[blank_fan_pill]

How is this a show of monopolistic force?

Its like a a half dozen interdependently owned companies each choosing on their own to not associate with Parler.

If you piss off everyone at the same time and everyone decides to not do business with you, thats not a monopoly issue.

[xiphias2]

Mark Zuckerberg was asked whether the companies are synchronizing who they are banning with a special platform that was created for it, and Mark didn’t answer.

Everybody can see that in the last few years banning got centralized, there’s no real competition between the big companies anymore on free speech. Like others have written it, it’s a cartel at this poimt.

[quickthrowman]

Did Mark Zuckerberg coordinate with Parler’s lawyers, payment provider, and bank? They all dropped Parler as a customer.

[jquery]

None of those would immediately take Parler offline. Parler quickly found new lawyers, obviously, as they were able to release a very well-written complaint yesterday that described how AWS broke the law in several different ways when it gave Parler the death penalty at the height of its popularity.

[three_seagrass]

Absence of evidence isn't evidence though. It could be that the CEO was also trained not to respond to questions that could be twisted around in an anti-trust allegation.

[xiphias2]

It was evidence from a Facebook whistle-blower with concrete pictures and concrete name of the project, not some random questions.

Of course the CEO's answer was all non-answers. Nobody was surprised of that.

Then Mark was asked personal questions and he was shocked...the same questions that he knows about everybody in the world.

[brown9-2]

Where was he asked this, what was the venue?

[xiphias2]

https://youtu.be/pOdrPruSnrw

[ipsum2]

This article makes me sad, because I used to support Greenwald. It's surprising he doesn't know the definition of monopoly (i.e. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter do not compose a monopoly).

[kats]

In the US there are two mobile OS options (Android and iOS) with a combined 99.8% market share. And large companies like Microsoft (Windows Mobile), Amazon (Fire OS), and Samsung (Tizen) haven't been able to grow their market share, so the barrier to entry seems pretty high.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

even if that's true (it is and it isn't, but the pedantry isn't important), what you're saying is effectively is that a duopoly over mobile devices is the same as a monopoly over the internet.

that's patently untrue. it's untrue in the simplistic sense that you can access the internet with non-mobile technology, and its even untrue in the slightly less simplistic sense that an organization can provides its online presence as a website (gasp!) so as to avoid the need to have an app available on corporately-controlled stores.

[Udik]

> two mobile OS options (Android and iOS) with a combined 99.8% market share

Not to mention the fact that if you're kicked out of only one of the two you're basically finished if you live on network effect. If Google decided to kick Whatsapp out of the Android store, even those who have iPhones would have no reason to use it any more.

[rodgerd]

I mean Greenwald has also asserted that no Parler user was involved in the insurrection, which is a straight-up lie. The fact his work has such an uncritical following on HN doesn't say much could about HN's pretensions to offer high quality discussion.

[krspykrm]

> I mean Greenwald has also asserted that no Parler user was involved in the insurrection, which is a straight-up lie.

Actually, what is written is, and I quote, "a Parler executive told me that of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler." But I'm sure that was an innocent mistake on your part, not a straight-up lie like you accuse Greenwald of.

[ihumanable]

While this differs in form, it doesn't seem to differ in substance.

"a Parler executive told me that of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler."

So Greenwald reports that there were 13 people, a number small enough to stretch credulity, and they all happen to be inactive. The thrust of this statement, that it was a handful of inactive accounts is functionally the same as saying that there weren't any Parler users involved in the insurrection.

13 inactive accounts vs no accounts has little meaningful difference in meaning.

[Inu]

>I mean Greenwald has also asserted that no Parler user was involved in the insurrection, which is a straight-up lie.

He did not make this assertion in the article. Quote:

>Indeed, a Parler executive told me that of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler. The Capitol breach was planned far more on Facebook and YouTube. As Recode reported, while some protesters participated in both Parler and Gab, many of the calls to attend the Capitol were from YouTube videos, while many of the key planners “have continued to use mainstream platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.”

[dqv]

>I mean Greenwald has also asserted that no Parler user was involved in the insurrection

Oh? Where did he say that? I'd like to read what he said with context.

[BryantD]

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293

Edit: on reading the article, his source for the assertion seems to be Parler employees: "Indeed, a Parler executive told me that of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler."

He reported that on Twitter as "Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero."

I think that's bad journalism even if you agree with his conclusions. It's single-sourced and the source has every reason to downplay their involvement in the events of January 6th. I think that at the very least, Greenwald should have checked those 13 users to see if they had active Parler accounts, rather than just taking Parler's word for it.

Further, the number is inaccurate. The DoJ press release (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/thirteen-charged-federal-cour...) says 13 people were charged in federal court, and 40 were charged in superior court. That was as of Friday; I can't quickly find info on whether or not more people were charged over the weekend, but then again, I'm not a professional journalist.

[iaw]

It may have to do with Greenwald's staunch defense of Julian Assange and the HN community having vocal support for him.

[MrMan]

I used to just be creeped out by the greed on HN but now I feel like it is a sinister place

[rodgerd]

The fact that there's relentless pro-parler, pro-insurrectionist takes hitting the front page, but Amazon's detailed rebuttal to Parler's legal claims or technically quite interesting citizen investiations of the attack on the US Capitol tells you a lot about HN's worldview.

[curiousllama]

Cartel may be a better term, but the argument holds. The point is they collectively wield undue market power and function as a de facto collective in the use of that power.

[threatofrain]

According to the CEO of Parler, their bank and payment provider, law firm, and mail and texting providers all cancelled as well. What are you supposed to do then? Store cash in boxes? Receive cash through mail?

Parker was destroyed when their business partners exercised freedom of association and cancelled on them.

[zepto]

Bitcoin