Amazon is asking a judge to keep the Parler social networking platform offline, citing a series of death threats against top tech executives and elected officials posted on the site before last week’s deadly Chapter riot, according to a file Tuesday.
Parler sued Amazon on Monday, claiming that Amazon Web Services (AWS) violated antitrust law and violated companies’ contractual arrangements when the tech giant removed the popular platform for conservatives due to its hands-off approach to content moderation.
Amazon’s lawyers defended the company’s move on Tuesday, saying Parler had demonstrated a “lack of desire and inability” to remove content that “threatens public safety, such as by inciting and planning rape, torture and assassination of appointed public officials and private citizens. ”
The lawsuit went on to say that Amazon He “repeatedly” notified Parler that its content violated the parties’ agreement and requested its removal, “only to establish that Parler did not want to and could not do so.”
Amazon says Parler’s suspension is a “last resort to prevent further access to such content,” including plans for violence around the president-elect Joe Biden
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Parler has seen a rise in popularity since the November 3 presidential election, with misinformation spreading across the platform. The app rose again after the Capitol riot, with about 825,000 installations in Apple and Google stores between Jan. 6 and Jan. 10, up 1,000 percent from the same period a week earlier, according to data from SensorTower.
Amazon lawyers said the company notified Parler’s policy director of more than 100 content supporting the platform’s violence since mid-November.
Examples cited in the court case included death threats, generally directed at Democratic directors of technology and parliamentarians, as well as positions appointing Democrats as president. Nancy Pelosi
Nancy PelosiHouse takes action to urge Pence to oust Trump Trump told Pence he could be “patriot” or “p —-” when overseeing the election vote: reports Pelosi names 9 prosecution managers MORE (California), minority leader of the Senate Charles Schumer
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Other posts targeted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot ZuckerbergTrump hits social media companies after banning Facebook accounts tells employees not to wear company shirts in public: Facebook report says it now removes content containing the phrase “Stop the Steal” MORE and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, with death threats, according to the court.
A Parler spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Following last week’s deadly Capitol riot, technology companies have taken steps to remove and restrict content that could incite violence.
Trump supporters and right-wing extremists have used platforms such as Parler, as well as some major social networking sites, to organize before the Capitol mob attack. In some marginal sites, extremists post about potentially violent demonstrations for this weekend and Inauguration Day.
Major social networking sites have also taken steps to limit Trump’s presence on their platforms. Facebook banned Trump indefinitely at least until Biden’s inauguration, and Twitter banned the president’s account altogether. YouTube has said it will temporarily suspend the president because of its “continuing potential for violence.”