Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service
How can anyone be ok with any of this? OUR( All Americans, rt and left) Constitutional rights are in serious jeapordy.
Big Tech is growing to be inherently evil in my opinion.
This isn't a 1st amendment constitutional issue. Free speech was not banned by the government.
I don't disagree that many big tech companies have too much power as authoritarian overloads that control the flow of information. They are arguably more powerful than the government in many regards. So their ability to censor information could be even more dangerous. There could be many legal issues. But still not a first amendment issue.
Private companies have decided to withhold their platforms for certain types of speech that violate its TOS. Individuals still have a constitutionally-protected right to free speech but not a right to use every available platform to share it.
Now if the government forced companies to remove protected speech against its will OR forced companies to publish certain speech against its will, that would be more problematic.
Questions that could reframe the discussion: Could Democrats be using the threat of anti-monopoly legislation to influence big tech behavior now that they are assuming power? Did Republicans do the same during the last four years when they were largely in power?
The Parler case is more troubling to me because AWS kicked it off the service - which effectively shut down its business in the short term. Sure Amazon may be legally justified if they can successfully argue Parler violated its TOS.
However, since Amazon singlehandedly controls most of the internet backbone, the highlights a lot of problems. This greatly restricts options for many companies.
Many argue that its AWS business should be treated as a public utility service - basically the government should control it. That's just not a very conservative, capitalistic friendly position.
Ironically, AWS cutting off Parler might now have happened if Trump didn't end Obama's net neutrality policies.
I read something about Parler suing -- I can't immediately find the article -- alleging Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter colluded to stifle competition while in discussions with Democrats. This could be a very interesting legal show down on monopolistic practices and free speech. I suspect it will be very well-funded and have a lot more substance than the laughable election fraud cases.
Of course, conservatives are particularly outraged at the possibility that Democrats are interfering in a 1st amendment free speech issue.
But they were largely silent during the four years that Trump and top Republicans interfered with 1st amendment freedom of the press issue. Ya know, the "enemy of the people" thing...
