I try not to do business with companies that censor on political grounds. I don't like politics being banned in a professional context, but I slowly see no other solution.

The political alignment of many Parler users isn't a secret and if they decide to measure skulls again, I might be in trouble. Still, I don't see them as a relevant threat at all. It is even more ridiculous as the terrorism scare.

However, the actions of SV social media sites and hosts like Amazon censoring unpopular opinions and content outweigh that danger from neo-nazis by magnitudes. These groups have absolutely no political power in the 21st century. They have more influence than a decade ago, but that is mainly due to their ability to reinforce their prosecution narrative and martyrdom.

On the internet there are calls to violence in any political group, even vegans and cat lovers. We ignore that because they aren't relevant. But if you seriously crack down on cat lovers, you might need to expect real violence.

Either there are rules and principles that are valid for everyone or there are none.

Some say people get influenced by far-right propaganda. Far-right groups think in the same way in that they believe everyone not on their side is an "NPC".

I think Dorsey and Zuckerberg handled it relatively well in the grand scheme of things. Their latest ban attempts were over the top though. I know that some people might need help instead of a Twitter account, but that is beside the point. They set the precedent for countries to suppress their opposition and for state propaganda. I think Uganda is one of the latest examples.

These are Amazon reasons for why they shut down Parler as response to Parler: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664...

The reasons are not "they were too much right wing for us". They had multiple reasons, but it is not that long to read.

> On the internet there are calls to violence in any political group, even vegans and cat lovers. We ignore that because they aren't relevant. But if you seriously crack down on cat lovers, you might need to expect real violence.

And vegans and cat lowers do seriously take them down in their forums when those cross the line. And when they discuss cats and food on reddit and reddit deletes accounts of those who threaten violence, the vegans and cat lowers are happily continue to discuss cats and food.

This is bad analogy.

A vegan parler calling for the execution of meat eaters would be banned just as well, don't you think?

I have seen countless comments from vegans that said meat eaters should be butchered instead of animals. The comments didn't get deleted. An no, I did't want to complain about them, venting is healthy and without victims on the internet.

> I have seen countless comments from vegans that said meat eaters should be butchered instead of animals. The comments didn't get deleted. An no, I did't want to complain about them, venting is healthy and without victims on the internet.

That's the difference between merely saying something, and saying something with the likelihood of actually carrying it out.

Parler would still be around if there not been an mob attack on the capitol connected to it (and no legitimate fears of further mob attacks on inauguration day, etc.) If vegans actually started and organized butchering of meat eaters, I'm pretty sure the forums where they planned such things would get shut down quickly.

I didn't say anything about "forcing Amazon to do business" with me. If that's your solution, it's a non-starter.

I don't have a solution, but Amazon + Apple + Google coordinating to shut down a platform for communication - even a platform that contains expression that I strongly disagree with, I might add - is a problem that requires a solution

This is what I wish more people understood now rather than later, but at some point everyone will understand that it's a problem

If you come up with a good solution, let us know. Until then, I’m happy to support antitrust action against apple/google/amazon/facebook - but for more pressing reasons than the deplatforming of fascists attempting to overthrow a fair and free election.

> more pressing reasons than the deplatforming of fascists

Hint: it's the identical problem to deplatforming BLM or Antifa or Occupy or the Proud Boys or pick anyone you agree with that annoys powerful people. "Having the better politics" will not protect you. "Oh they're just fascists" will not protect your peoples.

But they have been doing that since forever and nobody was complaining. Here's a link to when twitter deleted 125,000 ISIS accounts [1] (and they had been monitoring for islam extremist content for much longer already). So I ask why this uproar now that they are deplatforming fascists?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/05/twitter-d...

I suspect the difference is more about deplatforming americans than any political view.

Except you need to replace “annoys powerful people” with “storms the seat of our government with intent to overthrow a democratic election result” I’m fine with that being the line for companies to ban a political entity. Amazon and google aren’t randomly banning BLM for protesting in cities.

Essential Utilities are governed in many places by Universal Service Directives ensuring private companies can not willy nilly choose to deny them as they see fit for commercial or other reasons.

I am familiar with that concept. Good luck arguing that aws, google play, or the app store is an essential utility.

Not all that far from it, though, are they?

Personally I'm fine with Google and Amazon doing this. AWS isnt the only web host and you can sideload apps on Android.

Apple on the other hand is a lot more murky due to their lockdown of app installs. I don't believe they should be made to host things they don't agree with but people should not be prevented form installing whatever software they want on their own hardware.

For the record I am a staunch free speech advocate but fully believe that no-one (no-company either) owes you (the royal you) a place to use your free speech on their property.

> I don't have a solution, but Amazon + Apple + Google coordinating to shut down a platform for communication - even a platform that contains expression that I strongly disagree with, I might add - is a problem that requires a solution

Did they actually coordinate [1] or just come to similar conclusions based on similar facts, in the context of the same cultural zeitgeist?

[1] e.g. Bezos, Cook, and Pichai (or subordinates) on a conference call, deciding what to do

I wouldn't describe it as coordination, but I think it's relatively safe to assume that at the very least whichever companies were slowest to react would have had their decision influenced by the earlier actions of other large companies. So there probably is somewhat of a snowball effect there.

Isn’t the solution to avoid cloud computing, stack overflow style?

How long ago was it that the 'cloud' vendors proclaimed/advertised that 'In the old days everyone had their own generator, their own well. Now just like electricity or water, you have computing on tap'. Sounds pretty much like a public utility to me and thus should be regulated as one.

Just because I describe something as essential when trying to sell it to you, doesn’t make it actually essential.

I do believe some level of internet serving access is a public utility. But i doubt that level is cloud hosting.