[stickfigure]

It's worth pointing out the offensive content cited in the document:

* “Fry’em up. The whole fkn crew. #pelosi #aoc #thesquad #soros #gates #chuckschumer #hrc #obama #adamschiff #blm #antifa we are coming for you and you will know it.”

* “#JackDorsey ... you will die a bloody death alongside Mark Suckerturd [Zuckerberg].... It has been decided and plans are being put in place. Remember the photographs inside your home while you slept? Yes, that close. You will die a sudden death!”

* “We are going to fight in a civil War on Jan.20th, Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets.”

* “On January 20th we need to start systematicly [sic] assassinating [sic] #liberal leaders, liberal activists, #blm leaders and supporters, members of the #nba #nfl #mlb #nhl #mainstreammedia anchors and correspondents and #antifa. I already have a news worthy event planned.”

* “Shoot the police that protect these shitbag senators right in the head then make the senator grovel a bit before capping they ass.”

* “After the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next.”

* “Death to @zuckerberg @realjeffbezos @jackdorsey @pichai.”

* “White people need to ignite their racial identity and rain down suffering and death like a hurricane upon zionists.”

* “Put a target on these motherless trash [Antifa] they aren’t human taking one out would be like stepping on a roach no different.”

* “We need to act like our forefathers did Kill [Black and Jewish people] all Leave no victims or survivors.”

* “We are coming with our list we know where you live we know who you are and we are coming for you and it starts on the 6th civil war... Lol if you will think it’s a joke... Enjoy your last few days you have.”

* “This bitch [Stacey Abrams] will be good target practice for our beginners.”

* “This cu* [United States Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao] should be... hung for betraying their country.”

* “Hang this mofo [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger] today.”

* “HANG THAt N*** ASAP”

It's indefensible.

[dgellow]

For sure, that's horrible. But the hot question is: is Amazon the entity who should decide to shut it down?

I would personally prefer to have that decision be taken by a governmental agency or anything else managed by an elected person. Now, I'm not a US citizen, and I have zero trust in the current US administration, but in a "normal" context I would want to have at least some governmental overview of the shutdown process instead of delegating the full power to a private corporation.

Edit: In a "Trump" context, I really don't know... Really sad to see this country dying slowly.

[jfengel]

Here's another hot question: if it were your computer, would you like a government agency telling you if you should leave it up or take it down?

[dgellow]

Not sure how that's relevant to the discussion.

[jfengel]

The content is hosted on a computer owned by a corporation, not the government. Many people interpret this as their decision to make, rather than the government's. If you don't believe so, you'll have to describe the ways in which their rights to their computers differ from yours.

[dgellow]

See my response here, I believe that's also relevant to your question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25764333

[coffeeboy27]

In short, Amazon is not a public utility. Maybe it could be in the future but it isn't right now. AWS is a private business which rents out a server under very clearly laid out TOS to follow. In addition to this, AWS has gone out of their way for weeks (if not months) to work with Parler on their moderation issue that violates the contract.

Parler has shown no intent to work within the boundaries of AWS TOS. Instead of putting in the work of finding and migrating to other hosting solutions (of which there are many) they used stall tactics. When stalling no longer worked, they brought a junk lawsuit against AWS.

[JamesBarney]

I think Amazon the entity is exactly the right person to decide who their customers are and what their contractual obligations are to those customers.

If I ran a SaaS I definitely wouldn't want to submit a form to some government entity and wait 3 months for some bureaucrat to decide whether or not I can stop serving a customer that I am contractually allowed to stop serving.

[dgellow]

I get your point, and understand your position. For my SaaS I also wouldn't want to deal with something like Parler. That being said, I don't personally believe that your analogy of your (or my own) SaaS platform is that relevant. The difference here is that Amazon could be considered a major infrastructure provider. It has around 30% of the cloud market share, which puts it in a very powerful category if they have the power to shutdown platforms. I personally do not feel comfortable giving that much power to a corporate entity without some level of overview by citizens (aka the government).

[JamesBarney]

> It has around 30% of the cloud market share, which puts it in a very powerful category if they have the power to shutdown platform.

It only had that power because Parler gave it to them. Parler didn't have to sign a contract they couldn't fulfill. And Parler will be able to find another way to host.

[coffeeboy27]

Parler's own CEO admits they purposely built their infrastructure with the expectation that AWS would pull the cord for TOS violations and they have options. The truthiness of that statement seems in question as it's now Jan 14 and Gab has pretty much already (struggled) to fill the vacuum left behind by Twitter and Parler.

Relevant part of the document:

>Parler’s allegations of harm contradict its own public statements. Parler’s CEO has assured users that Parler “prepared for events like [the termination] by never relying on Amazon's [sic] proprietary infrastructure,” that the site will be fully operational “with less then[sic] 12 hours of downtime” after termination, and that Parler has “many [companies] competing for [its] [hosting] business.”

[hnburnsy]

What is indefensible, letting users post this garbage, letting it linger too long, or not removing it?

[LatteLazy]

Wait, what did the NBA and NHL do?

[orwin]

They support racial equity, a lot of NBA and NFL player (don't know about NHL) supported their communities during Covid + BLM and paid bail/lawyer money in some states so people get their right to vote back. NBA stars were particularly active during the first lockdown.

[LatteLazy]

Thank, I guess I missed that (aside from Kaepernick)

[neilsense]

I can find thousands of the same thing on Twitter from right and left people. When does Twitter get cancelled.

[cozuya]

No you can't.

[neilsense]

If you truly believe that you might want to take off your blinders.

[cozuya]

Since you made the claim, back it up. Post a death threat to a public figure on your Twitter account. Lets see how long it lasts.

[cozuya]

How'd this go for you? Well I take it?

[neilsense]

You seem to think that I owe you something when I don't. You have a computer, go work it out yourself. It's not my job to help you grow up and think more clearly.