It was the violent threats that caused Amazon to give up Talking

In a filing on Tuesday, Amazon responded to Parler’s claims that it had acted unfairly by removing the social network – and in doing so, gave outsiders a new look at the content that prompted Amazon to suspend the web services account of Speak.

Amazon Web Services suspended the service from Speak on January 9, shutting down the social network. He failed to find a replacement web host and argued in court that Amazon was exercising unfair monopoly power by taking the site down.

Amazon’s decision to suspend the Talk service has sparked an ongoing debate about the power of AWS as a hosting provider and whether such suspensions pose a threat to free speech. But while many saw the suspension as a knee-jerk response to the mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, Amazon’s response makes it clear that the service had filed complaints with Parler long before the raid.

“AWS has reported to Parler over several weeks dozens of examples of content that encouraged violence,” the company claims, “including calls to suspend officials, kill blacks and Jews, and shoot police officers in the head ”.

To underscore this point, the complaint includes 15 examples of such messages, which include graphic calls for violence against tech CEOs, teachers and professional athletes. In some cases, comments also refer to specific dates and targets of violence, encouraging users to form militias and “acquire targets”.

Amazon says it submitted more than 100 such comments to Talk in the weeks leading up to the suspension.

Content Warning: These threats are graphic, violent and racist; exercise discretion.

The file goes into more detail on Amazon’s previous claims that the suspension was in response to growing calls for violence against Parler.

“It is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and Parler is unable or unwilling to identify and promptly remove such content, which is a violation of our terms of service. service, ”the company said in a Jan.9 statement. “We raised our concerns to Parler for several weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to their services being suspended on Sunday night.”

In the filing, Amazon stressed that it had suspended the service rather than terminating it entirely and was open to the restoration of the Talking service if the company began moderating content in accordance with AWS’s terms of service.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made a similar point Wednesday during an appearance on CBS, explaining that Apple had removed Speak from the iOS App Store due to its inability to moderate its content as per the terms. Apple. “All we ask is that it adhere to the terms of use,” Cook said. “We hope they will and return to the store.”