A group of Amazon employees are demanding that the company break off its relationship with social networking site Parler and stop providing web hosting services to the platform. Amazon’s climate change and justice workers tweeted on Saturday that Amazon Web Services, the company’s Internet infrastructure service that is the backbone of many websites and programs, should deny Parler services until it removes positions that incite violence, including during the presidential inauguration.’
Parler became popular with supporters of President Trump as platforms such as Twitter and Facebook tightened their moderation policies. The group of Amazon employees includes many high-skilled workers at the company, including data scientists and software developers. This is not the first time the group has questioned its company’s practices; it published a letter in April 2019 asking Amazon to embark on a plan to address climate change, and to terminate AWS’s contracts with fossil fuel companies.
Enough is enough. Amazon offers Parler @awscloud.
As Amazon workers, we demand that Parler deny services until it removes posts that incite violence, even during the presidential inauguration.
We can not be complicit in more bloodshed and violent attacks on our democracy.
– Amazon Climate Justice Employees (@AMZNforClimate) 9 January 2021
Parler has been in the spotlight for the past few days, with activist group Sleeping Giants calling for the app to be removed from app stores in response to posts calling for violence against elected officials. Screenshots show reports of Parler – known as parleys – calling on Vice President Mike Pence to defy a firing squad and urging ‘Patriots’ to return to Washington DC on January 19 with guns.
According to the AWS Policy for Acceptable Use, customers may not use their services “for illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use.” AWS cut ties with right-wing social network Gab in 2019 for violating its anti-hate content policy.
Google removed Parler from its Play Store on Friday because it lacked a robust “serious content moderation” mechanism, according to a statement. “We are aware of the continuing placement in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US,” the statement said.
Apple is reportedly considering a similar ban, but the Parler app will still appear in its App Store from Saturday afternoon, where it rose to No. 1 spot late Friday, according to one report.
Amazon and Parler did not immediately respond to requests for comment The edge on Saturday. John Matze, CEO of Parler, said Swing podcast a day after the attack on the Capitol that the company was merely a ‘neutral city square that only obeys the law’.