Amazon classified a Parler lawsuit as “without merit” and the facts “unambiguous” in a case that opposes the conservative social media platform to the giant web service provider that refused to support it due to incitement to violence.
In a lawsuit that echoes and expands on a statement from Amazon on Monday, lawyers at the company led by Jeff Bezos said Parler’s lawsuit “is not about suppressing speech or stifling views. This is not a conspiracy to restrict trade. Instead, this case is about Parler’s demonstrated reluctance and inability to remove content that threatens public security from Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers, such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture and murder of appointed public officials and citizens private. “
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Apple and Google had previously removed Parler from their app stores and the AWS move basically forced him to close. Parler’s lawsuit classified Amazon’s decision as politically motivated and “apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging market for the benefit of Twitter.”
In the lawsuit – at the Washington Western District District Court in Seattle – Amazon insists that “there is no legal basis … to compel AWS to host such content. AWS repeatedly notified Parler that its content violated the parties’ agreement, requested removal and reviewed Parler’s plan to resolve the issue, only to determine that Parler did not want and could not do so. AWS suspended Parler’s account as a last resort to prevent further access to such content, including plans for violence to interrupt the impending presidential transition. “
Supporters of President Donald Trump’s reluctant departure violently besieged the Capitol building last Wednesday. Five people died. At the end of the week, Twitter permanently banned Trump’s account and Facebook blocked him indefinitely. Trump’s supporters turned even more strongly to Parler, which AWS stopped supporting on Monday. Parler sued, requesting a temporary restraining order.
In its response to the court, Amazon said that when Parler signed a contract with AWS in 2018, it agreed among other things “not to use AWS to host certain content, including content that ‘violates the rights of others or that may be harmful to third parties’ ”. He said Parler started violating the agreement in mid-November as false and baseless claims that Joe Biden stole the election, released by President Trump and his allies incite violent responses on social media, including Parler. Posts that “clearly encourage and incite violence” have steadily increased, making it “clear that Parler does not have an effective process for complying with AWS terms of service,” said Amazon.
Parler broke his contract with Amazon first, meaning not the other way around.
“AWS reported to Parler, over many weeks, dozens of examples of content that encouraged violence, including calls to hang public officials, kill blacks and Jews and shoot police officers in the head … Parler systematically failed to“ suspend the access “to that content, let alone do it immediately, and demonstrated that there is no effective process in place to ensure future compliance. Parler herself admitted to having an accumulation of 26,000 reports of content that violates her (minimum) community standards that she has not yet reviewed. Parler’s own failures left AWS little choice but to suspend Parler’s account. “
The lawsuit (below) lists dozens of violent posts that caught the attention of Parler, who he considers “merely representative of volumes of content that pose a security risk and harm others”.
“People acted on these calls: Parler was used to incite, organize and coordinate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The nation is just trying to come to the possession of Joe Biden on January 20. However, the decisions made during this period of unrest by social media giants have sparked an already furious debate over the extent to which platforms can or should curate and moderate content on their platforms.
Amazon’s long replica included a reference to Section 230, a statute of the Communications Decency Act that President Trump tried to eliminate. Section 230 says that the provider of an interactive computer service is immune from acting in good faith to restrict access to material that is excessively violent, offensive or otherwise objectionable. “This is precisely what AWS did here: it removed access to content that it considered excessively violent and hostile,” he said.
Complete pitch: