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A few of ‘SNL’s’ solid is confused, aggravated that Elon Musk is internet hosting present

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses when he arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Awards in Berlin on December 1, 2020.

Britta Pedersen | AFP | Getty Images

Elon Musk has not yet appeared on “Saturday Night Live” but is being panned by some of his cast members.

SNL announced on Twitter on Saturday that the business mogul would host the late-night show on May 8th. Other big names in the corporate world who have hosted NBC’s popular late night show include Donald Trump, before he was president, and Steve Forbes.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is known for his eclectic and often controversial remarks. He has received a backlash over his comments on the Covid-19 pandemic. He has spoken about national stay-at-home orders and compared them to “de facto house arrest” in a tweet. He downplayed the risk of the novel coronavirus and said in an interview with journalist Kara Swisher on an episode of Sway, a New York Times podcast, that he would not get the vaccine for it.

However, this month Musk said on Twitter that he supports “vaccines in general and Covid vaccines in particular”.

SNL’s decision to give Musk the stage met with skepticism and criticism on social media.

Some of that criticism came from the show’s own cast. In an Instagram story, Bowen Yang responded to one of Musk’s tweets about his upcoming gig. On Saturday, Musk had tweeted and said, “Let’s find out how live Saturday Night Live really is.”

Yang responded with a frown at first. He then posted Musk’s tweet with a message above, “What the hell does that even mean?”

Andrew Dismukes, another cast member, also recorded an Instagram story. About a photo of SNL alumna Cheri Oteri that looked like a magazine cover, Dismukes wrote: “ONLY CEO I WANT TO DRAW A SKETCH WITH IS Cher-E Oteri.”

A third actor, Aidy Bryant, also criticized Musk in subtle ways. In an Instagram story, Bryant shared a tweet from former presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders. In it, Sanders criticized the sharp wealth inequality in the country, stating that “the 50 richest people in this country have more wealth than about 165 million Americans” and he called this “a moral obscenity”.

Sudi Green, a writer for SNL, also shared the same post from Sanders.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, musk is the second richest person in the country after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The reactions of the SNL cast members were previously reported by Bustle and The Wrap. SNL was not immediately available for comment.

Disclosure: “Saturday Night Live” is a television show hosted by NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

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A choose declines to power Amazon to renew internet hosting Parler.

A federal judge on Thursday declined to force Amazon to resume hosting the social networking app Parler on its cloud computing platform. This is not in the public interest.

Amazon kicked Parler, who had become a hangout for far-right conservatives, off its platform in the days following the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Parler then sued Amazon, accusing the tech giant of failing to adequately warn of the termination of its services, and asking the court to force Amazon to host the social network. Parler also argued in his complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western Washington District that Amazon partnered with Twitter in violation of antitrust laws.

Amazon responded that Parler has not moderated the violent and red-hot content on its website sufficiently and has no choice but to act quickly. It has also been denied having any contact with Twitter on the matter.

The judge Barbara J. Rothstein ruled that Parler made “only weak and factually imprecise speculations” about the alleged collusion between Amazon and Twitter. It also noted that “there is no debate” that Amazon’s commitment to reinstating Parler now, before the social network could establish an effective content moderation system, “would result in the continued posting of abusive, violent content “prompted Amazon to start Parler in the first place. The court, she wrote, “specifically rejects” forcing Amazon to deliver this type of violent speech.

Judge Rothstein wrote that the riot in the Capitol was “a tragic reminder that inflammatory rhetoric – faster and easier than many of us would have hoped – can turn a legitimate protest into a violent uprising.”

Although the judge did not dismiss the case outright, she wrote that Parler “has not been able to show that it is likely that he will prevail on the matter”.

Jeffrey Wernick, Parler’s chief operating officer, said in a statement that the litigation is still in its early stages. “We remain confident that we will ultimately prevail in the main case,” he said.

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Parler accuses Amazon of breaking antitrust regulation in suspending internet hosting providers.

Hours after going offline on Monday, social media start-up Parler filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Amazon of antitrust violations and calling for an injunction to prevent that the tech giant is blocking access to cloud computing services.

Amazon told Parler over the weekend that the service would be discontinued because “a steady increase in violent content” on the site indicated the company did not have a reliable process to prevent it from violating Amazon’s Terms of Service. Amazon said it would make sure Parler’s data is preserved so it can be migrated to a new hosting provider.

Millions of people turned to Parler after Twitter and Facebook banned President Trump following the Capitol uprising last week. Apple and Google kicked Parler out of their app stores later this week, although users who had already downloaded the app could still use it. However, the app relied on Amazon’s cloud computing technology.

Parler’s complaint was dated Sunday before Amazon suspended Parler. However, the lawsuit wasn’t filed with the court until Monday.

In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western Washington District, Parler accused Amazon of terminating, rather than just banning, its account – and said it should have been given 30 days notice. It has also been argued that Amazon violated antitrust laws by teaming up with Twitter, a large Amazon customer, to start Parler just as it was gaining broader appeal. It said it had 12 million users and “expects millions more this week given the growth in recent days.”

Parler did not provide direct evidence that Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response. Instead, it cited a December press release announcing a multi-year strategic partnership between Amazon and Twitter, and cited Twitter’s own challenges in monitoring the content.

Parler said losing Amazon’s services would be a “death knell,” although other platforms popular with far-right and conspiracy theorists, such as Gab and 8chan, have managed to bounce back after being canceled by hosting providers.

David J. Groesbeck, a sole intellectual property attorney based in Olympia, Washington, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Parler. Amazon didn’t respond to an instant request for comment.