The Parler logo is seen on a smartphone with the Google, Amazon and Apple logos on the computer screen in the background. Google, Apple and Amazon have suspended the social networking app Parler.
Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images
Amazon has defended its decision to drop Parler from its web hosting services in response to a lawsuit filed by the social media app earlier this week.
In court statements late Tuesday, Amazon said it had tagged dozens of pieces of violent content to the social media app since November. The company claimed that Parler had breached its contract with Amazon’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), when the content was not removed and that AWS suspended Parler’s account “as a last resort”.
“This case is not about suppressing speech or stifling those views,” Amazon wrote in its response to Parler. “It’s not about conspiracy to restrict trade. Instead, it’s about Parler’s unwillingness and inability to remove content from AWS that threatens public safety from AWS’s servers, such as raping, torturing and assassinating the said encourage and plan the public. officials and private citizens. ‘
Amazon last week pulled the baton over Parler, a social media app popular with Trump supporters, following the deadly riot in the U.S. Capitol. Parler filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Monday, accusing Amazon of violating its contract and violating antitrust laws. Parler also asked the court for a temporary restriction to force AWS to reinstate his account.
In its response to Parler’s lawsuit, Amazon argued that restoring the web service to Parler would likely harm the public, weighing “any speculative damage Parler claims he may suffer” because the site is offline.
It also rejected Parler’s allegation that AWS violated antitrust laws by denying service. Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act is cited, a law favored by Silicon Valley and increasingly under attack by lawmakers, which protects tech companies from liability for what users place on their platforms.
Amazon said it began reporting content to Parler on November 17 last year in violation of its terms of service. Over the next seven weeks, Amazon said it was reporting more than 100 additional articles advocating violence.
Amazon contains some examples of the content in exhibits filed with the lawsuit, which include death threats among members of Congress, board members of technology companies, such as Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, as well as the U.S. Capitol Police, among others. In some Parler reports, users threaten to burn down ‘Amazon delivery trucks’ and Apple stores, as well as ‘to seize Amazon’s servers’.
“We must gather peacefully outside all these tyrannical homes and businesses, then protest peacefully and loot and burn it peacefully,” reads a report by Parler, according to the court document.
Amazon said content that encourages violence increased after the violence on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters on Wednesday, which left five dead. After the riot, politicians and the public called on social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube to closely moderate their platforms to prevent incitement to violence.
Amazon has held talks with Parler executives following the riots where it has expressed concern about Parler’s ineffective moderation strategies, which include relying on volunteers to report content. John Matze, CEO of Parler, indicated in one of the calls that the website has a backlog of 26,000 reports of content that violates the policy and is still on the website, the submission reads.
“Parler’s own failures had little to do with AWS other than suspending Parler’s account,” Amazon said.
Parler did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon had earlier said there was “no merit” to the claims set out in Parler’s lawsuit.