Amazon's problem is not that Parler had threats, but rather that they did nothing to prevent or remove them.

Twitter has a huge team to work on that and removes them when they see them.

> Downvote me to hell, but study history of other socialist / Marxist take overs; you will see the same pattern.

You're right, a lot of socialist revolutions do start with people storming a capitol building and trying to murder government officials.

That's not what they claimed. Amazon is claiming that Parler didn't remove them quickly enough and that the system Parler is using doesn't remove these kinds of comments fast enough.

Here's a video from a lawyer (a Canadian one, but he's been pretty good about American issues) that describes the Amazon response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB06JtDbtvU

It’s absurd to think that anyone was trying to murder anyone and you can’t actually believe that. Everyone is so over the top, all of the time, it’s exhausting to even read it. My hope is that once Trump is gone everyone can STFU and get on with their lives but I guess that’ll never happen because someone somewhere will still be wrong on the internet.

> It’s absurd to think that anyone was trying to murder anyone

I'm certain the family of the cop that was beat to death[1] or the aides hiding in their offices, some of which may have had their panic buttons removed prior sometime prior to the rioting[2] or Nancy Pelosi, who had an opposition senator live-tweeting her location[3] during the insurrection, or the guy who drove up from Alabama with a list of names, 3 handguns, an AR15 and a cooler full of molotov cocktails [4] would all beg to differ.

https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/loss-uscp-c...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/01/13/democratic-...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/12/nation/colorado-repub...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/alabama-man-charged-posse...

The cop was unfortunate, but I doubt they meant to murder someone. Elliot Roger is an example of someone who wants to murder someone. And he murdered lots of people. If everyone there who showed up wanted to murder people then it would have turned out a lot different. All that other stuff is scary sure but the whole group having the goal to murder people? trying to murder people? Nonsense!

>>The cop was unfortunate,

"Unfortunate"?

> but I doubt they meant to murder someone.

What?

They dragged him into the rioting mob and hit him in the head with lead pipes and left him for dead.

If you don't think anyone was trying to murder anyone else, I wonder if you can explain the bombs, molotov cocktails, guns, and knives they brought to the capitol with them.

I've also read the many death threats to/about specific Democrats that were posted on Parler.

Because only one cop was murdered in a fashion that was probably unintentional, he was beat up. But even so that’s not representative of the whole. Also death threats happen all the time. And I know everyone thinks these people are idiots but the fact none of those Molotov cocktails burned down buildings, and none of those guns shot people, proved they weren’t trying to murder. Because if they were lots of people would have been murdered. That guy in Las Vegas is someone who wanted to murder. And lots of people were murdered when he fired from that hotel. These people did none of that. They are all idiots true but that’s about it.

> Because only one cop was murdered in a fashion that was probably unintentional, he was beat up.

"probably unintentional"? They dragged the police officer into the mob and proceed to beat him up with lead pipes.

> even so that’s not representative of the whole.

I get that a portion of the mob were simply playing the role of useful idiots, but you're talking about a mob who brought bombs, weapons, zip ties, and a freaking gallows.

How on earth is anyone still claiming the riot was remotely peaceful?

Perhaps you are just not informed on the details of what actually happened?

The statistics are all you need to be informed. Three protestors died and two police officers? Is that a blood bath murder spree? I’ve seen dateline episodes with more murder. They were not well intentioned but they were not all there to murder. It’s just more hysterical nonsense to push more agenda.

>It’s absurd to think that anyone was trying to murder anyone and you can’t actually believe that.

Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died from injuries suffered in the Capitol attack, apparently from being beaten by people in Trump paraphernalia.

The US Attorney's office has opened a federal murder case.

So yes, I can believe someone was murdered.

In fact, under the doctrine of felony murder, anyone comitting a felony during the act in which someone died can be charged with felony murder, so prosecutors are considering charging everyone in the entire attack that committed any felony with felony murder. So there may be hundreds eventually charged with felony murder from the attack - all were complicit under the law.

Someone being murdered does not mean that the group formed and stormed the capital for murder. The people involved in the officers death should be held accountable but to hysterically say that everyone was there to murder is bizarre. And even then he died from his injuries, similar to a bar fight gone bad etc. If the group formed to murder it would have been like Pablo Escobar. But they weren’t and instead you want to push an agenda and get everyone worked up. Watching the “insurrection” or whatever it was live on CNN was a snooze fest and nothing was happening. They didn’t even burn down a Starbucks. People were mostly just standing around.

>Someone being murdered does not mean that the group formed and stormed the capital for murder. T

Well, I'm guessing that those posting on Parler that they were there to "HANG ALL TRAITORS" and such (there's more and more of this coming out - I'd wait till the court cases present evidence before you claim such certainty no one was planning murder), coupled with the weapons they brought, and the fact that someone did indeed get murdered, will make it clear that some did go there intending to murder someone, despite your not being able to believe it.

If you and your group write some violent manifesto, then attack some place, and someone dies, even if it is not the person you wanted, you will be charged with murder.

Accidental deaths are charged with homicide. The current charges are murder, as in pre-planned killings.

No need to reply. I think our sides are clear enough.

I’ll just say then the only thing I don’t agree with is the hysteria about it. So maybe we agree on the facts just not what those facts say about the event and our democracy.

I think this hyperbole has more to do with the H1-B caps and the Section 230 saber-rattling than anything that actually happened on Parler.

Trumpism came close to inflicting a hemorrhaging wound on their business models, but it missed, and now it will be eliminated with extreme prejudice.

Then these boomers rode up to DC to unwittingly put more wind in the valley's sails.

Patriot Act II, here we come!

It's very telling that all this censorship happened right after they found out that congress oversight committees would all be chaired by democrats.

And just after an attempt to use force to take over the democratically elected government.

But no, it must be because of committees, no way it could be the other thing.

You are right, if they would and grabbed Pelosis magic wand the military would have just bowed to their demands. Even you would have submitted!

A bunch a idiots stormed a building, for anyone to think they could have “taken over” anything other than space is insane. And how fast I’m getting negative Karma is also insane. But it is what it is, I guess no discussion allowed unless you tow the line. Hacker news ain’t what it used to be.

Not sure if some boomer accidentally tazing his own balls qualifies as an armed insurrection.

In our heyday, our representatives would duel over points of honor. Nowadays, all it takes is a swarm of elderly neckbeards to make them cower beneath their desks.

As you yanks keep pointing out, a firearm is a great leveller.

Doesn’t matter who’s wielding the AR15, it will still be lethal.

Good job, however, that the representatives learnt their school shooter drills.

Examples in Leadership, per Wikipedia:

Firing no shot in his defence, his troop numbers swelled until they became an army. On 5 March, the nominally royalist 5th Infantry Regiment at Grenoble went over to Napoleon en masse. The next day they were joined by the 7th Infantry Regiment under its colonel, Charles de la Bédoyère, who was executed for treason by the Bourbons after the campaign ended.

An anecdote illustrates Napoleon's charisma: when royalist troops were deployed to stop the march of Napoleon's force at Laffrey, near Grenoble, Napoleon stepped out in front of them, ripped open his coat and said "If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am." The men joined his cause.

> An anecdote

By cheering this on, many people here are supporting a barrier-to-entry that they also fall short of.

If society may be destabilized because one has the knowhow to create something of this scale but not the resources to properly moderate specific violent threats then perhaps a barrier-to-entry preventing that is a good thing

Only an ideologue would buy that. So many threats, plots, doxxings, stalkings left unmoderated on Facebook and Twitter--and that's only summer of 2020!

This is clearly retaliation for the H1-B caps / S230 threats of the outgoing administration, rather than corporate concern for the stability of the republic. How many people here can even say "corporate concern" with a straight face?

Business is war, alliances change. What they do to the MAGA grannies today might not be so amusing when the targets change.

> So many threats, plots, doxxings, stalkings left unmoderated on Facebook and Twitter

Parler's userbase is comprised of people who were either banned or migrated away from Facebook and Twitter in protest of them cracking down on hate speech and systematic appeals to violent action.

They moved to Parker as Parker rather explicitly stated they would not act on hate speech and systematic appeals to violent action.

Powerful people funded Parler and promoted it publicly, and they specifically marketed it to people who create this type of ToS violation.

It's safe to say few other companies have scaled through that mechanism and simultaneously targeted hard-to-moderate audiences.

Evidence suggests the site was actively moderated. They actively encourage, organized, an participated in the forming radical cells, their plans, and execution. Its purpose was to attack our democracy. To replace it with something lacking the freedoms we take for granted every day.

They should be federally investigated on these grounds. Don't act like it was some innocent people putting together a social media site just because it wasn't allowed to bear fruit.

Your argument is week. I don't think any startups on here are activity trying to destabilize the American government in favor of racist authoritarians? That is pretty fucking high bar to qualify for.

And why doesn't everyone at Amazon get a say in how there work is used in the world? Should we actively work for people and causes that go against our beliefs?

It is a simple matter. They are such assholes no one with a brain is wants to help them. And thankfully, they are allowed to refuse them service over because of their actions.

And finally, freedom of speech? Really? Have you ever seen content policies? Or do disagree with those as well? And any moderation (although like I said above the site was actively moderated to conform to particular content and social graphs).

Why did you omit "Filing:" from the headline submitted? I'd argue even Ars' headline is clickbait, since people uninvolved in the legal system don't know what "Filing:" means.

This is not established fact. It's what Amazon has alleged in its filed response to Parler's lawsuit. They might yet prove it. But they haven't done that yet.

99% of HN headlines are not court decisions.

There's a bizarre meme where people apply a lower standard of proof to PR campaigns and random bloggers than statements made under penalty of perjury.

"More than 100" isn't a big deal at the scale Parler was operating.

Funded by the Mercer family, Parler was a single purpose site. Not independent, not neutral. This is not a debate about free speech but of one of accountability towards entities that took exacting efforts to radicalize and activate political terrorist and reality denial in a good portion of the US population.

Parler Reportedly Backed by Mercers, Same Family That Funded Cambridge Analytica: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/parler-reportedly-...

>Hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer, former principal investor in the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, and his daughter Rebekah Mercer are among Parler's financial backers, according to a new report.

>People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal about the Mercers' ties to Parler—an American microblogging and social networking service launched in 2018 that has a significant user base of Trump supporters. Parler CEO John Matze confirmed that Rebekah Mercer was a lead investor in the early stages of the company and that her funding was conditional on the app relinquishing control to users on what they can see.

Amazon's response to Parler's lawsuit is damning: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20449127-amazon_res...

>In interview's Parler's CEO stated he doesn't think it is Parler's obligation to monitor the full range of user activity.

>Content encouraging violence continued to grow rapidly after the events of Jan 6

>During a call with Amazon Parler CEO stated they had a backlog of 26,000 reported pieces of content.

>Parler CEO posted "we could be operational within 12 hours of downtime from Amazon. That they had prepared for events like this by not relying on services like AWS and having bare metal products."

The Mercer funded Parler project doesn't think it needs to moderate it's content, has a backlog of reports they have been unwilling to surmount, and they stated they don't need Amazon anyways because they prepared for it. Please don't bother complaining about AWS depriving them of necessary services unless you can prove a requirement to knowingly disseminate terrorist propaganda without functioning moderation.

> Amazon's response to Parler's lawsuit is damning

If there's any damnation to come, it's from the court, not from the parties.

I read both the original complaint and Amazon's opposition, front to back. Both are pleadings---one side's statement of events and how the law should apply to their version. Not established fact. Not neutral determinations.

I do commend Amazon's counsel, at least at surface level. Doran and Wickers left a strong impression.

By same logic twitter should be Shutdown. Constant death threats and calls for violence. Heck many rappers make a living glorifying violence.

Even watched in real-time this past summer as people organized to come burn down my neighborhood. But those were good democrats that wanted white people to burn, so that’s excusable.

This has nothing to with violence, and is pure political suppression. Amazon, twitter and others were just waiting for the first viable excuse.

Downvote me to hell, but study history of other socialist / Marxist take overs; you will see the same pattern.

Please stop using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. It's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it. We have to, because it destroys this place.

HN is for thoughtful, curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. Ideological fulmination is not that. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.

Twitter very aggressively filters, suspends, and bans people for posting violence, promotion of violence, attacks on groups based on religion, race, etc

Parler actively avoided moderating even explicitly called out posts by their own service provider.

In fact the only thing parler apparently moderated was insufficiently right wing accounts, as accounts apparently started off shadow banned until their account was found to be sufficiently right wing.

Please stop posting political battle comments to HN. You've been using HN primarily for that lately, and we ban such accounts, because it destroys what this site is for.

I'm not going to ban you right now because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668906 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667176 are fine posts. But you've unfortunately been posting a lot of comments that break the site guidelines—please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do that any more.