Amazon is asking a federal judge to keep Parler offline and says the conservative media website has dismissed appeals from the Amazon Web Services department that Parler was policing his violent content, before and after the Capitol uprising.
The technology company’s legal appeal came in response on Tuesday Parler’s lawsuit for antitrust infringement and breach of contract after Amazon Parler’s account was suspended and effectively banned from the Internet.
Amazon Web Services launched Parler from its cloud services just after midnight on Monday in Pacific time, and the site is unavailable from 4:30 p.m. ET. Amazon said it abandoned Parler because it did not trust the site’s ability to monitor content on its platform that promotes or incites violence.
“This case is not about suppressing speech or weakening views,” Amazon’s attorneys said in a court statement. ‘Instead, this case concerns Parler’s unwillingness and inability to remove content that threatens public safety from the servers of Amazon Web Services (‘ AWS ‘), such as inciting rape, torture and assassination of said public officials. and to plan. private burgers. ‘
Parler’s refusal to moderate content has led to a “steady increase” in violent content on the network, which violates Amazon’s terms of service, AWS argued.
“Firstly, Amazon needs to think they have a strong case here that will set a good precedent going forward. And secondly, Amazon wants the wider public – or at least the wider business community – to see their response here,” Max Kornblith said. said. , co-founder and head of growth at FairShake, a company that helps consumers resolve disputes with service providers through the arbitration process.
He noted that Amazon’s standard customer agreement would probably have allowed the lawsuit to be moved out of the public courts, if Amazon wanted the route.
The platform’s right-wing popularity has increased since the November election, and is seen as a likely means for President Donald Trump to reach his followers after being loaded from most major media platforms following Wednesday’s siege of the US Capitol. In addition to the move from Amazon, Google and Apple have removed Parler from their app stores.
In its complaint lodged on Monday, Parler claims that Amazon’s “decision to terminate Parler’s account effectively appears to be motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging market in favor of Twitter”, he claims.