I’ve had some rough weekends myself, but never like Parler. First Google bopped them from its App store on Friday, then Apple did the same Saturday and then Saturday night Amazon made the decision to discontinue hosting them on AWS. The net effect of that, is when the ban goes into effect Sunday at 11:59 p.m. PST, if Parler can’t find another host, they are offline. This is the internet. You can’t hook up to the servers, you can’t be heard. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of seditious clowns. Speaking of which
Republican lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Devin Nunes as well as President Donald Trump’s family members and surrogates have all established Parler accounts, and have publicly encouraged their supporters to join them there. So too have many figures in conservative media.
In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across Parler violated its terms of service and that Amazon is unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate such things will be effective.
“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” the email reads. “[W]e cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others,” the email reads. “Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST.”
The motivation here is that there’s been talk of yet another Million MAGA March on January 19 or 20, or both. The last thing Washington, D.C. needs is more violence in the streets. All of these seditionists — and let’s call them by their right names, shall we? — Trump, Hawley, Cruz, Flynn, Powell, on and on ad nauseum have done is overstep boundaries, not only of good taste and decency, but of simple public safety.
Twitter, Google, Apple, and now Amazon are right. If there’s any doubt in your mind, read this sick garbage.
Now if you’re sitting down, read Parler CEO John Matze’s missive to the troops.
Somebody who’s a techie tell me where you go when Amazon, Google and Apple throw you out? Yahoo? Seriously, I have no idea. I don’t think anybody is going to want to pump this bilge into the ethernet. Matze’s position is indefensible. This is no more free speech than smearing feces on the marble floors of the Capitol is modern art. This is hate speech with the sole purpose of ginning up the lunatic fringe.
Ted Cruz should be asked to resign or removed from the Senate. He has lost his mind going down this path — although if you read the story posted earlier about the chic winter meeting of the RNC in Florida, if you live in an insulated enough bubble, it is apparently possible to not notice that the entire world is appalled at the rioting in Washington this week and Donald Trump is not walking away from this one scot free. The tide has turned.
Good. It’s beyond time. I believe in freedom of speech. But not total sedition.
Freedom of speech and providing a forum for people to spew hate are two different things. We live in a democracy. Anything that is needed to change has to be done through the democratic process — not through gathering a mob together, smashing glass and killing people. If these clowns think Parler is free speech, they are beyond deluded. But be that as it may, people like Hawley and Cruz need to be removed. If they don’t see where they crossed a line, then all the more urgency to have them removed. I always knew Cruz was a serpent but I didn’t know it was this bad.
‘Freedom’ with no responsibilities or civic duty is just anarchy.
Anarchy is what we saw.
Anarchy: not as fun as V For Vendetta made it look.
I loved V for Vendetta. That movie is an unsung jewel. I thought Stephen Rea was hilarious. I like him a lot.
You should read the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd too, Ursula. VERY different from the film (to the point where Moore hates on the latter to this day) but also a good window to Thatcherite England. And yeah, Stephen Rea was a gem in that. And Hugo Weaving as V was its own kind of awesome.
What vile people, this is some very good news. I am so hoping that Cruz and the rest get expelled.
Cruz is really blind. He’s like a Shakespearean character. He has no idea what is really going on. He’s living in a fantasy of himself as a powerful being and power is all he can see — sort of like Macbeth. Macbeth had a hard awakening, too, and I think Ted Cruz is in for a real eye opener.
Mother Cruz is praying for Ted every single day – For hours, according to Ted “Macinegun-Bacon” Cruz himself. Remember?
At this point and on that point, God has probably stopped taking her calls.
No. He ignores no one! Prayers are what everyone can do that matters. Pray through Jesus to the Father, He is the Light and the Way.
OMG, like everything else that smarmy a**hole does, that’s just plain nauseating.
Maybe the Trompador will use some of those millions he’s conned for his ‘keep me squatting on Pennsylvania Avenue’ fund to set up and host a web server with Javanka as CEO and Earache as Tech manager.
I know absolutely nothing of this business. I have no idea what kind of money we’re talking — do you?
a LOT of cash plus a secure server run by competent staff (who will expect to be paid for the work). He could use some of his ‘volunteers’ but their tech kmnowledge is probably at kindergarten level. He also would need ICANN to allocate numbers and register a website. With the levels of traffic that a messenger service would need, that could amount to some serious money. He’s also need some way to push the apps oput – and while most Magats are probably using Windoze, he’d also need them developed for Linux flavour (he can forget about Android or Apple because it’s vbery unlikely teither of them would allow the use of their coding for tha apps).
Then again, he’ll probably be hit for streaming music and/or copyright videos and photos
One of the biggest jokes in the web dev community is the client who goes: “Build me another Facebook!” (or Twitter, or Instagram, or…) “It needs to be up by next week and I’ll pay you $500!” People have no freaking clue how much time, money and expertise goes into creating a viable social network platform, and even then, they often fail. Ask Apple about iPing. Ask Google about Wave and Buzz, or Plus. Where’s Friendster? Newsvine? What about MySpace (woops, my bad, it’s still around, but no one can quite figure out why). If Trump intends to launch “Trumpster” or whatever stupid-ass social media platform he envisions in that wormy brain of his, he’d better be prepared to ask his Russian or Saudi friends for several billion dollars to plow into it, and chances are very strong it will fail miserably. Fueling a social media platform with white-right grievance isn’t going to get their platform very far.
Too right, Max. And that’s before you get into Trump’s well-documented tendencies to do things on the cheap, put yes men and other rank incompetents in charge and financially starve the operation itself through skimming off the top and stiffing contractors. On this one, he’s screwed.
Good point about the likelihood of him not only trying to do it on the cheap, but stiffing contractors in the process. You just know he will, especially since even if he were to commit enough bucks to do it on the cheap it wouldn’t be a smooth experience. So he’ll use that as an excuse to stiff them. However, unlike brick & mortar work on one of his properties where a contractor that’s been cheated can’t go in and rip out their stuff, and would be prosecuted for vandalism if they broke in and trashed their work software engineers have a different set of tools available to exact retribution.
They can program in stuff they can access through a back door and shut the thing down! Or, more likely REALLY screw with the site’s operation in ways that would increasingly piss off users and cause them to give up. Death by a thousand cuts and all that.
However, I believe even a “down and dirty” site is simply more money that Trump would be willing to cough up, even if he had that much liquid cash on hand which even with all the recent grifting he probably doesn’t. I suspect Deautsche Bank will move up collecting on what he owes them instead of waiting. So might others, offering to settle for say two thirds or even half just to get something back knowing that he’s in danger of having his assets frozen. Trump would be faced with the choice of getting out from under all those hundreds of millions in debt (the legitimate stuff we know at least some about) and trying to juggle other financial balls in the air to come up with a way to stay afloat to pay off the creditors who don’t come at him with lawsuits, but rather more “intense” means.
Oh, he’ll figure out some way to have short blasts on social media now and then but for the foreseeable future his social media presence will be about the equivalent of a nightlight in the bathroom that is faulty and keeps going out.
Exactly, more empty words from trump.
The foremost proponents of market theory don’t understand how markets work. If there isn’t enough customers to serve, no-one will try to cater for them,
unless the cash price they are prepared to pay goes right up. No-one wants to pay direct for a social network, and no business wants to be associated with the fascists that turn out to be traitors.
Look at Tumblr – it’s still around, but it’s not the money-source that its various owners have expected.
You are right, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of &*%%*&*&*s! Hate speech and incitement to violence and incitement to commit crimes are definitely NOT free speech! Also, every PRIVATE company mentioned has the right to decide what to allow on their servers/sites!
Well said….Have a good Sunday.
It’s very interesting on many fronts, and its telling in our environment of free speech, clearly our most popular platforms are heeding the 1rst amendment limit on crying fire in a theater, limits have been pushed. To our sorrows, Fox News
Fox is going to be in a very interesting place post-Trump, I think. Recall that their other non-“News” media properties were sold to Disney, leaving them just the reporting outlets for cash. Trump has provided a lot of cover and revenue but the ongoing backlash threatens to hit their bank accounts. Further, they’ve competition now in the form of OANN and related ilk.
The former Fox entertainment location across the street from me seems to be disappearing. Part of it may be the virus – but it’s possible Disney moved it to their own studio sites.
Amendment XIV
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Almost 1/3 of Congress needs to be expelled so the other half of the Republicans would have to vote to expell. Doubtful. FOX is already crying about how rotten Amazon and the others are. All Republicans can do is lie and promote Fascist crap.
But they’re only crying because they’re losing in the only arena that counts to them, Blue. Let’s make them cry some more.
Ted Cruz smears green eggs and ham, Resign already for he’s a traitor.
Didn’t Fox buy MySpace? Maybe they have an extra server or two.
Viant actually owns MySpace these days, so no.
I doubt that hosts are lining up for Parler. The ones who are are probably based in far eastern Europe. It won’t happen quickly.
Parler’s lawyers just admitted dropping them as a client, so yeah.
Horrible, horrifying verbiage! I can’t wrap my mind around this muck! Please tell these folks to get some help for their anger and fury. I’d also follow up because this is input from an unsanctified source. We need to pray,please. Please also read the Bible for peace.
What a stupid and uninformed article.