Parler's Found A New Host (And A New CEO)... For Now
from the ah-look-at-that dept
On Monday Parler announced to the world that it was back with a new host (and a new interim CEO after the board fired founder and CEO John Matze a few weeks ago). The "board" is controlled by the (until recently, secret) other founder: Rebekah Mercer, who famously also funded Cambridge Analytica, a company built upon sucking up social media data and using it to influence elections. When Matze was fired, he told Reuters that the company was being run by two people since he'd been removed: Matthew Richardson and Mark Meckler.
Richardson has many ties to the Mercers, and was associated with Cambridge Analytica and the Brexit effort. Meckler was, for a few years, considered one of the founding players and leading spokespeople for the "Tea Party" movement in the US, before splitting with that group and pushing for a new Constitutional Convention (at times in a "strange bedfellows" way with Larry Lessig). With the news on Monday that Parler was back up (sort of), it was also announced that Meckler had taken over as interim CEO.
Given the role of Meckler, Richardson, and Mercer, you can bet that the site is still pushing to be the Trumpiest of social media sites. As for who is actually the new hosting firm, there's been some confusion in the press. The twitter account @donk_enby, who famously scraped and archived most of the older Parler before it was shut down by Amazon last month, originally said Parler's new hosting firm was CloudRoute, who it appears may just be a Microsoft Azure reseller of some kind. In a later tweet, @donk_enby mentions that another firm, SkySilik, seems to share an IP space with CloudRoute, perhaps renting IP addresses from CloudRoute.
A few hours later, SkySilk admitted to being the new hosting company and put out a weird statement that suggests a somewhat naive team who had no idea what they were getting into:
SkySilk, a Web infrastructure company based outside of Los Angeles, is now hosting Parler, SkySilk's chief executive, Kevin Matossian, confirmed to NPR.
"SkySilk is well aware that Parler has received an aggressive response from those who believe their platform has been used as a safe haven for some bad actors," Matossian said in a statement. "Let me be clear, Skysilk does not advocate nor condone hate, rather, it advocates the right to private judgment and rejects the role of being the judge, jury, and executioner."
He said while the company many disagree with some of Parler's content, he believes the company is taking "necessary steps" to monitor its platform.
"Once again, this is not a matter of SkySilk endorsing the message, but rather, the right of the messenger to deliver it. SkySilk will support Parler in their efforts to be a nonpartisan Public Square as we are convinced this is the only appropriate course of action," he said in a statement.
Nonpartisan, eh? Remember, Parler has a long history of taking down "leftist" accounts and bragging about it. Bizarrely, SkySilk's CEO is... also a Hollywood film producer.
Separately, it appears that the new Parler is not using the Russian service "DDoSGuard" for DDoS protection. It had been using it for some time while it had a placeholder page up, but that appears to no longer be the case.
Reports, including the NPR report linked here, note that the new Parler says that it will moderate content, using "an algorithm and human moderators" to take down content "that threatens or incites violence." It also promises that there will be an appeals process for moderated content. The moderation will also include a "trolling filter" that will apparently hide, but not remove, "content that attacks someone based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion." People who wish to view such content can do so by clicking through.
All of the old content appears to have been wiped out, though the old accounts remain. There are also lots of reports claiming that the site is struggling to stay up (indeed, as I type this it appears to be down again).
This certainly seems somewhat shaky, at best, and it will be fun to watch and see if a random "cloud hosting" firm, run by a small time Hollywood producer, that almost no one has heard of, can actually handle this kind of traffic and attention.
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Filed Under: content moderation, hosting, john matze, kevin matossian, mark meckler, matthew richardson, social media
Companies: parler, skysilk
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From Ars Technica...
"CloudRoute is described by Scamalytics as "a potentially high fraud risk ISP," with about 56 percent of traffic from the ISP "suspected to be potentially fraudulent." We contacted CloudRoute and SkySilk today and will update this article if we get any response."
SkySilk - Bringing scammers and scum together to consolidate evil to a new level!
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Sounds like American politics, then.
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Re:
No wonder they were interested in hosting Parler, sounds like a match made in hell.
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Any bets on how much longer it lasts now? I’d wager a few bucks on “two years at most”.
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I expect it will have some hiccups but should putt along. It will probably get even more extreme though.. It kinda sounds like you are going to have to be pretty dedicated to stick with it through all the hassles. I'm sure there are enough who are that dedicated (or got booted off twitter for their ahem.. views) to keep them around though
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It all depends on who is going to be funding them long-term. If there's a profit motive, that angle is going to be dead pretty soon. The kinds of extremists these places attract are easy marks for quick grifts but not really reliable for long-term income. They don't tend to grow any mainstream traction, and thus growth, for obvious reasons.
However, if the people behind it (the wealthy Mercers, and others) really are true believers themselves, they can go on indefinitely.
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The profit could just come for ads for AK 47s and explosives..
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Big Time
Looks like a relatively small company just found a shortcut to enter the big leagues. What I'm more interested what steps Parler has taken to prevent the Cancel Culture from shutting it down again. If Parler is smart, they will have a much stronger contract this time. That's the kind of "traffic and attention" the hosting company has to worry about: what happens when the woke mob comes looking to censor someone?
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Re: Big Time
" What I'm more interested what steps Parler has taken to prevent the Cancel Culture from shutting it down again."
Cancel Culture is built into Paler.
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Please define this phrase.
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It means not putting up with people being assholes.
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Ooh, ooh, I know that one! It's another way of describing the mysterious and totally unfair phenomenon of applying consequences for being an asshole, especially if the person being so persecuted has money/power/fame.
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It's a popular opinion, sure. But I have a more specific definition for "cancel culture": where people pressure uninvolved third parties with the consequences for someone's speech.
For instance, complaining to a company that their media manager called someone a [racial slur], that's fair game. The speech is part of their job.
But if the person happens to be a janitor at that company, and took pains to eg anonymize their twitter account, then getting them fired for being an asshole is itself an asshole move.
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But if the person happens to be a janitor at that company, and took pains to eg anonymize their twitter account, then getting them fired for being an asshole is itself an asshole move.
Except it's not. If a company doesn't want to employ racist losers(but I repeat myself) the fact that the loser in question wasn't loudly proclaiming their relationship with the company would not and should not shield them from consequences should someone point out to the company that it seems their janitor is a racist douchebag and is acting as such online.
It's not an asshole move to call out an asshole, that's called 'applying consequences for your behavior', and if that seems unfair to any assholes the solution is really simple: Don't be an asshole, or if that's beyond their ability at the very least keep it to themselves.
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Well, I disagree that the consequences should be "you can hold no job anywhere, even one where you don't interact with people, and should just starve to death."
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The fictional person you seem to be talking about certainly has some strange positions, thankfully they don't seem to match any of the real positions anyone here has put forth.
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Here’s a question that none of the “fuck cancel culture” types never seem to want to answer: What should be done about a person who, by way of being an asshole in cyber- or meatspace, brings negative publicity to a business/corporation or proves that their continued presence in a workplace would make it a hostile work environment?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Well, I disagree that the consequences should be "you can hold no job anywhere, even one where you don't interact with people, and should just starve to death.""
Nobody's calling for those consequences, and you don't help your cause by making stuff up.
Besides, how bad does your fictional person mess up that even companies run by people who agree with his speech won't employ him?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Well, I disagree that the consequences should be "you can hold no job anywhere, even one where you don't interact with people, and should just starve to death.""
If you are such an unmitigated asshole no one wants to give you a job then that's on you. No one owes you a living. Except possibly in soviet russia, and it's frigging hilarious that the alt-right's cries against "cancel culture" keeps skirting actual marxism in their desperation for big government to step in and save them from the consequences of being douchebags.
The social contract is about reciprocity. You receive what you put in it. If you fail to extend tolerance of other people then no one owes such tolerance towards you either. At that point the only jobs open to you at all will indeed be the ones where the employer doesn't give a rats ass about who or what you are, and those jobs do tend not to pay very well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or in layman's terms: Shut the fuck up.
Thank you for proving, with such prompt evidence, the other AC's accusation of That One Guy being an asshole, That One Guy.
Although, I assume That One Guy will be completely shielded from the consequences of their speech. TechDirt is home to a bunch of assholes just like That One Guy after all. Assholes who cheer on the being an asshole when it's their side doing it to others they view as beneath themselves.
It says a lot more about That One Guy and others like them, that when Parlor finally did exactly what That One Guy said to do and "find someone willing to host their speech" That One Guy's, and others (Koby), response was: "How much public shaming / outrage will we need to do to get Parlor kicked off the Internet again?"
Despicable.
More proof you don't support the principle behind freedom of speech. You just give lip service to the idea that only the government can't censor. A corporation doing the exact same thing with the exact same consequences? That One Guy and others like them actively encourage it.
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The only real principle of the concept of “freedom of speech” is “the government can’t shut you up”. You’re not owed an audience or a platform. No one is obliged to give you one. And no one is legally, morally, or ethically required to take your pulled-from-your-ass opinions seriously (or treat them as valid) only because you expressed them.
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No, "the government can't shut you up" is the concept of the First Amendment.
The concept of freedom of speech is a much broader concept that says "sticks and stones may break my bones" and "the answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not thought policing" and "toughen up". It's what Americans used to stand for, but in the 2000s it became a sign that someone is a "transphobic bigot evil bad white supremacistizsist nazi waccciiiiiissssstttt."
You don't want it to be that, Stone, but that's what it is, Stone.
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"It's what Americans used to stand for"
Joseph McCarthy might like a word, as would Tipper Gore and all the nutbag Christians involved in the Satanic Panic, not to mention all the gays persecuted for daring to state they love someone of the same gender.
You're just butthurt because you're on the receiving end for once.
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"More proof you don't support the principle behind freedom of speech."
The principle behind freedom of speech is that the government can't block or censor your ability to speak. It says nothing about how other private citizens react to you.
Why do you people have to invent a fictional versions of your rights in order to speak on this issue? Is the truth not supporting your claims?
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'Free speech' is not shorthand for 'consequence-free speech'
It's strange how so many people don't seem to understand, or more likely refuse to accept due to it being devastating to their argument that freedom of speech has never included immunity from consequences for that speech outside of narrow exceptions like prohibitions against the government stepping in, nor has it included the right to a platform and audience of your choosing.
Freedom of speech may allow someone to be wildly racist or some other form of asshole but it is not in any way a violation of that free speech should others decide that they'd rather not be around or associate with the asshole, and outside of someone with a vested interest in the ability of people to be assholes unchecked this is really not a hard concept to grasp.
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Re: 'Free speech' is not shorthand for 'consequence-free speech'
Why are you guys obsessed with "racism"? It, more than any of the other (many) non-problems you kvetch over, seems to be your biggest boogeyman.
Yes, there's still the other dreaded "phobias" (trans, Islamo, homo, misogyny, police brutality, etc) you pretend are major issues, but why is "racism" (meaning White people who don't hate themselves) the one you guys focus so much time on?
Just curious.
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Re: Re: 'Free speech' is not shorthand for 'consequence-free spe
"Why are you guys obsessed with "racism"?"
The majority of people getting kicked off social networking platforms are Nazis, white supremacists and other forms of racist (along with homophobes and people who spread increasingly dangerous conspiracy theories that have inspired real world violence).
Why are you so obsessed with defending those people when the communities they attack tell them they're not welcome?
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Nope. That's the First Amendment.
The principle of freedom of speech is "say whatever you want, I'm not going to ask some corporation to shut you up just because it offends my delicate sensibilities" aka "toughen up, sissy."
The First Amendment is related to the principle of the freedom of speech, but it's only subset of the wider principle.
The First Amendment says nothing one way or the other about some sensitive perverts and sheltered anti-American yuppies of Silicon Valley telling people what they can or can't say. But the principle of freedom of speech does address that issue, and there's only one valid position on it.
If you support Big Tech thought policing Americans, you are against freedom of speech. That's the Techdirt position.
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"More proof you don't support the principle behind freedom of speech."
No, just more proof that you don't support the principle behind freedom of speech. Everyone is free to provbe themselves a repulsive person without government sanctioning them for it.
And everyone else is equally free to turn their back on the repugnant person. That's how actual freedom works.
The only thing You keep proving around here, Baghdad Bob, is that the only society you could thrive in is one where government punishes people for disagreeing with you and refusing you entry into their personal space.
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Nope, incorrect as usual.
People turning their backs on "repugnant" persons is freedom of speech.
But redefining normal beliefs that were considered mainstream only 10 years ago (things like, we shouldn't let perverted men in dresses groom children and normalize paraphilic behavior; or, we shouldn't idolize violent felons who die of drug overdoses and burn cities to the ground for an entire year based on a lie, etc) as "repugnant", then asking international corporations to shelter people from ever having to suffer the discomfort of having to encounter these newly-"repugnant" opinions is Orwellian thought policing. It is the opposite of freedom of speech.
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"People turning their backs on "repugnant" persons is freedom of speech"
...which includes business owners telling those people they're not welcome on their property. Glad you agree.
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Re: Re: Re:
But your definition doesn't hold water. "People" can't pressure uninvolved third parties, since they are uninvolved, and by definition those people have no leverage over them.
It doesn't matter what their position is, the higher up people might represent a stronger intent on the company but your janitor is still representative of the people your company choses to employ, and how he acts reflects on your company. Your company is not uninvolved at all in that scenario. They are the guy's employer and are totally involved. It's just like saying the janitor can tell all the company's customers to fuck off and you shouldn't be allowed to complain because he isn't the media manager.
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"People" obviously can given that it's so effective at silencing and punishing others for saying things they don't like. Otherwise why would "People" even bother doing it in the first place?
The average janitor doesn't have control over the company's direction nor even input on the company's decisions. Higher ups do, and that's why their mindset is more important. No-one outside of the company should care that the person making minimum wage scrubbing toilets is an asshole that spouts bullshit and racial slurs.
If he's off the clock, his actions are not representative of the company at all, by definition. Unless you want to say that the mere state of employment in society makes you representative of said employer constantly that is. In which case, I would remind you of the Ad-Hominem (guilt by association) fallacy. After all that janitor is also a US citizen. By your own definition, that would make all US citizens racist assholes who deserve nothing short of constant public shaming and the inability to support themselves to the point of death by starvation.
What someone says in gesture to a willing audience (his social media followers) on their own time vs. what they say to an unwilling audience (client of their employer) while on the clock, are two completely different scenarios and you know it.
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Someone in the company should, though. When their lack of giving a fuck becomes clear, outside pressure steps up in an attempt to make them give a fuck.
Doesn’t matter. He still works at that company. He can still reflect poorly upon the company by being an asshole.
Technically, it…kinda does. Your decision to put your bullshit out there for the world to see opens you up to consequences. One of those consequences could damn well be people linking you to your job and asking your employer if they want your bullshit associated with them/their company. Your feelings about the fairness of that reality are irrelevant.
That isn’t an ad hominem. That’s galaxy brain–level ignorance.
The asshole and the janitor are still the same person. An asshole doesn’t stop believing their bullshit when they put on a uniform or clock in at work — they hide it as best they can to avoid being fired. (If they need to hide it, anyway.) You can’t separate the asshole from the janitor and vice versa.
What do you think a company should do if management learns one of their employees is a racist asshole — regardless of how they learn that fact — whose continued employment could either reflect poorly on the company/create a hostile work environment?
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"No-one outside of the company should care that the person making minimum wage scrubbing toilets is an asshole that spouts bullshit and racial slurs."
People inside the company damn well should, and his co-workers probably would like to know if he's secretly calling for their execution on his down time. Whether or not the company itself wants to take action depending on what they did outside of work is down to their policy and HR department. That has nothing to do with freedom of speech, it's an indication that you're working for a company that considers your non-working time as their business.
What's interesting is that in defending the fictional janitor here you've jumped to him being a racist asshole, rather than the probably less defensible "he was fired after being pictured at a wild party at the weekend" real world example that pops up every so often. Why do you feel the need to defend the racists?
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The fact is, whether A.C. thinks people outside the company should care or not is in the "who gives a shit category". What's actually important is that people do care. Some people don't want their money used to support that sort of thing, and companies know it. That's "cancel culture". People acting in ways that harm the companies they work (or other agencies associated with them) and those agencies making decisions about whether that harm is worth keeping the association
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It's true the lower positions in the company don't reflect a whole lot of intent on the part of the company, so the harm would be less but they also generally don't represent much investment from the company. The company is going to balance the harm the individual is causing the company with their actions against the benefit they are getting having them as an employee.
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That you fascists hate "we don't want to be associated with assholes" doesn't stop it from being free speech.
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"The average janitor doesn't have control over the company's direction nor even input on the company's decisions."
Oh, and what's fun is you're really not thinking this through properly.
Yes, a janitor has no control in the company - but his co-workers will. Some of those people will be women, some Jewish, some black or Asian or whatever minority you wish to name. Most of those people will be of more direct value to the company than a janitor.
So, what happens when it's made publicly known that he's a Nazi? Do the company put their weight behind the janitor who is now not someone that most of the people in the company wish to work with? Or, do they defend the people he spends his free times wishing to murder, who provide real value to the company?
I'm sorry if you don't like these consequences for actions, but did your janitor friend perhaps consider finding a better job or, quite simply, just not being a Nazi? Very few non-Nazis are fired because their co-workers found out they were Nazis.
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Dunce ... are you aware it is 2021, not 1945?
For you dummies, here's some news: "Nazi" is the nickname of the National Socialist German Worker's Party which HAS NOT EXISTED SINCE 1945.
Of course, you know this already. "Nzi" is just a racial slur for Whites. You calling White people nzi" is the equivalent of calling Black people "ngger" or Hispanics "sp*c".
And when you use that slur, you should receive the same treatment as those who use other racial slurs like "ngger" or "spc".
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""Nazi" is the nickname of the National Socialist German Worker's Party which HAS NOT EXISTED SINCE 1945."
...and sadly their legacy has lived on after its demise, and followers of Nazism and related white supremacist ideals are still called Nazis.
""Nzi" is just a racial slur for Whites"
No, the use of the term has nothing to do with race. Nobody looks at a normal white person and thinks "Nazi". You have to do or say Nazi-like things to earn the title.
Stop earning it.
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After all that janitor is also a US citizen.
So are we arguing that being employed is some kind of "right" now? Good luck with your next failed tangent.
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"where people pressure uninvolved third parties with the consequences for someone's speech."
So, a boycott, which has been around for a long time before someone decided to co-opt a cute phrase to pretend it's something new?
"But if the person happens to be a janitor at that company, and took pains to eg anonymize their twitter account, then getting them fired for being an asshole is itself an asshole move."
Do you have any examples of this, or is this one of those situations where someone invents a scenario so they can wave away things that actually did happen?
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Is it the opposite in incel culture?
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opposite of
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The opposite of can't-sell culture.
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Re: Big Time
Well they claim they won't employ cancel culture this time instead they'll use a trolling filter and "viewpoint neutral" moderation performed by a combination of machine learning (I refuse to call this stuff AI) and human moderators.
The trolling filter will most likely replace the "You start banned until you prove your right wing credentials." filtering they did to hide messages from anyone not rabidly right wing.
The quotes around neutral viewpoint since they will most likely go with what they've always done and claim their right wing opinions are what the center wants and thus neutral.
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Re: Re: Big Time
machine learning is a much more impressive term than AI in my book.. Pacman had AI; it's not that impressive
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Re: Re: Big Time
"neutral viewpoint"
I have seen this term used in several different threads, here and elsewhere, but have yet to determine its meaning. Perhaps you have a definition.
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Re: Re: Re: Big Time
I think it means:-
people who agree with me.
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In the “dictionary” sense, a “neutral viewpoint” would likely refer to a view that stays above the sides of, and takes no position on, a given argument/discussion. In an argument about whether queer people deserve equal civil rights, a “neutral viewpoint” would not advocate for either giving or revoking those rights. Think of “view from nowhere” journalism: If someone says “it’s raining” and someone else says “it’s not raining”, the neutral viewpoint would treat both statements as valid even when one of them is factually wrong.
In the “conservative usage” sense, a “neutral viewpoint” is one that allows bigoted right-wing bullshit to run rampant without doing a goddamn thing to stop it. “Neutral”, in this usage, means “neutral towards ‘conservative views’ ”. (Which views are those? Oh, you know the ones…) This usage of “neutral” demands that a platform like Twitter validate racial slurs, anti-queer propaganda, and that “Blue Lives Matter” horseshit out of some ridiculous fealty to the ideal of Freeze Peach.
Neutrality is impossible on a social media platform unless it explicitly allows the most heinous, obscene, and altogether offensive speech imaginable. That will ultimately stunt the growth of that platform — because nobody but the worst people will want to use a platform that has the “worst people” problem.
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Re:
I think people who use "neutral viewpoint" hope people confuse it with "objective viewpoint". Claiming to take a neutral viewpoint without context is a deception, it's the same as a polarized view, just the "pole" is neutral.
it means you are planning to try to trick people towards neutrality between two sides even when the facts don't support it.
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Re: Big Time
Man, it's getting as though conservatives can't engage in violent acts of insurrection without being cancelled. Cancel culture has gone too far!
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Re: Re: Big Time
"Man, it's getting as though conservatives can't engage in violent acts of insurrection without being cancelled. Cancel culture has gone too far!"
Don't worry. 43 Republican senators are right there to "fight the good fight". That'll trump cancel culture.
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Re: Big Time
It used to be called "the slashdot effect", but today's internet has a great many more (and more potent) flash crowd triggers than slashdot does.
You don't need Cancel Culture when you have publicity / notoriety enough to overload your servers.
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Re: Re: Big Time
You mean the servers of others. The slashdot effect rarely effects slashdot itself.
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That's... not quite how it works
That Skysilk quote reads like it's from someone who either literally never heard about Parler except what the company's execs told them, or who is desperately hoping no-one will call them out on their feigned 'ignorance'.
'They couldn't be arsed to moderate worth a damn before Amazon gave them the boot but they pinky-promised they'll do so now, the problem was that people merely thought that Parler had some 'bad actors' and we're just doing this because we want to support a non-partisan public square.'
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Re: That's... not quite how it works
It's half-assed marketing speak. They're pretending they agree with everything Parler was doing to get them kicked off AWS, and thus attract their users back, but leaving it vague enough that they can claim ignorance of how bad they really were if they have no choice but to follow suit in future.
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Access
How will people actually use it if it's not on the Apple or Google stores?
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Sideloading or through a browser.
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Re:
I can see it now: the next android/iOS code execution + privilege escalation malware: It installs the parlor app on your device.
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Re: Access
The same way they do with any other website.
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Oh sure.... that sounds like a great idea! Let us know how that works out, will ya? Hint: You might want to look around the 'net just a teensy little bit. ;)
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It's useless as people are now paying attention to what goes on on the platform, and without access to any of the major app stores the install base isn't going to grow, only shrink as people update their handsets.
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Seems like they are going to have a lot of issues given the putative moderation rules.
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Mark Meckler:
(emphasis mine)
So, no more driver's license to get verified and how long do you wanna bet the discourse will remain civil?
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Re:
Given their target audience negative several months, though I'm sure they'll define whatever their side says/does as 'civil', only giving the boot to those that go above and beyond in being too toxic to ignore.
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Re: Re:
Sure, but it would be nice to rub this in every time they leave up toxic right wing remarks. OTOH, those idiots still clinge to Q's lips despite all the times he's been shown wrong, e.g.:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PokerPolitics/status/1135811817073270785
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Poor Mike
Poor Mike, your life is so easy when there's only Twitter and Facebook so you feel safe.
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Re: Poor Mike
I often wonder what it's like to live in the simplistic alternate reality you people have needed to invent in order to attack others, but you always seem so scared and angry all the time. Wouldn't it be easier just to deal with the real world?
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Yeah, it’s not as if sites like 4chan, 8kun, Gab, Stormfront, and other similar right-wing shitpits exist~.
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