Or are some apps/publishers more equal than others? If Brave becomes more popular, will they also get removed for "unmoderated content"?
Look in the source code for both Firefox and Chromium, and you'll find a section that glad-handles high-value extension binaries... The binaries where if they aren't configured correctly when the browser is installed, the user will assume the browser is broken, not the extension binary.
Similarly, Microsoft decompiled some of its own APIs when developing Windows XP to account for circumstances where third-party developers (mostly Adobe) had squeezed clock cycles out of their API calls by assuming certain memory footprints in clear violation of the API spec. But if Photoshop didn't work on Windows XP, it was XP that was broken, not Photoshop.
There has never, to my knowledge, been a point in the history of the computer industry where "all software is created equal."
Do I need moderation for my Email now?
But you know Apple will hide behind their privacy policy when it is their apps.
Whether what Apple did here is actually a violation of one's right to free speech is a pretty tenuous argument. But that is the argument you should be responding to.
Don't make this about 'laws' - this was definitely not about 'laws' or the 'law' would have stepped in - and it's definitely not Amazon's job to enforce the law.
Amazon knowingly sells fake goods and suppresses unions so let's not give them the moral high ground.
Apple's concern I don't think was arbitrary: there was a lot of 'really bad discourse' on Parler, and it was not moderated at all (or community moderated which had no effect).
I don't like Apple's App Store 'monopoly' however they were within reason to not want Parler in the store.
If Apple allowed non-AppStore downloads, then I think it would have sat much better.
Amazon however, I think did something a few steps more inappropriate and more nakedly political.
Amazon has a zillion customers that do arguably more nefarious things, in the 'big picture' they look hypocritical, though they are surely within legal rights as well.
I do feel however, that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to drop customers without a 3 month notice unless said customers have done something actually illegal, and by that I mean 'illegal as designated by an actual Judge'.
It's about liability, and big corp's allergy to it.
> I do feel however, that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to drop customers without a 3 month notice unless said customers have done something actually illegal, and by that I mean 'illegal as designated by an actual Judge'.
That's not how liability works
> That's not how liability works
The post you're replying to is describing a better process (note the use of the word "shouldn't"), and your reply seems to be saying, "no, because that's not the current process."
The fact that the system we have now exists does not mean it's the best system possible. I could have misunderstood your comment though.
Amazon hosts all sorts of content that could make them otherwise liable, and they are selling billions in knock-off products every month.
They are able to insulate themselves from it quite well - much like 'Avis Car Rental' is not 'liable' for agency or person that does something bad while renting their car.
Amazon's response was at least about PR, and probably a little bit politics.
There are some parallels as Tumblr similarly could not control its content sufficiently to both allow most of it and also ensure the problematic content did not persist. Just explaining, not defending either social network or Apple.
There are very specific kinds of content that lead to these kinds of bans. Pornography and organizing violence are amongst them.
It isn’t about controversial content.
Parler wasn't "censored" because it contained "new stories" that were "remotely controversial". Parler was blocked because of rampant unmoderated violent content that correlated with real world political violence.
Look, when you have major thought leaders on your platform calling for the VP to be executed, you need to expect some repercussions when a mob takes the rotunda screaming "Hang Mike Pence!".
This doesn’t seem sufficient to me. Given that the US has the death penalty at all, how can we declare that it is not ok for people to call for it when they believe a crime has been committed?
Organizing an extrajudicial mob to carry it out, is another thing entirely, but just calling for it seems like it can’t be enough.
And there's also the fact that there's no basis in reality for the claims to be begin with.
In all of this confusion, it is true that Parler was essentially (Edit: not! obviously 'not' moderated)moderated - and - there was a lot of really terrible stuff happening there. Like 'kill these people'. The cover that Twitter can use is that they actual do moderate people and try to get rid of them. Mostly.
Parler must have had a huge leadership failure to play that game and think they were going to get away with it. There is zero chance that hosting people directly calling for violence, unmoderated, is going to last when associated with other people's brands.
I believe the CEO actually wanted to do something but his backers didn't.
Agreed, which is why “Hang Mike pence” is not sufficient. On it’s own, it doesn’t make the distinction between two.
If you want to make the case that assassination was being called for, you need to quote something else.
"Arrest Mike Pence" is not.
"Put Mike Pence to Trial and then Hang Him" isn't either.
You have to qualify 'Kill That Guy' with something more in order for it not to be calling for someone's murder.
This activity was out in the open, uncontrolled on Parler which is why it was a problem, even if technically it might be legal, Apple doesn't want to deal with that.
I think their response was on point, though Amazon's cancellation has more material effect their responsible response should have been 'you can't go live with that while on our servers you have 3 months to change policy or move out'. Granted, they may have been warned.
The fact that you have to use the phrase ‘kill that guy’ which is a straw man, shows that the logic doesn’t work.
Consider, ‘he should get the electric chair’. It’s pretty clear that this is not a call for assassination.
There is some ambiguity around hanging which is less present with the electric chair, but is not the clear call for assassination you assert it to be.
Speech that advocates support and action by terrorist groups is not protected by the first amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providing_material_support_for...
> Organizing an extrajudicial mob to carry it out, is another thing entirely
Where did I insinuate this?
Does the crime they believe was committed have the death penalty? If not, then calling for the death of the "criminal" is certainly not ok. ( And generally I find calling for death and the death penalty to be morally wrong, but that's another story)
I don’t agree with your logic that this is necessary though. Someone can reasonably call for a higher penalty than is currently the statute, as long as it is not clearly extrajudicial.
> (And generally I find calling for death and the death penalty to be morally wrong, but that's another story)
Yes - I’m not making a claim about the morality of calling for death or the death penalty, but I am saying that if the death penalty is legal, it must be legal to call for it.
And - this is the more important detail - they took no effort to moderate this.
This isn't a slippery slope situation, this is the full on iceberg.
Short of child pornography I can't imagine a more easier case to justify a ban from the perspective of a private enterprise.
Every. Single. Time.
Over and over, unabated.
But
What
About
Parler were banned for refusing to properly moderate ( while having no problem with moderating any content they disagreed with), not for having hateful content. When you report similar content on Twitter or Facebook, they usually do something.
So yes, this is classic and very useless whataboutism. Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?
> Don't you have anything meaningful to add to the conversation?
And in any event, there's no reason to resort to personal attacks.
Twitter moderates. Aggressively. They can't keep up with their massive scale, but they make an effort. Parler didn't.
I don’t know man, seeing them beat an officer sure seems like it was an assault to me.
> As it is, theyre still trying to figure out who was even there
Except for the hundreds of people that video tapes themselves, I’m assuming?
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider"
Therefore the correlation does not work.
Part of the intent for section 230 was to allow free open discussion without the platform being liable. But once they begin to curate the content ( nice way to say censor ) they are no longer performing under section 230.