Parler Shutdown

[Ondrej]

After the US capital protest/riot the Twitter alternative, Parler, was removed from the Apple and Google play store followed by suspension of hosting from Amazon servers. Parler has basically been erased from the internet overnight.

Let us assume that those running Google, Apple, and Amazon are not idiots. That those who have made this decision have done so with careful consideration.

What are they thinking?

[Barney]

Having never been the CEO of a big company, I can't say for sure. But I can see two possible motivations:

1. They think that many customers will stop using their services out of protest, if they don't remove Parler. This is the financial motivation. They don't want to be seen to endorse a platform that purportedly led to violence. So they side with the moral principles of the majority of people using their services.
2. They believe that Parler was a partial cause of the violence, and they want to remove the cause to prevent more violence. This is the moral motivation. They know they will lose money through this decision, but they made it anyway because they can afford to, and because they do not only care about making money, but about making money only in ways that do not trigger violence.

But I have to say I'm a bit out of my depth here. I have never been on Parler so I've no idea what kind of conversations went on there. But I've also never heard anyone talking about Parler. I only learnt what it was a few weeks ago when listening to a podcast about the election. So I'm not really involved in the conflict and don't understand the positions of either side.

[William]

There are two principal reasons that big tech pulled the Parler app:

1) As a basic matter of contract law the platforms reserve the right to cease hosting an application without notice or cause. Here is a sample from the Amazon App store's Term and Conditions (This is from the consumer side because I couldn't find the developer side quickly),

"3.4 Compliance with Law and Reservation of Rights.
You will use Apps in compliance with all applicable laws, including all export and re-export restrictions and regulations of the Department of Commerce and other United States agencies and authorities that may apply to any App. We reserve the right to change, remove, suspend, or disable any App without notice or liability."

This is pretty standard stuff which includes the terms and conditions of this particular platform here at Trioandfriends which reads:

By accessing “Trio and Friends” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “Trio and Friends”, “http://trioandfriends.com”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then please do not access and/or use “Trio and Friends”. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “Trio and Friends” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended [...] You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “Trio and Friends” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us."

The fact of the matter is that there is a contractual obligation upon both the developers and the users of programs to follow all applicable laws. In the case of Parler, the evidence suggests, particularly regarding the capital event, that the application was being used to orchestrate and enact illegal activities, and thus big tech was justified in wielding its contractual rights to suspend support for the program.


2) Technology law is rapidly evolving and while for the time being, big tech has managed to reserve immunity for itself from liability for most of the content that occurs on the platforms that is not likely to remain the case. For example, Facebook is not currently liable for defamation that is posted on its site despite the fact that a newspaper is definitely liable for defamation that is published on its pages. So big tech has managed to find this sweet spot of operating, where it gets to wield editorial power over content (via contract law) without the liability exposure of editorial responsibility that other media companies bear.

It is undeniably within the interest of big tech to keep this arrangement. (that's one of the reasons they put the illegal activity clauses in their terms and conditions) But, politically they must be cautious. If they find themselves on the wrong side of the political tides they will lose this liability protection and find themselves complicit in criminal behavior. In the end, they will lose money and incur great risk. Thus, there are business interests in play to make sure they at least make an appearance of being good citizens in the community.

[Barney]

Oh, look at that:

ucp.php?mode=terms

I hadn't seen that. Must've been automatically created when I set the name of the forum.

[Ondrej]

There are two principal reasons that big tech pulled the Parler app:

1) As a basic matter of contract law the platforms reserve the right to cease hosting...

This does not explain why they did it, just that they were within their legal rights to do so. I don't know if Amazon hosts twitter but I'm sure if they wanted to they could find some unsightly content there and also be perfectly within their legal rights to suspend twitter as well. Has there never been an objectionable post on facebook? Reddit? Tumblr?

By accessing “Trio and Friends” (hereinafter ...

I did notice that. It is sufficiently harshly worded that I would not have agreed to the terms except that Barney set it up.

2) Technology law is rapidly evolving and while for the time being, big tech has managed to reserve immunity for itself from liability for most of the content that occurs on the platforms...

Again, this assumes we already know why Parler was banned to a large extent. The irony is that big tech doesn't want their freedoms curtailed by big government so they will curtail the same freedoms they enjoy. Parler is treated as a publisher and is held responsible for their users posts.

They think that many customers will stop using their services out of protest, if they don't remove Parler. This is the financial motivation. They don't want to be seen to endorse a platform that purportedly led to violence. So they side with the moral principles of the majority of people using their services.

Was there a big push to remove Parler? Were there examples of any (much less many) customers quitting using Amazon, Google, or Apple because of Parler? I can hardly imagine that this was the case. And why Parler, why not "hateful content" or "enticement to violence"?

They believe that Parler was a partial cause of the violence, and they want to remove the cause to prevent more violence. This is the moral motivation. They know they will lose money through this decision, but they made it anyway because they can afford to, and because they do not only care about making money, but about making money only in ways that do not trigger violence.

In your first point you insinuated that they would prevent loss of money. But in this statement you say they know they will lose money. I don't see how those two square, but also I don't think money was a prime motivator so I'm not super interested in diving deep on that front.

So far the only reason that appears to be motivating their actions is that Parler, at least in part, was somehow responsible for the capital protest/riot. If that is the case, then one would expect that those arrested at the protest would have been using Parler. It looks, so far, like this is not true https://www.infobae.com/en/2021/01/13/p ... itol-riot/ We might be willing to excuse Amazon... but why? On what grounds? On the grounds that we too feel like Parler had something to do with it. Didn't it? Let's find out. So now we will go through with a fine tooth comb and find out what Parler did wrong (after the fact).

But... It still doesn't explain it. We are trying to find evidence after the fact. That is not what Google, Apple, and Amazon were going on. They made the decision already. Based on what they already knew. I'm fairly certain Tim Cook did not sign up for Parler and read thousands of post to come up with an opinion. He had an opinion already. Where did it come from?

[Barney]

In your first point you insinuated that they would prevent loss of money. But in this statement you say they know they will lose money. I don't see how those two square

They don't. I was just throwing out random guesses as to why they would do it. As I said, I don't have a dog in this fight and I know very little about either side of it.

[Ondrej]

But... It still doesn't explain it. We are trying to find evidence after the fact. That is not what Google, Apple, and Amazon were going on. They made the decision already. Based on what they already knew. I'm fairly certain Tim Cook did not sign up for Parler and read thousands of post to come up with an opinion. He had an opinion already. Where did it come from?

This didn't go anywhere so I want to provide the answer. I think it came from the media portrayal of Parler.