In a lawsuit on Tuesday, Amazon said it tore the right-wing social network Parler out of its AWS cloud service after flagging dozens of pieces of violent content starting in November.
Why does it matter: Parler is suing Amazon, saying his expulsion violates antitrust laws. In its response, Amazon cites violent content, as well as its protection under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, among its defenses.
Details: Amazon said it first sent a letter on November 17 with two examples of violent content and asked the company if such content violated Parler’s rules and what the company was doing to moderate such content.
- In the next 7 weeks, Amazon said it flagged more than 100 pieces of content to Parler’s policy director, including threats specifically targeted at members of Congress.
The big picture: Parler has had a bad time with almost all of his technology partners, including Twilio and Amazon, as well as Apple and Google, who removed the Parler app from their respective app stores.
What they are saying: In his lawsuit, Parler argued that Amazon conspired with Twitter to undermine the service at a time when it was gaining momentum.
- Amazon responded that its actions were not to “suppress speech or stifle views”, nor to “a conspiracy to restrict trade”.
Instead, Amazon said in the lawsuit, “This case is about Parler’s unwillingness and inability to remove content that threatens public security from Amazon Web Services servers, such as inciting and planning rape, torture and murder. public identified public officials and citizens “.