The Parler problem shows just how much the US has outsourced free speech protections...

[schuck6566]

I always felt that a private/corp run internet was better than a state run internet because,duh,the lack of censorship. Now I'm beginning to wonder if maybe a democratically state run internet may not be better.At least then,customers would be protected by the law and due process not just being able to randomly be removed because it fits an agenda or market line. Two separate stories in the same news journal with opposing view points,but regardless they say the same thing.The companies at this time can do what they want. THAT should scare us.

https://qz.com/1956380/amazons-parler-ban-displays-big-techs-power-over-online-speech/?utm_source=YPL

https://qz.com/work/1956070/internet-infrastructure-companies-should-be-public-utilities/

[ENTERPRISE]

This is hard one to be honest. While it would be nice to have a "Democratic" internet, I'm just not sure it would work. Can you imagine the amount of regulatory oversight required to make it work.

 

Furthermore, censorship is sort of required on the internet. As there for the most part is no way of "punishing" people for breaking rules In any meaningful way, not like in the physical world, you need the ability to censor or ban a user from a facility. That is the only way site owners can keep some form of law and order, sure it technically tramples on freedom of speech and expression...but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

 

[schuck6566]

35 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

This is hard one to be honest. While it would be nice to have a "Democratic" internet, I'm just not sure it would work. Can you imagine the amount of regulatory oversight required to make it work.

 

Furthermore, censorship is sort of required on the internet. As there for the most part is no way of "punishing" people for breaking rules In any meaningful way, not like in the physical world, you need the ability to censor or ban a user from a facility. That is the only way site owners can keep some form of law and order, sure it technically tramples on freedom of speech and expression...but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

 

What happens the next time Amazon doesn't agree with someone? The Screenshot shows the MS services hosted on aws,what if they have a dispute with MS?They can say that MS doesn't play nice and they feel their customers will be safer without that influence and 'POOF!" companies using MS on aws are shut down.

OR if a court action goes against them in the U.S. "With over 6,500 government agencies using AWS, we understand the requirements U.S. government agencies have to balance economy and agility with security, compliance, and reliability. In every instance, we have been among the first to solve government compliance challenges facing cloud computing and have consistently helped our customers navigate procurement and policy issues related to adoption of cloud computing. AWS provides commercial cloud capability across all classification levels: Unclassified, Sensitive, Secret, and Top Secret making it possible to execute missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology, and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission." Suddenly aws will be suffering speed issues,servers going down,etc,until the govt. reverses it's stance in Amazons favor.Then "Bamn" everything will be working normal again.

THAT'S what can happen when the service supplier is the 1 deciding who gets the services.

[ENTERPRISE]

I agree that putting all your eggs in one basket while at times advantageous from an infrastructure and accessibility standpoint can be great, the flip side can be very dark. 

 

However surely companies such as MS and others would have contractual agreements to ensure their own infrastructure security. I admittedly have not nosed dived into the recent parlor issues so may be missing some factors.

[Diffident]

I would rather take my chances with the way things are now.  Sure, right now platforms are trying to suppress view points that are not their own but there is still other platforms that don't..and nothing last forever.   If government decides that a view point is not allowed, then we're out of luck.

 

And no, the internet doesn't need any type of censorship other than following laws that are already exist. 

[Minotaurtoo]

1st off, Guys, I'm proud no one get stupid political over this in here... that makes my day!

 

2nd, I think Amazon will have repercussions from this that they didn't expect... a free market usually self corrects, unfortunately sometimes bad things happen along the way... still better than state/federal controlled version in my opinion, but it's just that, my opinion.

[ENTERPRISE]

57 minutes ago, Minotaurtoo said:

1st off, Guys, I'm proud no one get stupid political over this in here... that makes my day!

 

2nd, I think Amazon will have repercussions from this that they didn't expect... a free market usually self corrects, unfortunately sometimes bad things happen along the way... still better than state/federal controlled version in my opinion, but it's just that, my opinion.

 

Fingers crossed it will stay like that in the future !

[UltraMega]

Free speech works both ways. If you have the right to say whatever you want, people and business who create social environments have a right to their own free speech which means they can remove whatever they want from their platforms. It's just that simple. 

If someone went to a bar and started yelling about white supremacy and overthrowing the government, they would get kicked out for sure and no one would question it but for some reason there are a bunch of morons out there who think that the same isn't true for other businesses like facebook. It's such a stupid argument I can't help but roll my eyes. OP, you and those who think like you need to stop being dumb and selfish and realize you don't have the right to control what other businesses say on their own platform just because they're social media businesses, just like no one can control what you say. This is just a stupid argument that hinges on believing your voice should count more than others, and confusing free speech with believing that means there are no repercussions. It's not far from arguing that you should be able to yell bomb on a plane (when there is no bomb) without getting in trouble for it, or accuse someone of a crime they didn't commit. 

And the whole section 230 argument from the right is a great example of how stupid they're argument is. If section 230 were repealed, platforms like facebook and twitter would be liable for all the dumb and incorrect things people like Trump say online and he would get banned immeadiately since businesses would have no choice but to purge liabilities from their platforms. They don't even understand what they're arguing about. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, Minotaurtoo said:

1st off, Guys, I'm proud no one get stupid political over this in here... that makes my day!

 

2nd, I think Amazon will have repercussions from this that they didn't expect... a free market usually self corrects, unfortunately sometimes bad things happen along the way... still better than state/federal controlled version in my opinion, but it's just that, my opinion.

IDK how you can say that when the OP itself is stupid. Everyone can agree that social media is cause for concern but any argument that they shouldn't be able to control their own content is so fundamentally flawed. People who push this kind of stuff need to be called out. When we have terrorists literally trying to storm the capitol in hopes of overthrowing the government, the time to be polite has ended. 

The only reason this even comes up now is because republicans have a bunch of support from hate groups. That's the bottom line, the un-sugar-coated truth. If hate groups didn't have a political favorite, republicans would never bring this up. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by UltraMega

[Diffident]

50 minutes ago, ENTERPRISE said:

 

Fingers crossed it will stay like that in the future !

Well that didn't last long.

37 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

And the whole section 230 argument from the right is a great example of how stupid they're argument is

The theory of repealing section 230 is that it would eliminate the selective censoring of ideas or individuals that we have now, but things never happen as intended.

[UltraMega]

4 minutes ago, Diffident said:

Well that didn't last long.

The theory of repealing section 230 is that it would eliminate the selective censoring of ideas or individuals that we have now, but things never happen as intended.

That "theory" isn't reality. 

[Minotaurtoo]

1 hour ago, Diffident said:

Well that didn't last long.

 

nope, it didn't...

This is why I don't usually talk anything politics on sites like this... I'm a bit of a centrist, mostly because I see both sides having hate groups, both sides posting crap like "punch a n@zi" or "stop the steal" and it always just makes things worse, no one wants to work things out peacefully because all people see on the news is the extreme ends of the spectrum... but since it's started, I'll throw out my view... Private companies can do what they want in this regard so long as it doesn't violate the anti trust law... section 230 is only supposed to protect public forum companies that don't take an editorial stance on their users content, like FB, Twitter, etc... unless you can prove AWS did either of those somehow then they've broken no law.  I'm reminded now of the baker who didn't want to bake a cake for a certain couple... personally, for simple reasons of consistency, I have to argue that it's wrong to force a company to do business with someone they don't want to... that doesn't mean there won't be repercussions though.
 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Minotaurtoo

[schuck6566]

lol, Well,now that I've been called, "stupid","dumb","selfish",MAYBE the name caller would like to address the ACTUAL points of the post? The points had nothing to do with Social Media censoring people. It had to do with AWS removing a client who had paid for their service because they disagreed with SOME of the things on the clients app. Are WE here at extremehw.net by any chance hosted on AWS? If so,then who knows if we may not be the next to be removed because we don't conform to Amazon's "look".

As for being thrown out of a bar,or not having to bake a cake,the difference is that there are thousands & thousands of other bars & bakery's that the customer can go to if denied service.As for Cloud/web service providers,the big 3 are AWS,Google,and Microsoft. AWS removed the client and Google removed their app from their store.I don't know if Microsoft had it in their store or not,but do you think they'd willingly pick up what the other 2 dropped with that publicity?

We keep hearing about "the right to access to the internet"but nobody talks about who actually CONTROLS what we're able to access.

And please note I've NOT brought politics into this OR been nasty in any way.

[ENTERPRISE]

Well I think this topic has run its course, so I will go ahead and close it to avoid any heated transactions as unfortunately this type topic tends to bring out the green eyes monsters lol.