That’s quite the straw man. We should separate an issue of moderation and actual motives of the platform itself.
Did the platform have algorithms to make pro-capital storming posts ascend higher than other equally engaged posts?
Did the owner/company make a call to violence?
Did their platform spike in popularity in such a short time frame, they were unable to moderate to the same degree as other platforms? (Even Google struggles with YT moderation, though I understand the volume of content is widely different)
It’s obvious there exist political ties to this. Sure, have Parler respond to a congressional hearing just as other tech companies have had to do. But removing them from all these services overnight, albeit technically legal (so far), reeks of anti trust.
No matter political affiliation, the antitrust precedent set, if unpunished, will pave the way for greater censorship.
This seems like a similar level to price fixing - multiple companies, competing even, coordinating to cancel competition.
This is a new issue we have in the digital age. It should be handled in the Supreme Court.
If clients or customers bring bad publicity to a company they can refuse them service. They can in fact refuse service for any reason that isn't discriminatory in many jurisdictions.
Censorship has nothing to do with this. Any person can host a website from home, pay for a dedicated line, build their own datacenter, find a colo, host on a decentralised network, etc.
Amazon is under no obligation to provide service to Parler. They are not censored by Amazon refusing them as customers.
It's also not relevant to antitrust, literally at all.
A far more dangerous precedent would be compelling companies to provide service to hate groups and terrorists.
Parler wasn’t deleted because of public pressure alone. It was deleted because of AWS customers that threatened to leave. Last thing large enterprise customers want is to be caught up in is a controversy. Amazon made a business decision. No tech executive wants to explain to their CEO that they got boycotted due to a tech vendor choice. If AWs didn’t kick off Parler, the boycott of AWS based customers was coming.
> We should separate an issue of moderation and actual motives of the platform itself
Why though? On some level in seems impossible to make a distinction "from the outside," and I'm not sure it should matter that a decision was made by a person (probably following an Excel spreadsheet) or software.
Did the platform have algorithms to make pro-capital storming posts ascend higher than other equally engaged posts?
Did the owner/company make a call to violence?
Did their platform spike in popularity in such a short time frame, they were unable to moderate to the same degree as other platforms? (Even Google struggles with YT moderation, though I understand the volume of content is widely different)
It’s obvious there exist political ties to this. Sure, have Parler respond to a congressional hearing just as other tech companies have had to do. But removing them from all these services overnight, albeit technically legal (so far), reeks of anti trust.
No matter political affiliation, the antitrust precedent set, if unpunished, will pave the way for greater censorship.
This seems like a similar level to price fixing - multiple companies, competing even, coordinating to cancel competition.
This is a new issue we have in the digital age. It should be handled in the Supreme Court.