Salesforce says it has 'taken action' to prevent further U.S. political violence | Hacker News Reader

Salesforce says it has 'taken action' to prevent further U.S. political violence

reuters.com

79 pointsNDizzle225 comments

Will it get to the point that this is considered “vigilante justice?”

We don’t know what was done to the RNC, or why. It’s odd to release such a non-statement, but if the RNC is encouraging violence, that’s breaking laws and should be prosecuted.

If they haven’t violated laws, and there’s no injunction then Salesforce is serving in the role of punisher.

I get that it’s their service and they can legally serve whomever they like, but line item vetoing people and companies based on an arbitrary, changing criteria leads to mistakes and generally bad business.

If I have to think about whether one day my dashboard software will turn off because one of my executives does something bad, then that’s going to make me not want to use it.

This is a slippery slope argument, of course, and I should have good executives. But I don’t think I want to buy software from services that could just one day decide to stop serving me for an unclear reason.

> for an unclear reason.

I have no comment on the rest of your commentary, but the reason this happened is one of the few things in this story that is quite clear.

I’m clear on why trump was banned. Clear that a coup was attempted and lots of people will, hopefully, be brought to justice.

I’m not clear on why the RNC would be kicked off.

I’m not being facetious, why was the RNC whatevered by Salesforce?

According to this article [0], the reason given is that they were using Salesforce products to send fundraising emails that claimed the election was stolen.

[0] https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/01/11/salesforce-says...

“Hundreds of emails” seems like a poor reason to revoke all activities.

It’s hard to say without seeing the actual text but unless they were saying to burn down the capitol, I don’t think political emails saying the election was stolen are noteworthy. This is based on my own experience of getting large numbers of spam letters making all sorts of stupid claims “Jane Doe is a terrorist” “Nancy Pelosi is going to take your guns” “Trump is going to put your kids in cages” “Biden will destroy America”

While I would like to block all this crap, if Salesforce is going to drop RNC over “donate to us because the election is stolen” they they will need to drop many other people.

I don’t think the article says that Salesforce has permanently dropped the RNC. They may just have cut off access to some email capabilities, or even specific emails. And comparing this to other election email without context is disingenuous. If rioters had just stormed the Capitol building over some accusation the DNC was making, you can bet they’d be getting the same treatment.

Any service you are a customer of have clauses with say that they terminate your service if they want.

Republicans have fought for people's right to do so. If you recall the case of baker that didn't want to make a gay wedding cake.

Now companies in the tech business are doing the same but to some of the groups that campaigned for that freedom.

Sure there's some argument that Twitter and Facebook are giant monopolies in the social media space.

But Salesforce? There's like a 1000 CRMs

True. And one big difference. You don't get to choose to be gay, have a disability or be from a minority or whatever. You do however choose to go to a Capital Hill riot or be complicit in supporting a dangerous man with autocratic tendencies.

You do however choose your religion and yet that is a protected class...

This is not a road we should be going down.

Any CRM supplier that would dare to deal with RNC would be barraged on social media and lose other business.

That sounds a lot like USSR.

At no point in human history has the USSR existed at the same time as modern social media.

There's a difference between people giving them negative press and the USSR.

One was a government and the other is random people saying "I'm not going to be your customer anymore"

There's also plenty of open source CRMs they could deploy.

If they're afraid of the cloud they could rent a dedicated server or colocate.

I'm sure if they host in a very pro Republican state they wouldn't have issues.

They could even host it in another country if they wanted to as well.

They've got a lot of freedom

The implementation is different, the effect is the same: do something against the wishes of a small powerful group and you're a pariah. Not because many people think you've done something wrong, because these people would join you in the pariah ditch if they talk to you.

That's not how it should be.

I have my doubts the USSR would allow a private CRM supplier not controlled by the state to exist. Criticism of any sort on social media also seems dubious.

Oh man, I totally forget how much overlap there is between communist Russia and cancel culture.

/s just in case

This isn't so much a case of allowing a baker to make a gay wedding cake, as that's discrimination.

This is more like the bar kicking out an unruly patron, which is a terms-of-service violation.

It's a big distinction, unless you want to argue that discrimination is ok.

The idea that was put forward by the Repuican party is that people had a right to refuse service.

I'm not arguing that discrimination is okay. But the RNC did argue that.

So it's entertaining to see.

I don’t follow your logic. 70m Americans are represented by the RNC. Your metaphor breaks immediately.

Downvotes here sadden me.

If you insist on dehumanizing people you disagree with, violence is the only destination.

We have got to stop demonizing people who don’t share our perspective.

The outcome is predictable, avoidable and undesirable. Maintain the current course and you will pull everyone over the cliff with you.

I get downvoted all the time, I never threaten violence over it. It may sting the ego a bit but come on man, it is just internet points.

That is not what I was expressing. I am observing that this censorious behavior will predictably lead to others using violence. 70 million Americans voted for trump. How do you expect them to respond to this censorship?

We have got to find a way to get along.

Those who leverage their power this way will create the outcome they claim they want to prevent.

There’s a time for getting along, and now is absolutely not that time. The fact that 74 million voted for Trump, who is inciting violence against our democratic process means that this is the time to choose a side. It’s been forced upon us and the dust is far from settling. This is NOT a slippery slope or censorship, jfc...to do nothing at this point is unfathomable.

Are you calling for violence against them???

No.

Is that what you’re getting from my comment?

Yes? What possible solution is there for 74m people who you disagree with that have to have something done to them?

You said “to do nothing is unfathomable.”

If the solution is to rob them of representation, what the hell are they going to resort to????

And violence is the only thing you can think of in a thread about a cms revoking services to said opposition?

That’s all I meant. If you’re American, you have to pick a side. Do you condemn or condone? No one is sitting around going like “I feel like they had some good points but I donnu”.

This is bigger than covid, and at some point, at this point in my opinion, we have to make a decision. We either nip this in the bud now or watch it get worse. And if you work at Twitter, that might mean pushing to ban Trump for the last four years. Some tech savvy individual went and reverse engineered Parler’s API and archived 96% of public content. All this in the hopes that it’ll dissuade any further escalation. And if that isn’t a good enough explanation, then maybe people are just fucking tired of enabling or doing business with people they consider to be deranged and dangerous.

I realize you want everyone to come together and find some compromise or common ground but like, where do we even begin? There was no election fraud. Not even Trump’s lawyers could utter those words in court, because they understood that repeating their clients’ overt lies could get them disbarred. I genuinely think that the stop the steal is run by opportunistic leeches who prey on the mentally ill. And that taking away their platforms on private social media might actually give us the pause we need for a peaceful transfer of power. No one should be forced to bake a cake at gunpoint and no one should be forced to go to work on making an online platform work for people we (and the law) view as terrorists.

That’s my rant. You can disagree with all of if you want, but you can’t argue with individuals not wanting to go to work for other individuals. Whether it be Salesforce or Twitter or Facebook...they chose to do something and frankly, those who are worried about this potentially happening to them need to realize how bad what happened at the capitol was, and how rare it is. There’s no slippery slope here.

We are doomed if more people think like you.

Then I feel sorry for you.

You have now resorted to attacking the person rather than the idea. Move along. It’s unconstructive, but know this: I am infinitely further away from attacking the capitol than some. Your fearmongering is misplaced.

There, that should help you sleep at night.

I expect them to not resort to violence because the guy they supported was banned from twitter.

I think it’s like a bar kicking out a patron saying “they weren’t adhering to our values.”

The bar can certainly refuse service to anyone, but if they act in such a manner they will affect their clientele.

And then imagine there’s only three bars (aws, azure, gcp) and if you get thrown out of the bar, you die (go out of business).

I don’t think this is where we are now, but I think this is a step toward this dystopian state where corporate bureaucracies make these decisions.

I think the real risk is that amidst banning all the clearly bad people, they will also convenience ban anyone they like since it’s impossible to audit since they have information.

It’s kind of like not being able to do discovery in a lawsuit.

A large part of the reason there are only 3 large "bars" (ignoring the fact that there's no need to use cloud computing to run a service, it's merely convenient) is that the RNC had worked hard for decades to protect the financial moats of large wealthy businesses.

While this may have some poetic justice for the RNC, my concern is how this will be used on others where there is no poetic justice.

I think there is also a principle of rule of law where the law must apply to law breakers as well. The police shouldn’t be allowed to violate the 4 amendment for assholes and criminals. Not because they don’t deserve it, but because it results in injustice for innocents.

You're presuming something that baker does not agree to. The baker views gay marriage as morally wrong or even an absurd notion. Punishing him because he has moral objections that you disagree with by framing it as a matter of "discrimination" (understood as bigoted treatment) is to ignore that his motives and perceptions may involve no bigotry at all in his view.

Soapboxy post scriptum:

This is what I dislike about these "neutrality meta" discourses. "Neutrality" is ultimately just another word for "common ground", but the less common ground you share, the less of this neutrality there is to work from. Now, in this case, your characterization of the baker's actions as "discrimination" is completely opposed to his view of his actions, but you presuppose your characterization as an element of this neutral common ground by which we can judge him. From his point of view, he may see this as an act of virtue. He may even see this as an act of love for the gay customers by communicating to them that their relationship is illicit and self-destructive. Indeed, that would be the traditional view. If someone's an alcoholic, you might kindly inform them for their own good.

So not only do I see little point in pretending to a false neutrality, but you can't both reduce everything to a mere matter of interpretation and opinion, a plurality of incommensurate views, and then turn around and elevate your view as the neutral one. Either there is a truth of the matter about which we may disagree but which can in principle be resolved reasonably or which can be tolerated, or there is no truth of the matter and it's all at bottom merely a matter of power and accident. In which case, it seems a little silly and contradictory to hold the latter and simultaneously express moral indignation at someone who is behaving in accordance with his own views. You only get to do that, maybe, if you believe there is a truth of the matter to which this other person is bound but egregiously violating.

But if you believe you're right, or you love the truth and believe that it can in principle be known, have a humble and sincere desire to know it and a willingness to discuss and consider and respectfully argue, as well as the courage to humbly accept conclusions that would put you at odds with others you would rather not be at odds with, then it should be possible to arrive at some measure of agreement. I think it is much better to start there with the hope that over time we can make progress, not through force but through reason, rather than to give up on the possibility.

I would argue Facebook and Twitter's function as a social communications enabler can be replaced with any number of services, devices, even just real life. A meeting at a table is obviously not the same as a Facebook group chat, and a poster on a power pole isn't the same as a tweet, but if both platforms shut down tomorrow we'd just use one of the myriad other communication and organizing techniques we all have at our disposal.

Notably, a building owner can take down your posters, and a hotel can refuse to host your conference.

And hand writing post it notes is the same as owning a newspaper?

I'm thinking of this from the users perspective, of course Facebook has an enormous amount of soft-power with it's media empire. That is an extremely worrying thing.

The same argument could be made to allow companies to do whatever they want, including discriminate based on race, etc. And in some sense, if the market were efficient enough, we wouldn't need laws against discrimination, sexual harassment, etc. The problem is that the market is not so efficient that you can just replace Facebook and Twitter with any number of services, at least not readily.

Admittedly I am still on the fence about this whole thing (the denying of services), and can't fully articulate my thoughts.

I do believe that these platforms are not infrastructure, that they are not public spaces, but I am no corporate apologist; from that view point, what we've done is given up control over our public discourse to corporate bodies, and I think that is the crux of the problem and what actually needs to be rectified.

To put the problem into the physical world, it's as if we've decided to have all of our Town Halls and court hearings at a McDonalds, and now McDonalds won't let the people threatening violence in because they'd disturb the customers.

To go along with your analogy, it's as if McDonald's won't let people in who McDonald's has accused of threatening violence. These corporations have made the determination without due process. At least when the government accuses you of doing something wrong, there's ostensibly some recourse.

McDonald's and other businesses already do that all the time. If you threaten someone in the restaurant then the manager might refuse service, order you to leave, and barr you from ever returning. There's no due process.

A great point, and probably why corporate censorship is so insidious.

So we have handed over control of our discourse to the companies, and we have no policy to help us.

>Republicans have fought for people's right to do so. If you recall the case of baker that didn't want to make a gay wedding cake.

IIRC The baker had no problem with supplying a cake, the only thing the baker did not want to do is custom decorate the cake. The nuance being, they would supply the base product to everyone but did not want to endorse something they object to.

The issue is that they wouldn’t provide full service because it was in service of a gay wedding. You are splitting hairs and it makes no difference morally.

Wait, there's obviously a big difference.

This is more akin to you phoning the baker, explaining that you're gay, asking them to write "happy gay wedding" on the cake, the baker agrees, ... the day comes and you call the baker and he's like "you want me to write GAY on your cake?!" and you're without cake.

What salesforce did here is basically collective punishment.

There's no collective punishment here. The RNC is a single legal person. All the individual members of the RNC are still welcome to use SalesForce themselves or in other organizations.

I agree with this 100%, but also want to temper this with "this is nothing new".

Your hosting/cloud was always willing to drop your ass the moment you made bad PR for them.

This is one of many reasons I think going full lock-in on a proprietary cloud service that you can't ever self-host or migrate to a different cloud in a more favorable jurisdiction is crazy for a business that needs continuity.

Who knows which way the wind blows in a quarter or a year or a decade?

Take it from the porn industry: you have to be prepared to host it yourself one day.

I think the new part is that they have started to censor anyone that is even vaguely conservative. Even open critics of Trump like Ron Paul, and now RNC.

The end game is obviously that anyone that is not a woke liberal will be cancelled. For the good of the country of course.

Ron Paul previously had thoughts on private businesses and discrimination you might want to read. https://mises.org/wire/government-should-leave-bakers-alone

> Rights are not gifts from government, so the government cannot restrict them unless we engage in force or fraud. The bakery did not use force to stop any same-sex couple from getting a wedding cake. It simply exercised its right to decide who it would accept as a customer. No one would support private individuals forcing bakery employees to bake a cake at gunpoint, so why is it right for the government to do it?

Do you think that is why they banned him?

No, I think it's funny for Ron Paul to be complaining Facebook did the exact thing he said businesses should be able to do.

He's not complaining Facebook did exactly what he championed they had a right to do. The complaint is that they could not point out how he had breached terms of service/community guidelines as he was notified his account was terminated because of. If they could poiint to the offending material that would be one thing. If they gave advanced warning and said "Pack your stuff, we're done serving you. Period. You have X hours." It would have been fine.

Saying someone did X, Y, and Z, then refusing to produce evidence is the problem there.

I don’t care about his feelings, hypocritical or not.

I’m alarmed when they start censoring people without even pretending they’re remotely dangerous. He simply has the wrong politics and is too popular.

This isn’t censorship. If the US wants a free and public Twitter like platform, they can spin up their own instance of Mastodon or write their own.

Of course it’s censorship, it just isn’t carried out by the state. But when private companies have more control over media, private censorship is just as bad.

You have no one but the politicians to blame for handing over infrastructures over to private companies and yourself for allowing them to be voted in.

Having the right to take an action is different from executing on that action.

You have the right to paint your house polka dot pink but everyone is still going to think it was the wrong choice.

False. The RNC is not an open critic of the leader of their party.

> Who knows which way the wind blows in a quarter or a year or a decade?

Let's hope the wind is always blowing against trying to violently overthrow a government after a free and fair election in the United States of America.

Unclear reason you say? They don't want to be liable being used "in ways which could lead to further violence around the country’s presidential transition". And if one of your executives does something bad, it's quite customary for the company to be liable.

Do you mean 'responsible'? I don't see how they could possibly be held liable.

They who? Social media sites or companies with bad acting executives?

It has already gotten to that point.

It’s not a slippery slope argument, either. It’s already happened to one of the two most powerful groups in the US. On what basis do you think they would hesitate to cancel you?

> If they haven’t violated laws, and there’s no injunction then Salesforce is serving in the role of punisher.

They very likely violated the terms of service of ExactTarget, their bulk email sender.

So, medium and long term, what's the plan here (in the market)? Are we going to have "Republican Friendly" services for everything? CRM? Social media? Patreon alternative? App stores??

Seems like the market at some point is going to step in here and serve - wait for it - about half the country, 150m people. (and then let's not forget about the rest of the world, who probably don't want to get involved in US politics, and aren't particularly happy seeing the interference of silicon valley companies in everything - see Merkel and France's ministers statement in the last few days).

That seems unlikely. Remember that we’re talking about the fringe here - Republican grandparents looking at pictures of their kids and sharing broccoli casserole recipes are not getting kicked off FB or Twitter. Neither are those discussing pickup trucks, beer, blue jeans, Jesus or even guns, to a certain extent. The fringe is much smaller, and serving them profitably is very difficult. It’ll have to be volunteer sites like the N-Chans.

The remaining people on social networks are the centrists. You could argue that the extreme left will also be booted off soon, if not already. Anyone seriously or credibly proposing storming Amazon HQ on socialist / communist grounds will get kicked off as well. Both to preserve the optics of fairness and because they should be.

The only people left are those sharing pictures of their kids and food - and that’s actually fine by me. Political talk will remain, but stay non-violent, which doesn’t sound too bad.

That will depend on how much resentment the food photo artists will feel. Plus a lot of social media companies start with fringe groups but then grow more mainstream over time.

You are also assuming the censorship is only of people calling for violence. This morning Ron Paul's facebook page was blocked. I don't think he's ever called for violence. If the loudest voices on the left expand their definition is hate speech more and more, the less it is the fringe who get banned.

"vigilante" refers to illegally using powers (especially physical violence) that are reserved to police and not permitted to the general population. This is different from private organizations exercising their First Amendment rights to free association.

> But I don’t think I want to buy software from services that could just one day decide to stop serving me for an unclear reason

So you hate SaaS. Potential unclear reasons can will and have included 'changing our focus', 'being acquired', 'fire your customer', etc.

Im not entirely clear who would have any other expectation for any SaaS product.

Yeah, at this rate I'm honestly waiting for the day that I, a staunch democrat, will get a letter from my bank, accountant etc that I'm being banned for white supremacy solely because I'm a bald skinny white guy. And being white / bald is enough to be considered a white supremacist - I went bald at 19 and it wasn't a choice. The gall of this fucking country is unbelievable - this is why we can't have nice things.

And it goes without saying, racists and racial supremacists have no place in modern society!

I find this particularly disturbing. Not because I think it's anything on the part of Salesforce, but that all these different corporations believe that this is something they HAVE to do. Government's don't just rule by hard power; they also rule by soft power. Soft power is social power. And the fact that companies believe that there will be negative consequences if they do not disavow the party that is now out of power, and all those that supported that party is a very dangerous situation. I think it's bad for business if that level of coercive power, hard or soft, is hanging over companies.

I think it's especially bad for startups. Parler was a startup that was rapidly growing, a real startup with an actual ceo and actual investors, and AWS yanked the rug out from under them, and I doubt they'll be the last. I wonder how many promising companies that would otherwise be able to exist because we cared about their products and not their politics are likely to stop before they start, or else die early due to this environment.

Governments run on $$$$. Look at the amount that goes into lobbying and PACs. Look at Citizens United. Social power is what can cut the money. Also, maybe these companies don't want a country run by literal Nazis.

What precisely was Citizens United trying to do? Can you tell me that before we continue?

It was to let companies pretend that they are people to bypass campaign contribution limits.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citi...

From Wikipedia: The case arose after Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization, sought to air and advertise a film critical of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shortly before the 2008 Democratic primary elections.

They wanted to broadcast a film. Not an advertisement. Not a campaign ad. A film. This is what gets lost in most common discourse about the Citizens United case. Had the court ruled otherwise in the Citizens United case, it would have given the Federal Government precedent to ban films for political reasons. The other reply by Dharmab is also very useful. The effects of ruling another way on the Citizens United would have impacted not only the medium of film, but also the publication of books, and all other media. Imagine not being able to publish a book critical of a candidate before an election. Yet that would have been the result of ruling otherwise. It's probably worth actually watching the oral arguments of the case: https://www.c-span.org/video/?288797-1/citizens-united-v-fed...

The view of "Corporations acting like people" is an oversimplification of CU. Radiolab's More Perfect podcast did a very detailed episode.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/epi...

Did you know that the FEC argued in the CU case before the Supreme Court that they had the right to prevent the distribution of books containing certain kinds of political speech? The audio of that is in the episode and it is a wild ride.

> Government's don't just rule by hard power; they also rule by soft power.

I guess it depends on if you see this as being driven from the top down or bottom up. Personally, I think it's bottom up but mostly I think its from within companies like Salesforce and Amazon.

Also, do you really think it was Parler's politics that was the problem? I think you know that's not the case.

>top down or bottom up

I tend to think of it as more along the lines of feedback loops. It's like supply and demand. It doesn't really matter which comes first, so long as both exist commensurate to one another.

The speed of this seems highly top-down, and given that almost all of these actors are the 500 pound gorillas of their respective verticals, it means the overall effective policymaking slice of the population is astonishingly small.

You don't need to take my word for it. You just need to look around at how the mindset of people in the upper echelons. Everyone knows and is interconnected with each other, and sees everyone else as holding a gun to their heads, and is dependent on things staying stable and not going violent. Unfortunately, the way everything was handled (without transparency, waving on technicalities) all but ensures ill sentiment. I din't support the Ingrate in Chief. But there is a way you Irish Bar Toss someone out of office without cheesing off half the constituency, and we didn't do it. So... This is what happens.

> The speed of this seems highly top-down

That could be taken two ways.

1. This happened quickly and so it seems like the government was involved.

2. It took forever for tech companies to finally act and that slow moving incompetence is a sign of government involvement.

I'm guessing you see it as #1 but a lot of us think this is a long time coming.

I don't think these companies and the people working there want the next generation talking about them the same way we talk about IBM's shameful work with the Nazi's 80 years ago. (Did I just Godwin myself?)

Top-down doesn't necessitate state-level involvement. It could imply a small network of like-minded high level employees or executives collaborating on leveraging their positions in order to achieve political ends.

I personally believe that most of the companies performing Parler's deplatforming have had factions waiting to do so since it's inception, but had been held back by their executives out of fear of governmental scrutiny. No collusion, as it were.

With the results of the Georgia primary, the Democratic party will have majority-control of the legislative branch, and executive authority will no longer be a threat. I think Parler's deplatforming was as inevitable as Gab's. Its success with conservative legislators, and Trump gave it a short buffer.

The current administration is on the outs, and the Capitol riot put enough blood in the waters to bring the sharks in early.

> Parler was a startup that was rapidly growing, a real startup with an actual ceo and actual investors, and AWS yanked the rug out from under them, and I doubt they'll be the last.

Reality check: Parler contained realistic threats and refused to moderate or remove those threads. First, that breaks TOS. Second, given that AWS new provably knows about those, once someone acted on those threats, they could be liable.

You are acting as if Parler was removed from those services by way of irrational knee jerk.

>Parler contained realistic threats and refused to moderate or remove those threads.

Parler has filed a lawsuit alleging precisely the opposite, and alleging further that, due to Amazon's contract with Twitter, Amazon's actions were a matter, not of TOS, but of anti-competitive action, especially given that "Hang Mike Pence" was trending on Twitter at the same time that Parler was getting kicked off of AWS. Anyway, I don't know the specifics of how Parler was moderated, so I won't comment further on the matter.

What I do see is a company whose mission was not explicitly political, but whose clientele was largely composed of the faction who lost the most recent election losing critical infrastructure, to the point that their service is effectively dead, even as myriad other companies move to denounce the faction who lost the most recent election. That is disturbing.

Twitter has long standing habit to remove threads, users and hashtags sending threats. And not just right wing ones, while there were left protests during summer, they were constantly removing left leaning accounts calling for violence.

It is simply not true that Twitter would generally refused to remove calls for violence or harassments - at least among its English speaking users.

"In fact, Twitter’s abuse policy is so flaky that the platform couldn’t seem to decide if my tweets broke the rules or not. A few weeks ago, someone filed a report about the very tweet my account was locked over and tweeted out screenshots showing the “kill all white people” tweet wasn’t a violation of Twitter’s rules." https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-tro...

https://twitter.com/gerrikillallmen

https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com...

What does "Twitter do your thing" mean is this context? sounds like a call to dox and harass to me....

https://newspunch.com/buzzfeed-joe-bernstein-inciting-murder... Now the tweet is deleted but he is not banned.

And flaky policy is still by miles better then what Parler was doing. Or basically refused to do.

It is absurd to put equality between the two.

>What I do see is a company whose mission was not explicitly political

Take a look at their investors and you'll see otherwise

>Reality check: Parler contained realistic threats and refused to moderate or remove those threads.

Having never paid much attention to Parler until now, I've been looking for more information on it in light of the ban. Can you link to any resources describing examples of realistic threats on Parler that its moderators refused to remove?

> Reality check: Parler contained realistic threats and refused to moderate or remove those threads. First, that breaks TOS. Second, given that AWS new provably knows about those, once someone acted on those threats, they could be liable.

Probably not because of “threats”, which are generally only unlawful if they are delivered to the person that would be threatened.

On the other hand, if the messages on the site constituted constituted conspiracy, that is more likely to be a liability risk for AWS once they knew of it. Moreover, if it was conspiracy to one of the predicate offenses listed in 18 USC Sec 2339A regarding material support for terrorism, then knowingly providing any good or service connected to it other than medicine or religious material is a major federal felony—and a capital one if death occurs as a result of the crime for which services were provided.

Isn't posting the threat in a publicly visible place essentially delivering it?

No, for example see: https://gizmodo.com/supreme-court-online-threats-legal-as-lo...

Correction: if a death occurs, 2339A violations become subject to life imprisonment, not capital punishment.

Still not something you want to mess around with, but it is a critical difference.

You’ve mentioned Section 2339a multiple times in various threads. I think you may fundamentally misunderstand the necessary elements of the charge.

Specifically I would point you to a legal analysis of this particular section [1] which includes the following;

> Under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 2, anyone who counsels, procures, aids, or abets a violation of Section 2339A or any other federal crime is punishable as though he had committed the offense himself. It is understood that “[i]n order to aid and abet another to commit a crime it is necessary that a defendant in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, [and] that he seek by his action to make it succeed.”

As I believe is made clear in this analysis, providing hosting services to a social network that includes discussions about storming the capital in no way implicates either the hosting provider or the social network under 18 USC 2339A.

[1] - https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a530624.pdf

> I find this particularly disturbing. Not because I think it's anything on the part of Salesforce, but that all these different corporations believe that this is something they HAVE to do

It's virtue signaling, plain and simple. It's also free marketing for companies. Are we going to see random companies (e.g. soft drink companies) now proactively declare that they're going to refuse to cater to RNC events? I wouldn't be surprised.

This is bad for the environment of trust and good faith that the SaaS industry has relied upon for speedy growth. Since I am a registered republican (just a normal, non-political person who ticked the form at the DMV), will I be denied service in the future for something that I had nothing to do with? Will democratic party membership be mandatory to do business in the future, as similar expectations exist in many one party states?

If that's the case, "Hello, Fellow Democrats, I Too Am A Democrat Who Believes All the Right Things One Is Supposed To Believe."

Sure, this is just targeted to the RNC, but you cannot avoid also intimating that such measures won't be expanded in the future.

This is part of why George Washington warned against the trap of National Political Parties. It never ends well. The factional tug of war inculcates itself as a supreme overarching conflict and priority rather tham having Government doing what it was meant to do. Mitigate universal problems for everybody that can't be handled at lower llevels of abstraction.

I’m guessing these clauses in the TOS that allow companies to immediately cancel a dependent relationship are going to be a sticking point during the sales cycle at these and many other companies going forward.

Does Netflix (or other streaming services) host data on AWS? You can bet their legal departments are squirming right now at the prospect of losing their storage services due to some controversial show or documentary that they create which causes a stir with some political group in power.

Completely stupid move on the part of these companies.

Netflix are very strongly liberal though, so I don’t think there’s any such risk.

Netflix will not necessarily be considered “liberal” forever. More importantly, the barely ruling party will not remain liberal forever. Lawyers get paid well to think about these contingencies.

Afaik, Netfix is not breaking TOS of AWS. Parler broke TOS due to threats on it. Parler refused to remove those threads threatening or calling for violence.

Section 230 does not cover AWS, so AWS was theoretically liable if next attack happen.

Eh, companies have knowingly accepted clauses like that for decades. Visa/Mastercard didn't get crippled when they cut off WikiLeaks a decade ago.

What service from Wikileaks is Visa/MasterCard dependent upon? How does that apply here?

Wikileaks used to accept donations by credit card, then they got cut off for political reasons.

However, to this day many companies accept credit card payments. So those companies must have made peace with the possibility of being cut off for political reasons.

Cancel culture is getting worse. I don't like where this is going at all.

I am part of a generation that was raised being told: if you don’t like it, and it feels like your vote doesn’t count, well, you can vote with your wallet!

And now that’s happening.

No it’s not. It’s not consumers abandoning Twitter because Trump is there that caused Twitter to ban him. And it’s not because people boycotted iPhones that Apple booted Parler.

In most cases it’s the exact opposite. They ban people and things that are incredibly popular on their platforms.

It's just a second order effect. Apple booted Parler to preemptively avoid the risk of consumers abandoning their platform.

Apple's walled garden and strict enforcement of their App Store policies are regularly championed in other threads, demonstrating Apple's strong commitment to both privacy and user experience.

Was it the right decision? Would leaving Parler on the App Store have affected their bottom line? Who knows. But you could have asked the same questions when they blocked Xbox Game Pass from the iPhone, which was certainly not politically motivated.

You don’t really believe that is why they did that, do you?

Insurrection culture is getting worse. I don’t like where this is going at all.

One person's insurrection is another's standing up for their rights in the face of outright oppression. When dialog stops and consensus can't be built, this is what happens.

No. Full stop.

I'm sorry, but there is no way you can construe what happened last Wednesday as people "standing up for their rights in the face out outright oppression".

These people are not being oppressed. They are literally the ones trying to oppress their political enemies. They are attempting to steal a legitimate democratic election with astonishingly absurd claims of widespread fraud. Do not weasel around this or try to rewrite history - what these people did was treason.

These people are domestic terrorists, white supremacists, racists and far-right extremist militia members. The time for dialog with these tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists is over. They committed an armed insurrection against the United States government.

This is not a time for forgiveness or debate. It's time for severe consequences for these terrorists.

"Taking action" can be as simple as e-mailing RNC staff that they will not send out an e-mail campaign that insinuates violent action is necessary.

Completely reasonable. IBM still gets flack for their role in WW2. The GOP right now is in shambles and I would not align myself with this party at this stage.

" Business software maker Salesforce.com Inc said on Monday it had “taken action” to prevent its tools from being used by the U.S. Republican National Committee in ways that could lead to further violence around the country’s presidential transition."

Why are you editorialising?

The "editorialized" title is an exact match for The Verge, so my guess is either Reuters updated their title at some point, or the OP originally submitted The Verge's coverage of the Reuters piece. I do actually feel the dangling question in the title is reasonable -- it is totally unclear who this action affects or how -- but irrespective of the title just wanted to clarify that it's probably not the OP's editorialization.

Thanks. I read both blurbs but I guess I mismatched the title and the link on accident. Posting from iPad is new for me.

In what ways, specifically, have they taken action? If you find more details please request the url be updated to the source with specific information.

It's amazing to me how many comments here (even here) see this as a Liberal conspiracy. Even after the capitol and years of trump bring crazy and and a full ratified, court approved election.

Court has nothing to do with elections, and never should.

Further, if the Court's took a chance to make a positive impact by defying tradiion, slowing things down, cracking open every last detail of process, bringing the truth to the light of day, and ensuring everyone was heard and had their concerns met fully to the point where no one could reasonably hold doubt.

It would have been unprecedented, and definitely controversial, but I'm certain it would have taken a lot of wind out of the sails of these things.

May I ask: do you think Biden won?

I think I'm not a gambling man, and I run strictly on trust but verify. My idealistic view of the world has gotten me burnt/played way too many times.

Both points are moot though, because having felt out the both sides of the aisle, I don't see a peaceful resolution moving forward without a lot of transparency, and a lot less "just trust us" out of authorities and a lot less belligerance all around. We are not in a good spot as a country at the moment. This is leagues and above the worst and most divided anyone amongst the folks I know have ever seen the country in their lives, and I've stopped doubting that Murphy will find a way.

What more transpareny would you have liked in your state? What have you been refused access to?

>Court has nothing to do with elections, and never should.

>Further, if the Court's took a chance to make a positive impact by defying tradiion, slowing things down, cracking open every last detail of process

Do you see the inconsistency here?

Just protecting their brand. Just like Disney, Apple, Girl Scouts, etc.

Smart move.

Deplatforming, censorship, cancel culture, blah blah blah, is just the splash damage.

Cue futile outrage and virtue signaling. Sharecroppers shocked, shocked the land lords, seed vendors, and food processors are predators, wholly and solely driven to extract wealth from the productive labor.

CRM is one of the last major software categories that does not have a strong open source offering.

This is kind of getting out of hand now no? I am disgusted by the Capitol incident and so happy to see Trump on his way out, but we really shouldn’t just go full throttle on banning anyone we don’t like politically now. Stuff like this is going to make the past 4 years happen again even more severely in the future.

You want populism and the horrible dictators that can come with that? Keep doing this. We should be trying to unify, not purge an entire political party from our lives. One that is needed to keep power in check.

Perhaps the republicans need to completely rebrand and even change their name, that’s totally fine and probably worth doing at this point. But two parties is still better than one. More than two that actually can elect someone would be even better.

We don't know why salesforce did this. The RNC until now has not been denied anything from big tech that I recall. To me, this likely means someone in the RNC wanted to send out an email organizing an angry protest. Salesforce absolutely does not need to help organize an event they feel could lead to violence.

I’m a moderate and I already get lumped in as a “Nazi sympathizer” by people in my work and social circles. I know people like me are next to get targeted with this shit.

Folks are content to throw around big words like “treason” and “Nazi” in these situations without any in-depth explanation. They should realize as soon as they don’t toe the narrative of the mainstream those same tactics will get used against them. You would have thought we learned this lesson from McCarthyism.

This is like the most vague paragraph Salesforce could have written. “We took action, but we won’t tell you why, or what, or how.”

What’s the point of this press release then? I never knew the RNC used Salesforce prior to now anyways.

You see, there are at least three states in the US.

The double standard being set in the reaction to rioting and the death of people, police officers and federal agents in this country is going to tear a rift in the USA for decades. As federal buildings were under a siege for months, David Dorn was shot, in Oakland a federal agent was shot, with the "ACAB" rhetoric emboldening people there were 7 police officers ambushed and killed across the country, etc.

These are all terrible things and should be punished as equally as storming a DC federal building or killing a DC police officer. The issue is going to be the fall out of how last weeks incident was compared to the months of rioting preceding it that just happened to be for a different cause and encouraged by different politically motivated people and parties.

There will be no unity when for months major media outlits and influential politicians are helping gaslight half the country that the riots and deaths were totally uncorrelated at best and quoting MLKs "A riot is the language of the unheard" when evidence became too much to simply ignore.

People who are cheering on the politicization of deeming half your own countrymen terrorists because disagreements on social or fiscal policies from the actions of a few of them who feel disenfranchised whether it's taking a few hours of BLM/antifa riots and labeling all left leaning citizens terrorists or taking a stormed capital and applying it to 74.8 million other people who lean right are going destroying this country more than any riot participant could dream of.

2020 (if i'm honest it extends back a lot further than last year) should be taken as a lesson that people can feel completely disenfranchised regardless of if you believe them or if they really are at all, and that disenfranchised people can lash out in terrible ways they otherwise wouldn't find themselves capable.

If payment processors, twitter, AWS, salesforce, facebook all decided that actions of the 10% of BLM protestors that turned into violent, destructive and deadly riots represented 100% and applied these same actions we would be seeing even more violence, destruction and death but with the weight of a newly renewed sense of victimization and purpose. We are all going to deeply regret the response of all of these actions throughout the next few years without being able to give them the credit they deserve. (I'd wager the aggressive banning of far left and right wing views from twitter, youtube, facebook is responsible for creating places like parler in the first place for instance, when we censor and disenfranchise people we are only going to distill those feelings and they tend to get uglier)

> People who are cheering on the politicization of deeming half your own countrymen terrorists because disagreements

The ones who brought bombs to capitol and RNC could be called terrorists?

> payment processors, twitter, AWS, salesforce, facebook all decided that actions of the 10% of BLM protestors that turned into violent, destructive and deadly riots

Both twitter and facebook were closing accounts for calling for violence or sending threats overtime at that time. Payment processors and AWS had no equivalent of Parler to remove.

> we would be seeing even more violence, destruction and death but with the weight of a newly renewed sense of victimization and purpose

There was some sense of victimization, but never on HN. It was only in more radical sections of twitter. Nobody including mainstream leftist people really cared enough about them.

> > People who are cheering on the politicization of deeming half your own countrymen terrorists because disagreements

> The ones who brought bombs to capitol and RNC could be called terrorists?

Sure. Absolutely call those people terrorists. But, as boredumb said, don't call half the country that just because they voted for Trump. They aren't. (In the exact same way as you don't call all BLM supporters terrorists or vandals because of the actions that happened at some of their protests.)

There's an extreme fringe. Don't identify the mainstream of the same movement with the fringe.

This is cancel culture run amok. At some point these tech organizations need to provide tangible evidence of bad actors actually inciting or encouraging violence. Until we see that, these acts of cancelling are merely virtue signaling, and are becoming rather McCarthy like.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec

What does this even mean? This is an incredibly vague article. I'm surprised Reuters published it.

Are they going to revoke US RNC's Salesforce accounts? (That sounds draconian.)

Are they going to revoke any Salesforce accounts associated with the Trump campaign? (That is still draconian, but justified in light of recent events.)

Sounds like vaccine management "tool" they've released recently:

https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=release-notes.rn_...

Note small print:

    Vaccine management isn’t a product or feature. Rather, it’s a mix of capabilities that an experienced admin or partner can build on the Salesforce platform.

It's a pattern they've been following for a while now.

At this point, this is all sounding like big corps trying to ingratiate themselves with the new administration, since Democrats control Congress now.

Seems like a valid point to me, not sure why down voted. If Republicans won those two Senate seats would companies (including Facebook, Twitter) be acting the same.

The timing is certainly interesting.

Sounds like a dangerous play. Next election cycle the roles could be reversed and your company might get into "monopoly breakup" group.

I doubt it is that to be honest. I think they are democrat leaning, they are trying to reduce their liability but in doing so putting themselves into the story instead of being outside of it.

Id also its sending a signal that the GOP needs to purge the hard right entryists other wise no campaign funding for senatorial, congress or presidential.

Big business should have have put their foot down years ago

Interesting take.

I disagree that big business or money should influence politics in this way and I hope we don't come to that.

Well it might be nice if the US parties moved to OMOV (one Member One Vote) and did away with 19th century style primaries - some of the are still open out cry FFS

Only Paid up "members" of a party could vote for candidates using OMOV

Having UK style hard limits on campaign costs and have networks run party political broadcasts - would be nice but unachievable.

Sounds like regulatory capture at it's finest.

Why specifically is the RNC being targeted?

Because they tried to overthrow an election.

Have they colluded with Russia again?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cyber/se...

"A Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Tuesday supports three U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Donald Trump win the 2016 U.S. presidential election."

Are you saying there wasn't collusion?

That article says Russia meddled in the election. There is nothing there to say they did it in coordination with Trump or any of his staff.

Mueller determined the Russians were interfering in the election, but there was no evidence linking Trump to those efforts.

Given it was the largest such investigation of it's kind in history with hundreds of witnesses, many of them 'flipped' and singing like birds to avoid jail including Trump's own personal lawyer - it seems there was no collusion.

Trump's friends were dirty with Russian money, they were caught lying - and even worse, Trump was apparently trying to obstruct justice.

So it's all very bad, but there was no collusion.

Many Americans believe there was collusion, which is a belief not based on evidence - you can see the massive irony here.

As far as the RNC - if they were involved in the insurrection, then ban them, otherwise I don't think the should be banned as this is going to get out of hand very quickly.

Many citizens and police officers died this summer of protests, even if they had more of a kind of legitimacy, they were still obviously dangerous and destructive, and many people supported the violence directly.

Around the world, there is all sorts of crazy stuff going on, FB is being accused of hosting some genocidal propaganda in SE Asia, it's going to get rough, we need clear thinking and guidelines. I don't trust corporate America to be the world's arbiter of information.

So, USA presidential election process is weak and can be "hacked". Right?

I believe Russia's goal in that work was not to get Trump in but to destabilize. They are certainly succeeding.

Did they specifically? From what I understand it was Trump, his supporters, and administration. A lot of republicans hate him and never supported him. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

The RNC specifically, yes. They were sending out this email on Jan 6:

> “Every single Patriot from across the Country must step up RIGHT NOW if we’re going to successfully DEFEND the integrity of this Election.”

Do you have a source for that? I would like to see the rest of the email. I tried a Google search, but could not find anything from a source I was confident is reliable.

Here's one that I have dated Jan 6th:

<FistName>,

The Vice President is right. TODAY will be a crucial milestone in our months-long effort to DEFEND Election integrity.

Over 100 Members of Congress plan to object to the Election results, because they share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities. This is our last line of defense, <FistName>.

President Trump and Vice President Pence will never stop fighting to deliver you a FAIR and HONEST Election, and now they need to know they have your support.

For a short time, when you contribute to the Official Defend America Fund, you can increase your impact by 1000%.

We’re calling on our STRONGEST allies to step up to the front lines of this nasty battle. With your help, we’ll uncover the TRUTH.

Please contribute ANY AMOUNT IMMEDIATELY to the Official Defend America Fund and you can increase your impact by 1000%. >>

Join America's Defenders

CONTRIBUTE $250 = $2750

CONTRIBUTE $100 = $1100

CONTRIBUTE $50 = $550

CONTRIBUTE $45 = $495

CONTRIBUTE ANY AMOUNT

Your support has never been more critical than it is RIGHT NOW, <FistName>.

President Trump will be reviewing a list of EVERY Patriot who stepped up when he needed them most. Can he count on you?

Contribute ANY AMOUNT TODAY to support your President and you can increase your impact by 1000%.

Thank you,

Team Trump

Here's another one I got dated Jan 6th:

<FistName>,

We need to make sure you’re aware of how important today is.

Congress will vote this afternoon to certify, or object to, the Election results. Over 100 Members of Congress have vowed to fight for President Trump and OBJECT TO the results because they are concerned about voting irregularities and potential fraud.

The stakes have NEVER been higher, <FistName>. President Trump needs YOU to make a statement and publicly stand with him and FIGHT BACK.

Let’s get 1,000,000 signatures from Americans supporting their President and Vice President and DEMAND transparency.

Please add your name NOW to stand with President Trump and Vice President Pence against the Election results. >>

STAND WITH YOUR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT

CONFIRM YOUR INFORMATION:

President Trump and Vice President Pence are really counting on your support right now, <FistName>.

We’re sending them a list of EVERY Patriot who steps up today. Make sure they see your name.

Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to publicly stand with President Trump and Vice President Pence.

Thank you,

Team Trump

And here's one on Jan 5th. Apparently this kind of verbiage will get you deplatformed now?

<FistName>,

Is it true that voting machines were not working earlier in certain Republican Congressional Districts for over an hour? If so, we must remain vigilant.

Is the LEFT going to STEAL this Senate Runoff Election? Did they STEAL the Presidential Election? I’m counting on you to step up to the front lines with me and FIGHT BACK!

1000% IMPACT: ACTIVATED!

I’ve requested to see a list of EVERY Patriot who donates to this email. Make sure I see your name. This is our last stance to defend our Nation and defend Democracy.

Please contribute ANY AMOUNT IMMEDIATELY to PROTECT our Republican Senate Majority and to DEFEND the Election. >>

We Need to Win BIG!

CONTRIBUTE $250 = $2750

CONTRIBUTE $100 = $1100

CONTRIBUTE $50 = $550

CONTRIBUTE $45 = $495

CONTRIBUTE ANY AMOUNT

Thank you,

President Donald J. Trump Signature Headshot Donald J. Trump President of the United States

Because the democrats and big tech are aligned and using the idiocy from the 6th as cover to shore up power and take out their enemies.

Umm. You know that the Democrats will the ones who will enact regulation on big tech right?

That regulation can very easily take a form that shores up the power of big tech and takes out their enemies.

We will see if that actually happens or if that was all just a show to make them sound like the scrappy underdog for the people.

The attempted overthrow of an elected government on the 6th is a direct result of RNC activity. They supported the radicalization of millions of people by continually claiming that the election was a fraud. Even after the literal halls of democracy were stormed by white nationalists, over a hundred RNC congressmen refused to withdraw their objections to the election.

The RNC owns this. If you still support the RNC after the 6th, you own this.

I don’t think anyone seriously views that shit show as an attempt to “overthrow an elected government”.

"I know there's been a lot of information about the Sedition Act out there, that's probably why you're asking the question," said D'Antuono. "We are not closing the book on anything."[1]

D'Antuono is the "assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office."

[1] https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fbi-50000-tips-connected-to-capi...

If you’re planning to take over the most powerful and militarized nation in the history of the world, and only bring a few dozen unarmed people and elect LARPers in viking helmets as leaders then you clearly belong in a mental institution, not in prison.

> 'The rioters had openly planned to disrupt the counting of Electoral College ballots for several weeks prior to the event, and had called for violence against Congress, Pence, and law enforcement. Plans were coordinated on "alt-tech" platforms – distinct from larger social media platforms such as Reddit or Twitter, which have implemented bans to censor violent language and images. Websites like TheDonald.win, founded after its predecessor was banned from Reddit, the social networking service Parler, the chat app Telegram, Gab, and others, were used to discuss previous Trump rallies and to make plans for storming the Capitol. Many of the posters planned for violence prior to the event, with some individuals discussing how to avoid police on the streets, which tools to bring to help pry open doors, and how to smuggle weapons into Washington D.C. Following clashes with Washington D.C police during protests on December 12, 2020, the Proud Boys and far-right groups turned against supporting law enforcement. At least one group, Stop the Steal, posted on December 23, 2020, its plans to occupy the Capitol with promises to "escalate" if met with opposition from law enforcement.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_St...

Obviously they wanted to cause disruptions, just like any BLM or environmentalist action. That is not the same as taking over government.

They wanted to occupy the Capitol building, using force if necessary, to nullify the results of the 2020 elections. What is that called, if you can't bring yourself to call it taking over the government?

I call it you being hyperbolic. They need to be punished according to the law for what they were doing, but you are not responding to the arguments. In no way were they properly mobilized for an actual takeover of the government. I just cannot believe that you actually believe that yourself.

They believed they were properly mobilized. They believed the President would walk with them to the Capitol, because he said he would walk with them to the Capitol, after organizing a rally around the slogan "Stop the Steal" on the day they were counting votes.

This is clear evidence "insurrection" according to Sen. Mitt Romney and others.[1]

Here is a small sample of the chatter leading up to the 6th.[2]

If the police stop a truck full of weapons and people with written plans to murder someone, but that someone has more guards and ammunition, it's still attempted murder.

If it is "hyperbolic" to say it was a coup attempt when a group of people publicly stated they wanted a coup, found their way to DC, started a riot, broke into the US Capitol, and beat a cop to death, I guess I'm just hyperbolic.

[1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gNOdcT...

[2] https://i.redd.it/aqdl9s2pfua61.png

In case you missed it, the FBI has just announced in a nationally televised briefing that they have formed a "sedition and conspiracy" task force, expected to last years.

Maybe they're just being hyperbolic.

Good to hear. True experts can then determine the seriousness of the situation.

"People have just beat a cop to death on the capitol steps, shots have been fired in the capitol building, and the secret service has escorted everyone in the line of succession to a secure location."

"We'd better wait for true experts to determine if this situation is serious."

Republics don't fall internally because their 'armies are defeated'.

These are 'coups' and they mean to overthrow the legitimacy of the government. It happens all the time in other countries.

This was a 'coup by mob' with obvious incitement (but not technically direct) by Trump & Co.

"The election is illegitimate"

"Mike Pence must stop the count"

"Everyone come to Washington and we will protest the count"

"Walk with me down Pennsylvania avenue"

"This is political combat, we need to fight and never give up"

There are parallels to BLM, but the fundamental difference is the violent mob wanted to stop Pence from validating the election results, which is a very scary existential form of interference going right to the core of the Republic.

There are legal consequences to this: if Pence does not validate the vote, then in fundamentally calls into question the legitimacy of Biden.

If that transaction doesn't take place, then 'Who is President' in a few weeks is completely ambiguous.

How would SCOTUS rule?

And does it matter?

Trump is playing straight out of the '3rd World Despot Playbook' - this is pretty much how it goes down in the Congo.

This insurrection would have physically been deal with, surely, but it could very easily snowball into something much worse.

Revolutions to start with a starting gun, they build up to a crescendo, one event propagating to the next.

Consider this: during the insurrection, Trump was not calling for people to stand down, he was not coordinating with Pence, he was not calling in the National Guard - you know what he was doing? He was on the phone with members of Congress who were on lockdown the phone being passed among them while he pressured them to 'stop the steal' and to thwart Mike Pence's vote count.

If that isn't straight up Treason what is?

What happened on Capitol Hill was not dangerous for the momentary bit of violence, it was dangerous because it's a strike to the essential foundations of the Republic.

Finally - I don't know what the RNC had to do with any of this, which is why I asked.

-> The attempted overthrow of an elected government

You're giving that rabble too much credit. It more resembled the spasms of a dying bird, than a Bay of Pigs.

Got it, so all we need to discredit any idea or proposition is to associate some violent people with it. There goes the Democratic party too between the explicit support of previous riots by some of its representatives and their racist history with the KKK and enslavers. Do you think that makes sense?

It would make sense if the DNC organized a rally on the day that Congress was set to formally accept the results of an election, spent a few hours telling thousands of people that their vote was stolen, and then Barack Obama instructed the crowd to march over to the Capitol, the crowd stormed the building full of elected officials, and even after that, no one from the DNC would admit that they were lying about a stolen election.

If that happened, then of course it would make sense to discredit the DNC.

In the end, Trump has robbed the RNC of its ability to be accountable to the democratic process. Hope it was worth it.

I seem to recall dems saying that trump colluded with russians to steal the election...

<<“I think it’s also critical to understand that, as I’ve been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” the former secretary of state said.

She's hardly the only prominent Democrat claiming to have been wrongly kept out of office. On Friday, Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams again claimed she won the state's 2018 gubernatorial race, despite losing to now-Gov. Brian Kemp.>>

<<For the third night in a row, anti-Donald Trump demonstrators took to the streets in several big cities and on college campuses across the United States, including an outburst of smashed windows and a dumpster fire in Portland that police countered with pepper spray and flash-bang devices.

About 4,000 protesters assembled downtown late Thursday chanting “we reject the president-elect!” the Associated Press reported. Some among the crowd vandalized 19 cars at a dealership in Northeast Portland, according to a sales manager, Oregonlive.com reports. Protesters then headed west, over the Broadway Bridge and into the Pearl District, where the windows of several businesses were smashed.>>

I wanna know what action is Disney+, HBO Go, Netflix, the WWE, and WWF foundation going to take against Trump?

It appears that mass emails inciting violence and sent from contact@victory.donaldtrump.com were somehow flagged by the bulk email sender, ExactTarget (a SalesForce company):

> To send its emails, the Trump campaign uses infrastructure from a company called ExactTarget, an email marketing firm now owned by Salesforce, according to a Motherboard analysis of the emails. The emails are sent in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, according to the emails themselves. In response to a question about whether the company had taken action to prevent Trump from using the "contact@victory.donaldtrump.com" email infrastructure, Salesforce said it had "taken action" against the RNC to "prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence." [1]

This “analysis” reads to me like:

• someone subscribed to a list

• they received emails inciting violence

• they contacted ExactTarget and asked them if they were aware/doing anything, and ExactTarget said “yes”

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdmdv/salesforce-takes-acti...

I'm curious, are there examples of emails inciting violence? I live in Europe, all news we get is filtered through several layers of reporters (mostly incompetent).

I will admit, I am not following these news very closely but these emails could be very damning.

I've read your link in more detail. I don't think your analysis is accurate. To be exact the part about receiving emails inciting violence. I think there were no such emails, but they asked Salesforce did they do anything about potential future emails inciting violence.

Salesforce says yes. They probably either suspended the account or put in some kind of verification step where Salesforce needs to whiteflag the email to go forward. This was they can stop any potential email inciting violence, but still isn't extremely damaging to the company.

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