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of it’s delicate department
I delayed writing deeper thoughts on the total deplatforming of Parler, in part because there was so much else going on (including more timely articles on the Parler trial on this subject), but more important again because for years I’ve been calling on people to think more deeply about moderating content at the infrastructure level rather than at the edge. Because these problems are much more complicated than the usual content moderation debates.
And once again I’m going to make the mistake of making a nuanced argument on the Internet. I urge you to read this entire article, resist any knee-jerk responses, and consider the larger issues. In fact, when I start To write this article, I thought it was going to make the point that the Against Parler moves, while legal, were in fact a mistake and a matter of concern. But as I explored the arguments, I just couldn’t justify any of them. Upon inspection, they all collapsed. And so I think I’m going to go back to my original position that companies are free to make decisions here. However, there is concern when regulators and policymakers start talking about moderation of content at the infrastructure level.
The “too long, haven’t read” version of this argument (and again try to understand the nuance) is that while Parler is currently down, it’s not due to a single company having full control of the market. The are alternatives. And if it seems like Parler is struggling to find such an alternative to work with, that’s the nature of a free market. If you’re so toxic that companies won’t want to do business with you, it’s up to you. Not them.
It is possible to feel somewhat conflicted about this. I first felt uncomfortable with Amazon removing Talking about AWS hosting, effectively shutting down the service, and with Apple removing its app from the App Store, effectively banning it from iPhones. In both cases, these appeared to be very large rifles that weren’t tightly targeted. I was Less concerned about similar deletion from google as it didn’t block Talking android phones as you don’t have to go through google to access android phone. But (and this is important) I think the three movements are clearly the legal and reasonable measures that companies should take. As I explored each issue, I came back to a simple point: the issues that Parler is currently facing. because of his own actions and the reluctance of companies to partner in such a toxic operation. It’s the free market.
If the Talking situation was caused by government pressure or because there was no other options for the company, then I would be much more worried. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The Internet infrastructure stack is represented in different ways and there is no definitive model. But an easy way to think about it is that there are “edge” providers – the websites you interact with directly – and there is everything underneath: the content delivery networks (CDNs) that help. to route traffic, hosting companies / data cloud centers / providers that host the actual content, broadband / network / access providers and domain registries and registrars that help to manage the configuration of naming and routing. And there are a lot of other players in there as well, some (like advertising and some communication providers) with border elements and elements deeper in the stack.
But a key thing to understand is the level of granularity with which different actors can moderate, and the overall impact that their moderation can have. It’s one thing for Twitter to delete a tweet. It’s another thing for Comcast to say “you can’t access the Internet at all.” The consequences of moderation get much more serious the further you dig into the pile. In this case, AWS’s only real option for Talk was to remove the entire service, as it couldn’t just target the problematic content (of which there was a lot). When it comes to app stores, that’s a tricky question. Are app stores an infrastructure or an edge? Maybe they’re a bit of both, but they had the same limited options: either completely removing the app or leaving it with all of its content intact.
For many years, we’ve talked about the risks of saying that players deeper in the infrastructure stack should be responsible for moderating content. I was concerned in 2014 when it came to blaming domain registrars if the domains they registered were used for websites that broke the law. There have been some efforts to hold these actors accountable as if they are the real offenders, and that obviously creates all kinds of problems, especially at the 1st Amendment level. As you move up the stack, moderation options feel less like scalpels and more like hammers that wipe entire websites out of existence.
Almost exactly ten years ago, in a situation that has parallels with what has happened now, I pointed to Amazon’s concerns deciding to misrepresent Wikileaks in response to Senator Joe Lieberman’s angry demands. I found this very problematic, and probably unconstitutional – although Wikileaks, without a US presence, had no right to challenge it at the time. I worried less about Amazon’s decision and more about pressure from Lieberman.
But it is important to go back to the basics to think about these questions. It’s quite clear that companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google have the legal right to take down services they don’t want to associate with, and there are a ton of reasons people and businesses might not. want to join Parler. But many people are concerned about deletions based on the idea that Parler might be “totally” misrepresented, and that a company saying “we don’t want you here” might leave them no other option. It is not so much a question of moderation of content as a question of competition.
If it’s a competition issue, I also don’t see why Amazon’s decision is really a problem. AWS only has a 32% market share. There are plenty of other options out there, including the Trump-friendly Oracle cloud services that show how easy it is to switch from AWS to your own website. The Oracle cloud already hosts Zoom (and now TikTok’s US services). There’s no reason they can’t also host Speak. *
But, at least according to Parler, he’s struggled to find an alternative that will house him. And on that front, it’s hard to feel any sympathy. Any business has to build relationships with other businesses to survive, and if no other business is willing to work with you, you risk going bankrupt.. Landlords may not want to rent to inconvenient tenants. Fashion houses may choose not to buy from factories with abusive labor practices. Companies are controlling each other’s business practices all the time, and if you’re so toxic no one wants to touch you … at some point, it might be for you, Speak.
The situation with Apple and Google is slightly different, and again, there are a lot of nuances to consider. With Apple, of course, he controls access to his own hardware, the iPhone. And there’s a reasonable argument to be made that Apple is offering the full package, and part of that deal is that you can only add apps through its App Store. Apple has long argued that it does this to keep the phone safe, although this may also raise anti-competitive concerns. But Apple has banned many apps in the past (including Parler’s competitor, Gab). And that’s part of the nature of owning an iPhone. And, really, there is a way to browse the Apple App Store: you can still create web apps that will work on iOS without going through the store. This limits the functionality and the ability to go deeper into the iPhone for certain features, but these are the tradeoffs.
With Google, it looks like there should be even less worry. Not only could Talking work as a web application, but Google Is allow you to download apps without using the Google Play Store. So the limitation was just that Google didn’t want the app to be his own store. This is because before Amazon removed All Talking, the company was promoting its own APK for download on Android phones.
In the end, it’s hard to say it’s as disturbing as my initial gut reaction said it was. I’m always concerned about moderating content when it hits the infrastructure layer. I am very concerned that people are not thinking about the kind of governance issues raised by these slaughter and not scalpel decisions. But when you explore each of the Speaking issues in particular, it’s hard to find anything that could be so directly affected. There are, for the most part, alternatives available for Talking. And in the area where there apparently isn’t one (cloud hosting), it seems to be less because AWS has market power, and more because a lot of companies just don’t want to partner with Parler.
And it is essentially the free market that asks Parler to pull itself together.
* It should be noted that AWS customers can easily migrate to Oracle Cloud only because Oracle copied the API from AWS without permission, which its own attorneys claim is copyright infringement. Never expect Oracle not to be hypocritical.
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Filed Under: App stores, aws, cloud computing, content moderation, deplatforming, infrastructure, network stack, play store
Companies: amazon, apple, google, talk
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