Comments

1

"Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly..."

2

Parlor has finally moved their DNS off of AWS onto their hosting provider Epik. So I wouldn't count on them just dying and going away.

3

“We said businesses should be able to kick out all the homos, not US!!!

—Republinazis everywhere

Also: “Let the Market decide!!!”

Followed by: “Censorship!!!”

These fuckfaces are so stupid, they don’t even know what they’re pissing and screaming.

5

I concur, let's gloat whilst we can
til the next unbalanced Billionaire
decides to really Fund 'em -- with all sorts
of Goodies. the far right Lunacy's finally Here.

this is when Leaders SHINE
let's see who Steps Up
and who steps down.

"... Parler users were calling for the bombing of Amazon facilities."

wow. we want you to
publish our shit that tells
others to Bomb you. how
DARE you take us down?!

FREE SPEECH!
AMERICAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.............

[also it's 'whattabouty']

6

"A prosecutor simply couldn’t ask for a more self-incriminating gift box."

If Parler indeed made it easier for the feds to nail more of last week's planners and participants on charges of Seditious conspiracy (18 U.S. Code § 2384, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384), then Parler actually may have provided a public service. Now, anyone remaining at Parler -- after the feds haul the conspirators away for twenty daylight-free years in supermax' -- can start paying the plaintiffs in the upcoming wrongful death and injury lawsuits.

8

I'm showing my age, but isn't Crash Override a reference to the 1995 movie "Hackers?" Or has this snake eaten its own tail so thoroughly that the original reference functionally ceased existing?

9

I gotta say this about Bezos, by buying the Washington Post or giving Parler the boot he has put a target on his back in a way that Gates never did.
I realize he probably had very little to do with this decision, but certainly he had some veto power.
Can't say I like what he's done to my home town but he isn't the worst of the billionaires, not by a long shot.

10

@7:

Well, it does make sense if you recognize the simple reality that the Right in this country is only concerned with what benefits the Right, and that anything or anyone that doesn't accept unquestioning loyalty and obeisance to that precept represents an existential threat that must be nullified. It doesn't matter to them whether the person, company or institution was on their side just a few minutes ago; every action they take is predicated on the imperative of "what are you doing for my benefit right now?" It's a mind-set born of desperation and paranoia, fueled by a white male patriarchism that believes it is entitled to hold the reins of power in perpetuity; and that will justify any action, regardless of its moral or legal paucity, if they see that slipping away - which of course they do.

11

Funeral Parler

12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIFLtNYI3Ls

13

The lawsuit is weak. Reading it is almost comical. It’s not Rudy/Sydney bad but still pretty weak. The gist is it’s AWS fault they can’t find a new host and some bonkers conspiracy that AWS kicked them off because they had a relationship with Twitter. With zero evidence.

The leak of the data is hi-larious. The API was open in a way where if you crafted a URL in the proper format with a user number you got that index returned.

14

7 and #10 - Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition 
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

15

Considering Parler's close ties to Russia, I wouldn't be surprised if the site was built that way intentionally, as a kompromat engine.

@8: Yeah, that was my thought. And Matt admitted to being over 40 in the Slog AM post, so there's really no excuse for him to have not seen that classic. Who can resist Matthew Lillard at his most manic?

17

"Suddenly the far right wants Section 230 and other laws be imposed that will crush speech and allow for MORE government control."

I'm not sure I understand this statement. Both parties have been working to gut section 230 for different authoritarian reasons. What do you mean by "imposed"?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml

18

@10: You seem to suggest self serving political ideology is a one party thing. That must be emotionally satisfying for you.

I have no experience with Parler, but according to this article they ended up on Parler because they felt their political speech was limited on Twitter. That is generally the way people explain the need to listen to voices they don't agree with.

The same self isolating Parler crowd that lead to unconfirmed threats to bomb Amazon and a confirmed attack on the Capital also lead to self isolating police violently attacking peaceful protesters as a mortal threat to their paranoid world view.

As a society we seem to have decided there is more to fear from speech than violence. The result of 3 private companies shutting down Parler to please those currently in power will be a more self isolating tech platform where their ideas can grow both more crazy and violent.

The prison unions must be thrilled.

19

@18: The "political speech" they felt was being limited was things like calling for the rape and murder of the families of libs in front of them so that they would see their blood line die in agony before being murdered themselves. Or you know planning a coup, that sort of "political speech"

20

@18: Ah yes, they are killing and eating babies too. I hear people on Parler regularly kill the babies of liberals so they can drink their blood as part of a religious ritual........ Sorry, wrong moral panic. That was medieval Christian propoganda against the Jews just prior to the pograms. Boy, amazing how all the imagery runs together, isn't it?

You should read WWI propoganda about the Germans cutting the breasts off nurses and placing French babies on Pikes in public while laughing about it. I bet you would love that stuff. They have a great display of it at the Smithsonian propaganda museum. Totally bogus, of course, but it sure got the blood pumping and got us into the war.

I was unfamiliar with Parler until they were shut down, so I'm just reading up on it now. Parler had mods and a TOS against the very things you mentioned above and moderators would delete anything like that. It's also worth noting that experts found far more examples of child porn on Facebook and Twitter than they ever found on Parler, although that might be a function of it's smaller size.

Amazon stated some people planned bomb threats against Amazon. I have not seen anything credible about the other stuff you mentioned, although it is oddly similar to the type of propoganda we have been seeing against "the other" since Roman times.

Anyone plotting a bomb attack should be banned and reported to the police, which is how twitter, Facebook and yes, Parler handled such things. That's different than shutting down an entire platform with over 8 million users because someone posted something illegal before it was deleted.

It appears Twitter, Youtube and Facebook were used to plot the recent attack on the Capital. None of those who attacked the Capital had a Parler account, but they did have Twitter and Facebook accounts. Is it time to shut down those platforms too?

The leaders of Mexico, Germany, and France have all condemned the shutdown of Parler by a handful of tech giants. Of course, those countries have a long history of protected speech we really don't have here in the US. We really don't need free speech because we know were are always right. That is certainly the argument Slave holders made until 1861.

The problem with authoritarians is that they never think they are authoritarians. They think they are on the side of the good and the other side is so evil they deserved to be hurt. As a friend reminded me recently, during the Inquisition the Inquisitors thought they were the good guys. Yes they tortured the body, but only because they wanted to save the far more important soul.

It's also worth remembering the 1st amendment is simply a floor and while many State Constitutions have trouble even honoring that, some States actually have enhanced 1st amendment protections such as Oregon, obviously a real hotbed of right wing fanatics.

The entire article is worth reading:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMjMwMTM1NCwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzEyODU2OTcsIl8iOiJLWXljKyIsImlhdCI6MTYxMDQ4NDY1OSwiZXhwIjoxNjEwNDg4MjU5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTI4NjYyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.12Vt_x_HYzM8MvJQVwiLU5lxCmpCMJe7rLuPCtkbiys

"Indeed, a Parler executive told me that of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler. The Capitol breach was planned far more on Facebook and YouTube. As Recode reported, while some protesters participated in both Parler and Gab, many of the calls to attend the Capitol were from YouTube videos, while many of the key planners “have continued to use mainstream platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.” The article quoted Fadi Quran, campaign director at the human rights group Avaaz, as saying: “In DC, we saw QAnon conspiracists and other militias that would never have grown to this size without being turbo-charged by Facebook and Twitter.”

21

Is Big Tech Too Powerful? Chris Hedges & Ramesh
Srinivasan Debate Twitter & Facebook Banning Trump

Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies have removed President Trump from their platforms, after years of debate about the disinformation he shared to millions of followers from his accounts.

While many are applauding the bans, author Chris Hedges warns they could backfire. “To allow these companies to essentially function as de facto platforms for censorship and manipulation 
 harkens back to the way civil liberties were eviscerated in the wake of 9/11,” says Hedges. “It’s always, in the end, the left that pays for this kind of censorship.”

We also speak with UCLA professor Ramesh Srinivasan, director of the Digital Cultures Lab, who says Big Tech allowed right-wing extremism to flourish for years before acting and that lawmakers need to enact robust regulation.

“All of these technology platforms, powered by their hidden algorithms that are indeed opaque, thrive on the amplification of polarization,” says Srinivasan. “It is incredible how much power we have given to a very small number of people who are essentially mediating pretty much every aspect of our lives.”

tons more @:

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/11/big_tech_response_capitol_insurrection

22

@21 - Thank you for mentioning Chris Hedges' name in the first line so I knew ahead of time not to take your post seriously.

23

@22 -- no worries!
now if in the Future you'll
notice the Avatar you can save
Every one Oodles of time! da nada.

I understand your Disgust with Hedges.

he's been on the side of the Poor and downtrodden
for fifty years as far as I know. here's a teeny lil' review of one of his books
from Amazon: Two years ago, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement.

They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit.

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels.

The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire.

It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay.

It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

$15.59 @

https://www.amazon.com/Days-Destruction-Revolt-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568588240

he signed my Goodwill copy -- have you read it? (not mine, silly) there's plenty a' illustrations, if that's any issue, UAO. and if I know Hedges, he'll have it in Braille.

or, otoh I could let you have
mine for a Donation of say
two K?

Let me know!

by the way
when you shoot the messenger like ya did @22
is That what they call the ‘Cancel Culture’?
Asking, for a friend.

24

here's another review, this one from the nyt where Hedges used to work! He quit when they wouldn't let him speak Truth to . . . Whomever. the review:

The Other America

This book is a collaboration between Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco, showing us daily life in four centers of 21st-century American poverty. Hedges’ contribution — a combination of reportage and commentary — is in a long tradition of literary journalism. Sacco’s is the sort of graphic art popularized by Art Spiegelman in “Maus.”

Both writers have decades of experience as correspondents in war zones, but in “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” they turn their attention to the bombed-out and collapsed areas of their own country.

Sacco’s sections are uniformly brilliant. The tone is controlled, the writing smart, the narration neutral; we are allowed to draw our own conclusions.

Hedges sees this book as a call to revolution [which is why I LOVE him], and as with most works in which the author’s philosophical and political beliefs are aired in an unfiltered manner, a lot of what you appreciate about Hedges’ writing will depend on how closely you identify with his politics.

By Philipp Meyer
Aug. 17, 2012

oh, and you missed this from @21:

“All of these technology platforms, powered by their hidden algorithms that are indeed opaque, thrive on the amplification of polarization,” says Srinivasan. “It is incredible how much power we have given to a very small number of people who are essentially mediating pretty much every aspect of our lives.”

you for it?

25

@22: "Thank you for mentioning Chris Hedges' name in the first line so I knew ahead of time not to take your post seriously."

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Eleanor Roosevelt


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