skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yes, deep principles such unwavering fealty to Mohammed Bin Salman, who had an American journalist cut into 42 pieces.

Or deep principles like yours, glorifying academic credentials. Must have been terrible when the presidency went from the Harvard Law alumni and professor to the guy who wouldn’t release his transcripts from a second-rate business school.
The problem is that a lot of these websites that exist as a safe haven for those who have been deplatformed are cesspools. The early adopters are the most toxic people, and things just go downhill from there. Seriously, go look at parler or voat. Here's an archive the voat post where it's shutdown was announced: https://archive.is/0kOST Open it up and Control-F the n word or any antisemetic slur. That's not the sort of discourse you'd expect on a healthy and diverse platform.

Edit: I should add that the threshold for Youtube demonetization is probably lower than the threshold for getting a subreddit banned, so maybe Peertube won't face the same fate. The federated model might help too, does each Peertube instance behave like a separate community? Are there any instances with communities yet?
It also passes the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" test - IMHO the US government can clearly regulate this sort of dangerous speech
Are you suggesting that their long game was always to create an app where a subset of users could organize a riot at the capitol in the event Trump lost the election?

You may have less of a grasp on reality than the people who rioted. That or you don't really believe what you said and maybe it's best if each of us do our part to turn the heat down a little bit.
With the assumption that Apple is a private company with those freedoms, what is the approbate response?
This is doable. I'm using the Quest, so you don't have access to the camera images, but you can do a calibration phase where you figure out how a user's hands map to keys. I'm not sure the hand tracking is accurate enough for non-touch typers though. There's some work being done for Bluetooth keyboard support when you're sitting at a desk.
They knew what they signed up for. Maybe they didn't know that a coup would end up planned on their app in the public, but it was nakedly obvious to everyone that Parler was going to go the route of Gab or Voat. Those who didn't jump ship a long time ago decided that that wasn't a problem for them.

Their bigger issue is going to be the fact that their resumes will be radioactive going forward. Reputation harm is actually a real thing; if Uber engineers struggled to get new jobs after all those bombshells years ago, these people's careers are probably de-facto over.
Signal is essentially useless as a platform to recruit people for anything, legal or otherwise.
The obvious line is incitement of violence. Most countries have codified this in law but the US has not I think?
> It can’t be any worse than taking no action at all.

Oh yes it can.
https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf
Aren't they all 10X programmers now that Trump gutted the various visa programs? Come on you lot! We stopped the immigrants so you should all have you CS PhDs now, right?
> Where do we draw the line on how we censor the internet? Obviously actual terrorist group sites can and should be taken down, but this feels more murky than that.

No, it doesnt. Actual terrorist group sites should be banned and kicked of whatever platforms they're operating on. No one, or no company, should be required to provide service to them.

I really struggle to see the issue here. If you allow calls for elected officials, or anyone, to be publically murdered, then it's free game for companys to refuse your service. It's pretty fucking simple imho.
you're going to see companies go back to bare metal and fiber where they peer their network with the internet and existence isn't determined by the outrage of the day and the whims of a platform provider.
crypto-anarchy is coming to solve the first 3 for sure. The last one is a little bit more difficult but not impossible.
Likely they're referring to soda.
Smells like the typical Trumper whataboutism as usual.
Government agencies are, if not precisely incapable of sedition, at least going to have trouble engaging in it.
Well this is uncharted territory. No way to know what the results of all this will be.
Are you a transexual?
popcorn? I am buying weapons.
That sort of service can justifiably say "we're not aware of the infringing content". AWS indicates in their email quoted in the article that Parler is aware, but slow and/or unwilling to take action.

> This is further demonstrated by the fact that you still have not taken down much of the content that we’ve sent you.
We used to have contempt for the concept of "forbidden software", and I hope some of us still do. Techno-libertarian culture used to be so defiant, but today, many of the same people have gone soft, and it's not clear why.

I remember having a DeCSS t-shirt and the PGP source code printed in a book. Are folks less interested in liberty now that wrong-think can get you fired?
Literally no person in the entire world believed this was an appeal for people to behead Donald Trump.
probably trump or something.
i looked her up for other words. i like her style. http://www.aurvi.com/
Bingo. It was that kind of thinking that put Neville Chamberlin in the dunk tank of history.
...or whoever hosts 4chan currently.
That bakery likely has a staff of two people and a dozen competitors offering equivalent services within a few miles.

On the other hand, the public square, itself, has been privatized into the hands of multi-billion-dollar corporations from whom there is no appeal.

Nobody actually needs a cake. But a head of state needs to talk to his citizens and his citizens need to hear him, even if we think he is a [insert epithet, here].
It's a free market as well as a land of free speech, so they can just find another hosting provider, or build their own servers. They can enable whatever kind of groups they choose, but that should in no way require other people or organizations to collaborate with them.
I'd love to see Twitter's lifetime list of "Halted" trending topics. Obviously this is a more understandable example, but it's interesting to note Twitter admitting politically relevant trending-topic censorship.
Just in case this is a serious question, without editorialising, the following has happened in the past 48 hours:

* Trump has been bannned from Twitter.

* Trump has attempted to use the POTUS account, and had those tweets removed.

* Trump has been removed from Facebook.

* Trump has been banned from Twitch.

* The Discord server for the_donald has been banned from Discord.

* Parler has been removed from the Google Play Store and the App Store.

* AWS has announced plans to discontinue Parler's hosting.

And I think that's about it, for very recently. For those who support Trump, "deplatforming" is a major concern, as Trump has now lost access to essentially all of his base via social media. Once he's out of office, he's not going to have anywhere near as significant a reach as he may have.
I don't see a problem. To me it is similar to the situation where a business is allowed to refuse service to anyone at their own discretion. This has been used to discriminate openly but is still legal. The customers they were refusing to serve were also paying customers.

There has to be a point beyond which some things are simply not allowable. In the past, societies have grown and prospered by codifying sets of standards by which others judge your behavior and then to define and apply sanctions to those who refuse to play by the rules laid down by society. This is how laws came to be passed that allow or restrict behavior widely seen by society as criminal, undesirable, dishonest, etc.

We (any group of citizens or people with a common interest) need to be able to agree upon whether something should be allowed and once that determination is made, codify the law and define appropriate sanctions or punishments for those who choose to color outside the lines.

It is generally accepted that promoting violence, advocating for murder of others because they exercise their right to vote for a different party, providing support to those whose goal is to sow dissent and to divide the citizenry using lies and propaganda, supporting Nazis or other reprehensible characters, etc is simply not copacetic and those who choose that path should face sanctions.

The very least that you should do is to silence the messenger whose goal is to destroy you, your relationships, your society. Use their own message against them to educate everyone about why the things they are promoting are wrong and unacceptable.

Rock and Roll Amazon!
Signal isn't a social media platform it has no need for moderatation.
> Do angry responses mean anything?

They don't mean anything on their own. But geopolitics is a game played in the background, calling in favors from other countries, telling them to buy less from your enemy and more from you or your allies, offering them loans, or straight up bribery. And if that country has also been treated with disdain by the superpower it's not so hard to see them accepting.
So AWS is now the arbiter of what actions are supposedly harmful to the fabric of democratic society? It's one thing for the courts to do this, it's quite another for infrastructure providers to decide it's now their job to police their customers.

We rely on AWS, and now I'm thinking this is a giant mistake - what if they unilaterally decide one day that our business is politically unacceptable because a bad person says nice things about us?

The upshot is that this will provide a huge shot in the arm to the decentralized web... and, of course, once people who are plotting bad things all move to end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal it will be that much more difficult to figure out who the bad people are.
It's called The Benghazi Line: if they've collectively caused more deaths (5) than occurred during the Benghazi Incident (4), then they're a legit threat requiring action to disrupt and deplatform.

With less snark: it's not about how much organization they demonstrate, it's a judgement call about the likelihood of tangible damage and destruction occurring. Yes, it's an imprecise standard. That's the reality in which we live and operate.
> If Amazon and Parker havnt commented, how can an email be quoted?

They haven't commented to Buzzfeed. C'mon.

> Is Amazon monitoring the content of all the services on its platform?

They take reports. https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/repor...

"The AWS Abuse team can assist you when AWS resources are used to engage in the following types of abusive behavior: Hosting objectionable or copyrighted content: You have evidence that AWS resources are used to host or distribute illegal content or distribute copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder."
The US was one guy with a gun away from a massacre of a whole lot of elected officials. There was at one point only four leos[1] between a mob screaming for hangings[2] and all of congress because of the rhetoric sites like these are pushing. People defending them sound either entirely disingenuous or woefully ignorant.

1. https://mobile.twitter.com/TaylerUSA/status/1346913549898149...

2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/06/trump-riot-tw...
First I would point out that the article start with:

"This story was updated on Sept. 1, 2020. The original version of this story, which is an interview with an author who holds strong political views and ideas, did not provide readers enough context for them to fully assess some of the controversial opinions discussed."

So they are clearly cognizant of the fact that the content is very controversial. I think it's a sensitive and important subject, and one that doesn't really get addressed in a serious, scholarly way. In some ways, it's a perfect example of the kind of heterodox research that conservatives have advocated for in universities and public forums. And it is the job of the media to try to communicate what ideas are out there.
The difference here is that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited under federal civil rights laws, so if you're going to bake a wedding cake for a straight person, you cannot refuse to do so for someone else because they're gay. As far as I can tell, the company Parler does not fall into a protected class.
Just storm the capital and start your own country bro. Wait. uh.
Is Snap Chat moderated?
People love this and it honestly makes me sick. “Because what I don’t like is being removed I’m happy” —- Now what happens when something you DO like is removed?

It will be like DMCA but for political content. They start with the obvious abuse and then whack anything they don’t like with it. AND YOU’RE ROLLING OUT THE WELCOME MAT!
> I'd recommend the opposite, do mostly weights and some cardio. You don't need to buy equipment, barbells etc., bodyweight exercises is weight/strength training.

Is this, along with diet, sufficient to put on weight? I really need to gain 50 or so pounds at least and have never been able to do so. Even my brother, who routinely works out now is still pretty thin for his height. I've had a lot of people tell me you have to go to a gym for the equipment programs, but I'm not sure as it seems everyone tries to sell you something.
Signal is not built with the explicit purpose of providing cover for to forces that publicly undermine democracy.

Signal allows for the encrypted comms that can potentially permit many heinous crimes, but they do not amplify those messages, and it is obvious that by an large is just a useful medium to communicate as usual for most human beings.
It's probably not such a big deal when your head is up and your eyes are getting the sensory input of motion. But looking down at your phone is pretty terrible.
This is an incredibly sort timeframe to expect someone to be able to migrate off AWS. If there infrastructure is docker, or K8 than they can move quickly, but if they are tied into more than a couple of AWS specific services like Route 53 or Lambda then a migration is a big ask.
I’m sure Alibaba, Tencent or Yandex is ready with a turnkey lift and shift solution.
The tool might be used for extremism, in the same sense that ffmpeg, email, and HTTP are. That is not the same as saying most users of PeerTube will be inundated with extremism though.
Show HN: A new way for products to be discovered, shared, and reviewed
I think the parent is referring to the outgoing President of the U.S.
that's every social media site of non-trivial size. they're opening pandora's box here. does the footage of killings during the Syrian civil war on youtube qualify? shouldn't photos of hanging homosexuals from cranes get you deplatformed? no? why not?
I'm guessing it's because they don't advertise^ plans for violence in public... or on Twitter.

Edit: ^specific plans
They were assault zip ties, though.
More like "fucking finally!" Also, there are plenty of communities (Reddit, Wikipedia, Steam forums, HN, etc.) with moderators that haven't devolved into a dystopian policed-speech nightmare.
advocating for the overthrow of an entire government or murder of certain politicians based on a conspiracy theory? extremism.
Whatever your feelings about Parler, political content moderation at the cloud services level, by a monopoly company with very particular business interests, is a serious threat to free speech online.
Still whatsapp seems to me very user friendly.
Soft drinks generally refers to sugary soda drinks like coca-cola.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_drink
"violent storming of the capital"...I don't know where you are from but this was not violent. It's far less violent that your typical BLM/Antifa demonstration destroying peoples' livelihoods & definitely less violent than what the Cartels do to unfriendly politicians & journalists in Mexico. I get it, the political establishment controls the narrative & the politicians got scared (with hilarious photos) that the unwashed masses entered their hallowed halls in "The Peoples' Building", but this was not nearly as violent as the media has hyped this up to be. The idiots who "stormed the capital" are going to be arrested, shamed, etc. It's taken care of, there is no insurrection.

This is a shot across the bow & I don't think it's wise to crack down & punish a large portion of the population. If you think this was bad, it could get much worse. Let's not make this worse...please.
That’s called free speech.
Easier in summer to just open every window and get enough of a breeze that it's harder to infect people.
One side of the argument? Or armed insurrectionists?
> And someone else has bought it off them and will have lost.

Not the concern of the one making a profit off of this. Not sure it should be either. That's the role of the regulators.
It has been gone too far.
I worked on a pair of these amps, had bias problems. Wow they were annoying. Really nice for impressing your friends, or heating up your listening room, or making your electric meter spin, if you are into that. I was not impressed. I felt a modified Dynaco ST70 was way more listenable. The output transformers were really not rated for full bandwidth at full power. Circuit was not very nicely done. I would give it a solid "meh" on my audio scale. You can do a lot better for a lot less.
I'm not sure the concerns of censorship change due to who or how many are espousing the toxic calls to violence. Nazi Germany had a Chancellor/Dictator, with 8.5 million in the Nazi party in 1945. The reason it's okay to deplatform Nazis today is not because their numbers have dwindled.
Jake’s point was to compare the minimum acceptable qualities, showing that when you take things to extremes, AVIF is way better than the alternatives in surprisingly many fields. But the trouble is that JPEG starts destroying parts of the F1 image a good deal earlier, and so you have to have parts of the image at a much higher quality than would seem necessary, lest other parts of the image be ruined. Similar happens with MP3 compression artefacts and Opus/MP3 comparisons.

It would have been good if the article also included an AVIF image increased in quality to match the JPEG’s DDSIM score, or at least indicated what that quality level was. I’d expect that 30KB would be sufficient, quite possibly even 25KB.
"Obviously actual terrorist group sites can and should be taken down, but this feels more murky than that."

§ 2384. According to the statutory definition of sedition, it is a crime for two or more people within the jurisdiction of the United States: ... To oppose by force the authority of the United States government; to prevent, hinder, or delay by force the execution of any law of the United States; or.

Terrorists.
Because the Democrats have the presidency, senate, and house.

Corporations have been sucking up to the powerful since forever.
I find it hard to reconcile this prospect of inevitable conflict with how genuinely easy to get along and reach mutual understanding with, all the people from China and Taiwan I have taught, lived/studied/worked with over the years have been.
Maybe there's a big domestic base of nationalists that we don't get to interact with in the Anglosphere..
No, you have a valid point that social media in general needs consideration from all kinds of angles from mental health impacts to legal requirements of platforms. I think people just don't care at the moment because it's targeting a legitimate bees nest of home grown far right groups which range from comical gravy seals to retired vets. It doesn't invalidate the point that these platforms only took this step when administrations were clearly changing behind the scenes which isn't honestly that surprising if you've seen how they treat foreign nations. So after we finish dealing with the app that's platforming the groups actively announcing plans for an armed round two of Wednesday on Jan 17th we should take a hard look at how much power we yield to technology giants.
What? What does unethical even mean? That's a weasel word. Pelosi lies, Schumer lies, McConnel lies, Trump lies, Biden lies. They all lie. They all cheat too. Are you going to deplatform 99%+ of politicians and 80+ of regular people too?
Free the Textbook
Parler was created in response to Twitter banning several far right personalities. People are more than capable of overcoming the big tech companies and finding ways to get their message out. Maybe the leader of a nation shouldn’t continually question an election and encourage his supporters to commit insurrection?
My apologies, I edited my comment but you responded before my update...

That said, a big difference is that the taliban are not actively inciting Americans to storm the capitol en masse.*

And there’s not much domestic debate that they’re a problem. My belief is Twitter was pushed to this extent by the fact that it’s the president of the US, an inherently credible figure with huge sway among American citizens.

*edit to add: by ‘actively’ I mean ‘successfully, across thousands of Americans.’ They both incite violence in the US, but so far only Trump et al have accomplished a riot in DC that killed police...
Have you seen who funded the development of Parler? The Mercer family has explicitly backed Trump and a network of disinformation media.

Yes, the game was always about exploiting a segment of crazies for various means.
they're referring to seditious government officials skirting with calls for violence against political rivals being banned from large social media platforms because enough is enough.
If people on the right want their own social networks, etc, that's fine. But they're going to need to have moderation and keep the violent extremism down.

I'm sure there's legitimate, law-abiding users of all of these things that get caught in the crossfire... but if the platforms will not impose a minimal amount of moderation one shouldn't be surprised that others will want to deny them services and business relationships.
> Genius Bar nearby where it’s not unusual to get free out of warranty repairs for things that aren’t your fault.

Is this sarcasm? You can pick basically any video on Rossman's channel and come across a case where Genius Bar either refused to repair a known device defect (without charging the customer for a logic board replacement), or botched a repair. Genius Bar is the last place you should take your Apple device for repairs.

Apple customer support's only advantage is that it actually exists.
You bet. I've played around with AVIFS and it can autoplay and loop. I made gif2avif.com for fun, but I can't promise that it will work well.
> Being on a system that allows sideloading is a serious step down in security

How? The iOS system sandboxes the binary, so it can't do anything without permission. It can't read files, can't read data like contacts, can't connect to the internet, etc. I think it would be relatively easy for Apple to allow sideloading while maintaining great security. Plus, it would be off by default, so know-nothing users would not be doing it.
I think the interesting test here might be whether a tool like Twitter could still be on AWS during an event like the Arab Spring to coordinate against repressive regimes. Or if those regimes could also claim the same “incites violence” exception and ask AWS to disable the service.
Reminds me of that clerks episode: https://youtu.be/iQdDRrcAOjA?t=79
"And one more thing- which I'm sure doesn't apply to you- the idea that past harm justifies new harm is the same beliefs that justified the rise of a certain dictator in a certain central european power behaved in the 1930s/40s."

Those words are too vague. People were led to believe that the core of their government was being defrauded. Were they harmed? Did some of them go on to harm?

(I didn't see your flagged comment. Currently mine is at -3.)
Or they could just change their product to require approval of all posts until they get their moderation under control, and then not get kicked off of Amazon...
Put your name in your profile, I dare you
Of course, with "the people" being multi billion dollar corporations