Amazon is asking a federal judge to keep Parler offline, saying the conservative media site has brushed aside appeals by the Amazon Web Services division that Parler monitor its violent content both before and after the Capitol riot.
The tech company’s appeal on Tuesday came in response Parler’s antitrust infringement lawsuit and breach of contract after Amazon suspended Parler’s account and effectively banned it from the internet.
Amazon Web Services launched Parler from its cloud services just after midnight Pacific time Monday. The website was no longer available online after 4:30 a.m.CET. Amazon said it dropped Parler because it wasn’t sure the website could monitor content on their platform to encourage or incite violence.
“In this case it is not about suppressing language or suppressing viewpoints,” said the lawyers of Amazon in a court case. “Instead, this case is about Parler’s proven unwillingness and inability to remove public safety content from Amazon Web Services’ (‘AWS’) servers, for example by inciting and planning the rape, torture and murder of the named people Civil servants and private citizens. “
Parler’s refusal to moderate content resulted in a “steady increase” in violent content on the network in violation of Amazon’s Terms of Service, according to AWS.
“First, Amazon must believe that they have a strong argument here that would set a good precedent for them. Second, Amazon wants the general public – or at least the broader business community – to see their answer here,” said Max Kornblith, co-founder and growth leader at FairShake, a company that helps consumers resolve disputes with service providers through arbitration.
He noted that Amazon’s standard customer agreement would likely have allowed them to move the lawsuit in the public courts if Amazon had wanted that route.
The platform on the right rose in popularity after the November election and was seen as a likely means for President Donald Trump to reach out to his supporters after he booted from most mainstream media outlets following the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday had been. In addition to moving Amazon, Google and Apple have removed Parler from their app stores.
In his complaint filed on Monday, Parler alleged that Amazon’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account was apparently motivated by political animations. It is apparently also intended to reduce competition in the market for microblogging services in favor of Twitter.
