

Does the NFL count as a tech company? They have $91B market cap and actively develop new tech.

Are banks the "tech" industry? No, of course not. So you move the goalposts back to "just the tech companies!" when you lose.

As you're just trolling at this point, this will be the last thing I'm going to say.

Your example is not "perfect", it's stupid. No, NFL doesn't count as a tech industry and it's not in scope of what I want to regulate. I told you what types of services should be regulated since the very beginning, but you just keep arguing semantics whether the banks are a part of tech industry or not. I'm not even talking about Twitter or Facebook here and these are the tech companies. No, banks aren't tech industry either. The definition of a "tech company" doesn't really matter in what I'm arguing for. It was to very roughly describe what I mean. And there is nothing else I can do if you're unable to argue in good faith.

Absolutely right

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