[ad_1]
- Amazon responded to a lawsuit filed by Parler on Tuesday that accused the tech giant of violating antitrust laws by banning the controversial social media platform from using Amazon Web Services.
- In its response, Amazon alleged that Parler violated its contract by refusing to remove more than 100 examples of violent content, including death threats against prominent Democrats, Republican tech leaders, and Black Lives Matter supporters.
- Amazon also cited Section 230 as part of its defense against Parler’s claims that Amazon conspired with Twitter to harm Talk’s business by firing it from AWS.
- Major tech companies, including Apple and Google, cut ties with Speak this week amid revelations that far-right insurgents have used the social media platform to organize and incite violence on the U.S. Capitol.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Amazon filed its response on Tuesday to an antitrust lawsuit brought against it by Parler, claiming the social media enthusiast’s refusal to remove violent content from its platform violated its contract and Parler failed to prove the allegations. antitrust.
Parler sued Amazon on Monday after the tech giant started the platform from its web hosting service, Amazon Web Services, amid a public outcry over Parler’s role in allowing insurgents to far right to organize and plan last week’s attacks on the United States Capitol.
“This case is not about suppressing speech or stifling views. This is not a conspiracy to restrict trade,” Amazon said in the court record. “Instead, this case concerns Parler’s demonstrated reluctance and inability to remove … content that threatens public safety, for example by inciting and planning rape, torture and murder of agents. public and private citizens. “
Parler did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Amazon cited more than a dozen examples of content posted on Talk that it said violated Amazon policies.
“We are going to fight in a civil war on January 20, train MILITIAS now and acquire targets,” one article said, according to the document, while another said: “Whites must ignite their racial identity and rain down. suffering and death like a hurricane. “
Other articles from Speak cited included death threats against prominent Democrats such as former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. , as well as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. , CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of parent company Google Alphabet.
Talk users have also targeted people of color, Black Lives Matter activists, Jews, teachers, the media, and professional sports leagues including the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL.
Read more: Talk has been taken offline for not moderating threats. The screenshots show what supporters of the Capitol Riots posted before, during and after the unrest.
“There is no legal basis in AWS customer agreements or for compelling AWS to host content of this nature,” Amazon said, adding that it had notified Speak “on several occasions” from mid -November 2020 about content that violated the terms of both companies’ contracts, but that Parler “was both reluctant and unable” to remove.
Amazon also rebuffed Parler’s claims that Amazon’s actions were politically motivated and violated antitrust laws by deliberately promoting Twitter, which also uses AWS, and not taking similar action against it.
“AWS does not host the Twitter feed, so of course it could not have suspended access to Twitter content,” Amazon said in the record, noting that Twitter ultimately blocked the violent content, while Parler refused to take similar action.
Amazon also cited Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives companies that operate an “interactive IT service” the legal right to remove content as they see fit.
Read more: Inside the rapid and mysterious rise of Talk, the Twitter alternative of “ free speech, ” which created a platform for conservatives by burning the Silicon Valley script
Talking has grown in importance in recent months as mainstream social media sites have come under increasing pressure to crack down on hate speech, disinformation and calls for violence.
In the wake of the November US presidential election, Trump supporters flocked to alternative social media, including Talk, to plan election protests after Facebook and other sites banned groups pushing conspiracies unfounded. From November 3 to 9, Parler was downloaded approximately 530,000 times in the United States, according to data from Apptopia.
As a pro-Trump mob violently seized the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday in an attack that left five people dead, armed rioters used Talk and other conservative-leaning social media apps to organize. Apptopia told Business Insider that Parler’s downloads reached about 323% of their average weekly volume as of October.
But as revelations emerged detailing how the insurgents exploited Parler to carry out attacks last week, big tech companies have faced pressure to cut ties. Apple and Google both removed the app from their app stores earlier this week, and Parler was forced to migrate its web hosting to Epik – a domain registrar known to host far-right extremist content – after have been started from AWS.
[ad_2]
Source link