A group of Amazon employees is demanding that the company cut its relationship with the social networking site Parler and stop providing web hosting services for the platform. Amazon Climate Change and Justice officials tweeted on Saturday that Amazon Web Services, the company’s Internet infrastructure service that is the backbone of many sites and apps, must “deny Parler services until it removes posts that incite violence, including in the presidential inauguration ”.
Parler became popular with supporters of President Trump as platforms like Twitter and Facebook enforced their moderation policies. Amazon’s group of employees includes many highly skilled workers in the company, including data scientists and software developers. It is not the first time that the group has questioned its company’s practices; published a letter in April 2019 asking Amazon to adopt a plan to deal with climate change and terminate AWS contracts with fossil fuel companies.
Enough is enough. Amazon hosts Parler in @awscloud.
As Amazon workers, we demand that Amazon deny Parler’s services until it removes posts that incite violence, including presidential tenure.
We cannot be accomplices in more bloodshed and violent attacks on our democracy.
– Amazon Employees For Climate Justice (@AMZNforClimate) January 9, 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. The screenshots show posts on Parler – known as parleys – calling on Vice President Mike Pence to face a firing squad and encouraging “Patriots” to return to Washington DC on January 19 with weapons.
In accordance with AWS’s acceptable use policy, customers may not use its services “for any illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use”. AWS severed relations with the right-wing social site Gab in 2019 for violating its policy against hate content.
On Friday, Google removed Parler from its Play Store because it lacked a robust mechanism for moderating “shocking content”, according to a statement. “We are aware of ongoing posts on the Parler app that seek to incite continuing violence in the United States,” says the statement.
Apple is considering a similar ban, but the Parler app was still appearing on its App Store on Saturday afternoon, where, according to a report, it climbed to number one on Friday.
Amazon and Parler did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge on Saturday. Parler CEO John Matze said in the To swing podcast the day after the attack on the Capitol that the company was just a “neutral central square that just complies with the law”.