Extremists on Twitter often make calls to violence too. Why do we let Twitter stay online and just ban those individuals instead of kicking Twitter offline?
> What you’re worried about is governmental action and is not equivalent here.
My kids tried to point me in the same direction. I’ve just pointed them to the router and said: I am a private citizen paying for Internet connection in this house. In 24 hours this router will be configured to drop all connections to Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. Prepare yourself.
Boy, how worried they were. Never seen any person more worried in my life. See, they use Facebook for studies and Amazon for buying textbooks, so why I am so cruel?
I said: exactly my point. I was not that cruel though, but probably I should have.
They're both not government action, but they're very different kinds. There's a huge difference between "I will not assist this entity" and "I will stop other people from assisting this entity".
Along similar lines, I am deeply upset with the level of power that payment processors have/use around censorship. But I don't care too much what AWS does.
On one hand - exactly! This is why I hate that Amazon stops me from using Parler, instead of not using it itself.
On other hand - my kids faced much less obstacles than Parler:
1. They are adults, they could have purchased their own internet connection.
2. They are Russians, they know how to use VPN. Theoretically .
They are just busy people, they could have coped, but would have some extra unnecessary troubles to overcome. And just a possibility of these small extra troubles caused a lot of worrying. (Parler failed to cope, they were too reliant on Amazon services or something, so unprofessional).
You have twisted what I said past the breaking point. Amazon didn't stop anyone else from hosting or accessing Parler. They only refused to assist it themselves.
> they know how to use VPN.
Oh if VPN is allowed then it's significantly less of a problem. But you're still blocking it on the main network in a way that goes significantly beyond what Amazon did.
Infrastructure should not block. I don't feel like AWS is monopolistic enough to count as infrastructure.
How is taking money from me is assisting me? Amazon was not financing Parler, no providing it any discount, afaik. Me - I was assisting my kids by providing them Internet for free. Want Facebook? Pay for it yourselves.
>But you're still blocking it on the main network in a way that goes significantly beyond what Amazon did.
What is the "main network"? What I was blocking exactly? Call a provider, schedule an appointment, buy a WiFi switch... Yes, you could have missed an assignment or two, but nothing was blocked.
Exactly like Parler - it eventually coped and moved, just missed that "laptop story" bandwagon.
>I don't feel like AWS is monopolistic enough to count as infrastructure.
I think it is, I think it is. Even more worrying (to me) - Amazon participated in a coordinated shutdown of Parler on app stores and hosting sites. That was definitely an abuse of my money they "assisted" me by taking it, so they are not getting it anymore. An attitude recommended to everybody.
Getting paid to provide a service is still providing a service. If you don't like the word "assist" then whatever pick your own word. There's so many server providers that I don't think any of them should be obligated to do business. But ISPs and payment processors should be obligated, in my opinion.
> Me - I was assisting my kids by providing them Internet for free. Want Facebook? Pay for it yourselves.
> What is the "main network"? What I was blocking exactly? Call a provider, schedule an appointment, buy a WiFi switch... Yes, you could have missed an assignment or two, but nothing was blocked.
This part is a bit complicated when we're talking about all adults, but normally the head of household is in charge of the utilities and other people aren't expected to get their own. So that makes it the main network. If you want to filter the network in this situation, it's not unjustified, but you're definitely standing in between the two parties rather than refusing to interact yourself.
> Even more worrying (to me) - Amazon participated in a coordinated shutdown of Parler on app stores and hosting sites.
The app store takedowns are significantly less appropriate than Amazon's shutdown given their monopoly power.
Amazon sees fit to sell innumerable books by extremists which call to violence. Particularly, but not only, many famous religious texts and political manifestos.
You mean like how OP decided not to do business with Amazon?
Railroad period in California politics. About 187x or so.
The (only) transcontinental railroad is completed. The owners, Stanford (yes, that Stanford) and Co see the enormous economic power in their hands. They can set tariffs as they please. If a farm is owned by a relative or a loyal person - shipping oranges to Chicago is extremely profitable. A "bad" person gets a prohibiting tariff. So, only a loyal person can be elected at any post. Only a loyal person can own a (profitable) newspaper.
This continues for a couple dozen years, then there is a popular revolt and no railroad-connected person can ever be elected anywhere. And the first anti-monopoly laws are introduced. Suddenly a private business can't set private tariffs as it's pleased.
"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."
-- Having said that, the post you agree with is flawed on much simpler basis. The constitution protects us from government censorship. Protection from private censorship (and yes, it's a censorship) is placed in our own private hands. So to say "nothing to worry about" is extremely counter-productive. Exactly because there is no other recourse except the private action of stopping dealing with a business that engages is censorship.
1. There were bad people on the site, whom other people (you included) wanted to shut up. The site refused to do so. This speaks to the quality of the site, no? They refused to censor something while there was a strong push to censor it - that means they will probably not censor you, when your opinion will differ from the opinion of powerful people. That means that a person should rather support the site that does not censor opinions the person does not agree with.
Unless the person hopes to always agree with the opinions of the powerful people even when the powerful opinions change.
2. The logic of the federal constitution prohibiting only Congress to pass censorship laws, as far as I get it was: if a business indulges in censorship, customers can drop it and go to its competition. That's exactly what I am doing - defending the American way of life one less purchase on Amazon at a time. Suggestion not to worry is rather strange in the context: the federal constitution puts the task of stopping censorship in private businesses on private citizens, me (and you) included.
3. Actually, I live in California and California constitution protects my right of speech from private censorship too! It even works - if a private business is a shopping mall, eg. But it does not work for Google or Facebook. Because people do not think it's important. That means a piece of paper, even if it is named "constitution" can't protect the rights declared in it - if people stop thinking these rights are important. Why shouldn't I be worried - I have a "living experience" in a country with the right of free speech in the constitution only.
A clarification. 4. There were extremists on the site making calls to violence. Actually, at the moment of the de-platforming it was about "Russian propaganda". Some factual information was labelled "foreign propaganda" and censored. Again, I have and enormous "living experience" in the country with a permanent ban on "foreign propaganda".
A puzzle. 5. that is neither censorship as a society would consider it nor is it problematic.
My English is not that good but a dictionary tells me that:
cen·sorship /ˈsensərSHip/ noun 1. the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
prob·lem·at·ic /ˌpräbləˈmadik/ adjective constituting or presenting a problem or difficulty.
To consider this neither a censorship nor problematic you should change dictionaries first (probably you all are tired of my mentioning my "living experience", but yes, I have that one too).
2. I don’t care if you choose not to do business with AWS. My comment is on your opinions on whether what AWS did were legitimate.
3. Explain? How is a mall restricting you? Stores will kick you out for being loud and obstructive. It happens all the time without legal repercussion. Actually the government does protect the rights of Facebook, Google, etc to host content by users that are calls to violence, harm, abuse, etc. there are many examples of this. The constitution will never tell a company it has to do business with an entity that hosts that content though. That’s what’s crazy about the duality of free market ideologues. They want business to have free reign but then hate when they exercise it? I’m having a hard time trying to grasp what you’re getting at here, actually.
My point about censorship is in juxtaposition to government censorship which is what society should be worried about. If a business doesn’t want to do business with people who break the law that’s entirely up to them.
That is California law because of the Pruneyard decision. Read it if you want an explanation.
Edit: that last part should read: the right to make calls to violence in addition to the rights of private entities to choose to not do business with people for non-discriminatory reasons (discrimination based on protected statuses of individuals)