I think it's obvious that private companies should not be able to 'run themselves as they please'.
Also in my country landlords can't kick renters out if they disagree politically. I think that's a good thing. Maybe similar regulation should apply to infrastructure providers.
Parler wasn't kicked off AWS because of a political disagreement. It was kicked off for multiple terms of service violations and unwillingness to adequately moderate its platform to ensure that further ToS violations didn't occur.
Surely in your can get kicked out of your rental if you violate the lease. Especially if your landlord sits down with you and discusses the issues and you still can't commit to not violating your lease.
I can get evicted from my rental if I don't have renter's insurance. Let's suppose my landlord sat down with me and said: '[name], you are in violation of your lease agreement without renter's insurance.'
If my response is 'well, I'll find someone to volunteer to look for renter's insurance for me', I would expect to be evicted. And I'm not even facilitating or enabling people to openly advocate and plan for violent overthrow of a democracy on my property.
> Parler wasn't kicked off AWS because of a political disagreement. It was kicked off for multiple terms of service violations and unwillingness to adequately moderate its platform to ensure that further ToS violations didn't occur.
It's a little strange, then, how Amazon took Parler's money until a day after others deplatformed Parler right after the election. Amazon's decision doesn't seem as arms-length and independent as you believe.
> Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. [...] This morning, you shared that you have a plan to more proactively moderate violent content, but you plan to do so manually with volunteers. It’s our view that this nascent plan to use volunteers to promptly identify and remove dangerous content will not work in light of the rapidly growing number of violent posts.
The decision wasn't political. It was based on repeated terms of service violations (as proven by the emails from AWS that Parler itself leaked).
Whether AWS was able to make that decision because of the political calculus had changed (e.g. there was demonstrable evidence of real-life violence stemming from plans made on Parler; others had taken action against Parler; AWS's employees were publicly calling for Parler to be removed from AWS) -- that's a different question.
The timing can be political but the decision apolitical.
This is ignoring that Parler's continued prior existence was likely in part due to the politics (i.e. American conservative allegations that Big Tech's pervasively censors right-wing and Republican voices).
Also in my country landlords can't kick renters out if they disagree politically. I think that's a good thing. Maybe similar regulation should apply to infrastructure providers.