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He is saying what he needs to say to get the next clubhouse of impatient, misguided rich people to fund "vision". Standing on principles my ass.

The only thing I am happy about is how fast the cycle is operating these days ie how quickly mindlessly ambitious self important people who get propped up through pandering to the right clubhouse get discarded.

Thats a good thing.

It’s just too bad they keep getting recycled into the clubhouse. If investors really wanted to stop propping up mindlessly ambitious self important people, they need to stop giving them money and maybe look for entrepreneurs who actually know what they are doing.

>propping up mindlessly ambitious self important people

>look for entrepreneurs who actually know what they are doing

Um, with enough capital they usually make money either way and guess which kind are easiest to come by.

> I’ve met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler site should be managed

This is a lie, it’s just a question of whether or not he believes it or if he’s just saying what he needs to say to land another role. Parler moderated all kinds of people off the platform for a variety of reasons, including political speech. Anything they said to the contrary was no more than PR puffery, not reality.

> our societies need tools that can survive popular histrionics. Getting owned by some sanctimonious prick at Amazon is not pro level play.

Seems like banning communities that led directly to an insurrection in congress should be one of those tools, no? I mean, that part was a bit more than just "histrionics" by "sanctimonious pricks".

I know you won't buy this because of the environment that we find ourselves in, but I assure you that those of us on the left care JUST AS MUCH about civil liberties and free speech as you do. We do. I swear it.

We just don't think that forum moderation is really that much an infringement on them (I mean, you're posting this on a heavily moderated forum right now). And we're less willing to forgive or excuse the spillovers from speech into action that we've seen.

No one who posted on Parler should be denied a voice on other forums. They just need to do so in places where they can't get away with calling for real violence.

A large amount of insurrection planning was performed in Facebook groups.

If you're going to apply a standard, at least apply it fairly.

Those groups all got closed, so far as I know, many of them long before the 6th. Do you have specific one's you're worrying about? It's fair to argue that Facebook should have done more, or did the wrong thing, but they were pretty transparently trying to clean things up at least. Parler wasn't banned retroactively as punishment, they were banned because they were continuing to do no meaningful moderation even days after the attack.

So, the path to success for Parler would have been:

Step 1: Hire huge moderation team.

Step 2: Write draconian terms of service that incorporated every possible offensive thing that any vendor might object to.

Step 3: Build an app that explodes with all the users that are delighted with the moderation.

Step 4: Profit!

That's not how Facebook and Twitter ("the free speech wing of the free speech party") were launched, but maybe those wouldn't ever have been able to launch today anyway.

> Step 2: Write draconian terms of service that incorporated every possible offensive thing that any vendor might object to.

No, just violent rhetoric associated with a real world violent movement. I don't understand why that keeps not registering in these discussions.

I mean, even accepting your frame that we leftists have infested Big Tech and want nothing but to censor our political enemies: they've had years and years to do it, and didn't. And only when it got to the point where congress was actually attacked that a site had to be shut down. And it was just one site, and its users just moved on to Gab and such.

I mean really, if conservatives are so terribly censored... how is it you guys are so loud about it?

> And it was just one site, and its users just moved on to Gab and such.

Is this intentionally ironic? Or did you not actually know that Gab was completely deplatformed in exactly the same way, and it almost killed them by knocking them offline for months, just when they hit a big growth curve. Interesting, actually, that the timing was so similar, as well as some of the same players.

The problem is that twitter and Facebook already exist and do their jobs well enough and have moderation

Any parler type thing is only ever going to get the worst of the worst of possible users. The folks who get kicked off Facebook and Twitter aren't the people you want to build a business on

> kicked off Facebook and Twitter aren't the people you want to build a business on

They could have if they went with a provider located in another more conservative country. Or long-shot self hosted.

Not supporting Parler however, it deserves it's rightful place in the embers of eternal hell for negligently failing to protect & secure sensitive user data.

That is asserting unsettled matters of fact.

Twitter's moderation has become partisan enough that it might be desirable to build a business on people they have kicked off. Notably Trump - while he was supremely unpopular on the left, opinion polling suggests he is leaving a more popular legacy than, eg, George W Bush. Maybe even George H.W. Bush. That is a pretty decent foundation for a business.

> Twitter's moderation has become partisan enough

That's also an unsettled assertion. Especially when talking about kicking off Trump, since they had been letting him break the rules for years. Removing his exemption is arguably a reduction in partisan bias.

That is a particularly difficult argument to make - Twitter put out a statement [0] when they banned him. They do not mention 'breaking the rules for years'. They take a surreal and incoherent view that "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." is an incitement of violence.

Siding with a political majority is a safe strategy; but that statement is pretty much indefensible. Even if you believe they had grounds for the ban based on a history, their actual reasoning is different from your justification.

Nonpartisan moderation would involve, at some level, quotes or instances where Trump said something objectionable.

[0] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

I don't think the statement reflects their full reasoning when you consider the context of how they had been putting out other statements about why they weren't banning him.

I'd argue the insurrection narrative is as much of a farce as Kim Jong Il hitting 11 hole-in-one strokes on a golf course, because if you voice doubt about the absurdity of the claim, it marks you as a dangerous subversive. Everybody knows it, and they're just too afraid to say so because they're worried they will get put on a list. Some conspicuously unarmed people trespassed and even managed to bring camera crews.

Tech companies make these grand unctuous gestures because it distracts from how awful they know they already are. Everybody knows. The Parler CEO failed to create an alternative platform because he thought he could bargain with people who are not only not-above mendacity and deception, but it is their stock in trade. He's just a coach who lost in the play-offs due to unforced errors.

Sympathizing with people trying to literally block the constitutional duty of congress engaging in carrying out the most fundamental aspect of a democracy?

Smh

How do you think coups work?

Look into the history of Greek city states. A mob of civilians storming the chambers of government is quite literally how tyrants have installed themselves.

Some of those tyrants had to try multiple times, before the last attempt succeeded. They generally follow up by killing their political rivals, because people who come to power through violence rarely turn around and adopt a policy of pacifism.

There was no real threat to democracy here. It's not like the police and military are going to take commands from some nutjob cosplayer just because they're wielding Nancy Pelosi's lectern.

Not the mob directly, but a wicked power struggle could have ensued if they'd, say, succeeded in hanging Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi. For instance, martial law could have been declared, or an alt-right paramilitary could have formed, or the Federal government could have reacted so strongly that states defy orders and rulings. Probably the most realistic worry would be that political violence and domestic terrorism become normalized.

It really did make the US government seem far more fragile than I even expected.

I want to remind you that the military are supposed to take orders from their commander in chief - who, on January 6th, was Donald Trump.

Neither January 6th, nor in Athens would a mob rush the chambers of government to install God-King Billy Rando, who nobody has heard of. Coups only work when the person benefiting from them already has a large amount of civilian and political, and sometimes, but not always, military support behind him - but not large enough to win power through legitimate means.

Suppose that the mob compelled congress to affirm Trump as the winner. Do you really think the 'police' (Which police force? Would they have jurisdiction? Who'd be giving them this order? Nancy Pelosi does not give police forces orders...) would have headed to Pennsylvania avenue to arrest Trump? What if the part of the military that is supposed to put down civilian coups (Which part is that, by the way?) decided to sit this one out?

At best, events would escalate into an actual, successful coup.

> I want to remind you that the military are supposed to take orders from their commander in chief

The military (at least here in the US) swears allegiance to the Constitution, not the president. And they were very clear about broadcasting that the military was not going to interfere in domestic politics.

They don't take orders from a piece of paper, they take orders from the president.

If the sitting president were affirmed by congress, they would have to continue taking orders from him.

Militaries not interfering in domestic politics is one way that coups can succeed. They stand on the side lines, let the power struggle happen, and then take direction from the winner.

You seem to think that it would be obvious to everyone who the winner would be, regardless of what would happen. You are ignoring a very loud, heavily armed, rather large part of the population (both in the streets, and in congress) to whom it was obvious that Trump was the legitimate winner.

On January 6 it was fully obvious to everyone with any authority who the winner of the election was. All the states had certified their results. There was zero chance that this "insurrection" was going to accomplish anything.

> There was no real threat to democracy here.

Killing elected officials going through the steps of a peaceful transition of power would have been "no real threat to democracy"?

> It's not like the police and military are going to take commands from some nutjob cosplayer just because they're wielding Nancy Pelosi's lectern.

Just because the USA would not instantaneously have become a dictatorship doesn't mean that there was no threat to democracy. Do you think Joe Biden would be president right now had they succeeded in storming the building (and had none of the officials been evacuated)?

> Killing elected officials going through the steps of a peaceful transition of power would have been "no real threat to democracy"?

Yes, that is absolutely correct. Even if the rioters got hold of some legislators (highly doubtful - the only one that got close got shot, and that was the end of that), it would not have changed anything material about our government. Our institutions are far, far stronger than that.

The only difference is that we'd be adding murder charges to the docket.

> Do you think Joe Biden would be president right now had they succeeded in storming the building (and had none of the officials been evacuated)?

Without question. This is a weird right-wing fantasy that somehow occupying a building is going to change government. It didn't even work in rural Oregon.

I mean, it was unlikely to work. But intimidating the legislature into abandoning the constitution (in this case, overturning the election) through violent action has a long, nasty history.

Possibly even more apropos is the example of Julius Caesar. In his first consulship his supporters were able to intimidate the other consul into silence, essentially making him a temporary dictator. Once he came back from Gaul, the senate gave him unprecedented honours because they were scared of his supporters, and he effectively started ruling as a dictator (once he got around to actually declaring himself dictator for life, some senators did assassinate him).

It's hard not to see this through that lens; terrify the legislative body enough, and they'll break the constitution for you (in Caesar's case, make you sole consul, sidelining the other properly elected consul, give you a highly unusual command in Gaul, then make you effective permeant dictator; in this case, overturn the election, for starters).

If you want to be hyper-pedantic, it's maybe not a coup; it wasn't the military. Nor was Caesar's first power grab, though (and arguably not the others either; Caesar's supporters were likely a more immediate personal threat to the senators than his army).

> Everybody knows it, and they're just too afraid to say so because they're worried they will get put on a list. Some conspicuously unarmed people trespassed and even managed to bring camera crews.

Can you spell out what exactly you are implying here? I don't feel included in the "everybody knows it".

Free legal speech usually stays online.

It will be deplatformed from mobile stores, but even Cloudflare protects the reincarnation of TheDonald (patriots.win).

Parler, OTOH, constantly had threats of harm to elected representatives, or just democrats in general.

Cloudflare even supports sites like thepiratebay if I recall correctly. It does make me respect them more and makes me happy to do business with them.

Piratebay is just hosting the magnet links, right? That's not infringing copyright IIRC.

Yes I believe they now only host magnet links. I believe they did used to have .torrent files. I am not sure if .torrent files actually make a huge difference in copyright though do they? Aren't they still almost the same as a magnet link just essentially a different format?

I believe they switched to only magnet links as it made it easier for them to be mirrored and switch around providers to hide from authorities without having to worry about all those files. Also most people likely use magnet links anyway.

They used to run a large tracker in the past which facilitated the exchange of copyrighted material. iirc they don't do that any longer, as a result of their legal turmoils.

CloudFlare has supported sites with child pornography (8chan) and neo-Nazis.

except when they don’t!!! they have banned legal but distasteful sites before.

even??

Is tpb somehow worse than the other sites mentioned?

TPB has been subject to a decade or more of direct actions by more than one government. Their resilience is fairly impressive.

as always, spot on.

>> Parler positioned itself as less radical than Gab .. How can 4chan, Gab, and the even darker parts of the internet manage to persist online

Some of it has do with the fact that when it comes to political speech you can not be moderate.

if you do you fall lock step in with one of the extreme's you painted by both extremes as the other...

For example many times, in the same conversation or talking about the same topic with different groups I have been called a Socialist, Commie, Nazi White Supremacist, racist, etc...

Political extremism seems to be the only political conversation left on the internet, this goes for both the "left" and the "right"

You might consider the idea that Parler 'positioned' itself and was not in the least what it claimed itself to be.

Some folks lie. Some platforms lie. If 'I promise I don't want to kill you' becomes the logical Kryptonite to get you out of any sort of jam, then it becomes nothing more than an exploit useful to people who want to kill you. All they have to do is say, 'no, you see, I'm telling you I don't and so you have to believe me' and then kill you, because they were lying.

Law is based on the idea that people can intend all these negative things and then lie about them and then go through a process to be held accountable: it's never about just taking people at their word.

Parler's just what AWS thought it was. Anyone trying really hard to obfuscate that is probably Parler-like themselves.

>>Anyone trying really hard to obfuscate that is probably Parler-like themselves.

Thank you for proving my point.... If I do not agree with you then clearly I am alt-right extremist..

Sigh... there really is not point discussing politics in a rational way anymore. This is how extremism persists.

Ya know, if that's the banner you want to march under… then so be it.

Nazis lie, and especially love to argue that 'oh, if you don't take me at face value and accept my word then that means I'm a nazi! You know you are just FORCING me to be a nazi, right? You're the real nazi, and when the revolution comes I won't be a bit sorry to gas you, because you're a MEANIE!'

So, is that what you are, or not? :) How not alt-right extremist are you, and can you prove it in any way, or is your only (rapidly provided!) argument 'you're doubting my word, and that means you're the real extremist and there's no point talking to you because you're the real extremist and everybody else should shun you, you irrational person!'

Is that not what you are? You're explicitly making that argument. I'm asserting that is a tainted argument and doubling down that I mistrust your arguments because this is how you're making them.

No both of your comments are akin to Running up to someone and say "So when are you going to to stop beating your child"

There is little point to engaging since you have me already threatening to gas you for some reason if I at all support a platform like Parler being allowed to even exist.

I am sure you also take the "Hate Speech is not Free Speech" point of view when it comes to free speech protections, so any debate we have the subject will not go well since you will simply continue with Ad hominem's and there will be nothing of substantive value

For the record, I am left-libertarian or geo-libertarian that support free speech absolutism, though i am sure you do not care much about my actual world view.