Amazon Court Filing Includes Chilling Death Threats Published on Parler

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Seattle Times, via Gizmodo

Amazon Court Filing Includes Chilling Death Threats Published on Parler

Matt Novak
Today 6:30AM Filed to: PARLER

Amazon submitted a new filing in federal court on Tuesday in response to an emergency motion by Parler to restore its hosting services through Amazon's AWS. Parler was kicked offline early Monday after Amazon said the social media company had violated its terms of service and Parler couldn't find another company willing to do business. Parler sued Amazon on Monday alleging breach of contract and an antitrust violation. ... But whatever you think of Amazon's actions, the filing makes one thing absolutely clear: Parler was a cesspool of racist hate, insurrectionist appeals against the United States, and chillingly specific death threats.

The court filing, first reported by Seattle Times, lays out the ways in which Parler violated Amazon's terms of service by using what Amazon calls a "hands-off approach" to moderating the content of its users. Amazon says it approached company leadership at Parler in mid-November 2020 and tried to get the social media service to address its problems. (1), (2)

Parler was either unable or unwilling to properly police its content, which became increasingly worse after President Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden. Users called for a new civil war and threatened the assassination of politicians like Stacey Abrams and tech company executives like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

All of the threats would be disturbing enough in isolation before the 2020 presidential election, but they're even more terrifying in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. President Trump gave a speech that afternoon to an enormous crowd of supporters and told them to descend on the Capitol, where both houses of Congress were certifying electoral votes that will make Biden the president. Trump even promised to march down himself, something he didn't do. Instead, he went back to the White House and watched the chaos on TV, a dizzying outburst of violence that left five people dead.

{snip}

(1) https://www.pacermonitor.com/view/LHNWTAI/Parler_LLC_v_Amazon_Web_Services_Inc__wawdce-21-00031__0010.0.pdf

(2) https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-rebuffs-conservative-social-media-app-parlers-demand-to-be-reinstated-online/

Read more: https://gizmodo.com/amazon-court-filing-includes-chilling-death-threats-pub-1846048394

---

Hat tip, Popehat

LightlyThreatenHat Retweeted

https://twitter.com/Popehat

Amazon Court Filing Includes Chilling Death Threats Published on Parler https://gizmodo.com/amazon-court-filing-includes-chilling-death-threats-pub-1846048394?utm_mediumsharefromsite&utm_sourcegizmodo_twitter via
@gizmodo

Link to tweet

Amazon asked a judge to deny Parler’s request to reinstate its cloud-service account. Amazon noted that the social networking app shrugged off requests to police violent content.

Link to tweet

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I wonder whether Parler will drop their lawsuit against Amazon

now that such damning evidence has come to light. That stuff is indefensible.

[durablend]

5. They're just dumb enough to double down on it.

[WinstonSmith4740]

10. And somehow they keep find ways to defend it.

Was just watching a Rethug rep from NC playing the "both sides do it" card, while "choking" back tears on the violence.

Screw them all. The Frankenstein analogy has been done to death, but it is perfect.

[AllaN01Bear]

16. here we go again with the false equivalants .

[WinstonSmith4740]

27. Oh absolutely.

Leslie Stahl tried that on 60 Minutes with Pelosi about the relief bill being held up for 8 months. Nancy hung her out to dry.

False equivalency is all they have. Well, that and, "This will only divide the country more. It's time to heal". It's like having the guy who just raped you say, "I'm sorry...I got carried away. Let's kiss and make up."

As far as I'm concerned, every Republican who ever supported that asshole needs to be removed from office. If they were too stupid to realize this was exactly where he was heading, they're too stupid to hold office.

[Jay25]

28. Well said, agree 100%.

[mdbl]

32. They are not stupid, just greedy narcissists there to serve themselves

they quit trying to hide it years ago.

[BobTheSubgenius]

35. "Stupid" and "greedy nacissists" are not mutually exclusive.

Let's give credit where credit's due. Some of them are more multi-faceted than the average.

[mdbl]

36. ok LOL

[lagomorph777]

44. Discovery is gonna suck if they keep it up.

Might be lucky to avoid criminal charges.

Also, maybe the Mercers have millions, but Amazon has hundreds of billions. Very lopsided battle, if they actually engage.

[Bluethroughu]

2. Thank you Amazon.

[highplainsdem]

3. OP I posted in GD about this last night. Parler CEO admitted to backlog of 26,000 violations

that had been reported, and they were relying on "volunteers" to deal with them.


https://democraticunderground.com/100214908794

[Iliyah]

6. I call bull . ..

since it's conception Parler has been a beacon for hatred, violence, death threats, civil war, rape, and over turning the election any means necessary.

republican congresscritters, republican party, so called Christians, et al frequent the site, and they all knew that this site was fueling what in fact occurred on January 6, 2021 and was cheerful about it.

As usual, Parler's CEO is full of shit.

[Rustynaerduwell]

4. I don't blame Parler for getting upset over all of this. (edit below)

Last edited Wed Jan 13, 2021, 01:12 PM - Edit history (2)

I never read the terms and conditions either.

Edit: People, please. I was being facetious. I was also slyly pointing out that Parler had no other defense.

[marble falls]

7. Inorance as a defense. Novel. If you signed it, you bought it - read or not.

[Rustynaerduwell]

33. Edit: People, please. I was being facetious. I was also slyly pointing out that Parler had no other

defense.

[Marthe48]

12. Good lord, who does?!

However, you'd think the ceo would have someone read the TOS for him!

[AllyCat]

18. No kidding. No one reads those things. We should, but we don't.

You would think an "organized" group like Parler would have done that, but it is still in their court. "Ignorance to the law is no excuse" is something we have all heard. Amazon made the TOS available. If they don't read it, it's not Amazon's problem.

[NYC Liberal]

26. Well Amazon also says they told them in November that they

needed to address the problem. So even if they weren’t aware before, they knew in November and still didn’t do anything.

[AllyCat]

31. So they got extra warnings the rest of us don't get. And they still committed violations

and supported violence.

[BobTheSubgenius]

37. Told in November and not a subsequent lick of improvement, that I've heard of.

A single day's notice was all they needed. A tiny scintilla of effort to correct their course would win them this lawsuit, or at least give them a temporary stay.

[Tommymac]

29. Bah. Another 'Dog ate my homework' moment. Ignorance is not an excuse!

Parler needs to be sent to the dustbin of history.

They are implicit and responsible in the deaths of at least 5 People.

They are implicit and responsible for spreading sedition and Insurrection.

What do you think of that?

[Rustynaerduwell]

34. Edit: People, please. I was being facetious. I was also slyly pointing out that Parler had no other

defense.

[mjvpi]

30. Good one.

[DBoon]

41. Are you now Bill Gates' towel boy?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Amazon did right by rights. Deaths threatened & people died. Lawmakers nearly killed

Any company has a right to kick anybody off for any reason, but would have to pay for breach of contract if they did so arbitrarily.

In this case, Amazon has rights without penalty because Parler violated the contract and refused to repair the break.

[Lokee11]

20. +1

Yeah - I don't understand, seems pretty clear cut that they cannot make Amazon go back to providing service to them.

FDT!

[soothsayer]

9. They found a vile new host

I hope that whole thing gets shut down too

[OMGWTF]

24. The new site is run by a guy whose last name is Monster.

Oh, the irony. His wife runs a naturopathic clinic one block away from my condo in Issaquah, WA.

[Lonestarblue]

11. Perhaps Rebekah Mercer needs to be indicted for funding insurrection.

If you pay someone to commit a murder, you didn’t do the actual crime but you’re still guilty. Rebekah Mercer has paid so that Parler can be used to foment violence against US citizens and the government and last week’s insurrection.

[Initech]

14. So should Ginny Thomas.

Paying for 80+ busloads of MAGA terrorists to go to that march, is almost the equivalent of buying the 9/11 hijacker's plane tickets.

[John1956PA]

19. As pointed out by another DUer, the Ginni Thomas accusation is false.

From https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ginni-thomas-buses/ :

. . .

The rumor stems from the unproven assertion made by Talking Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who claimed on Twitter two days before the riots (before deleting the tweet after they turned violent) that he and his organizations — both Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action USA — would be sending “80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.” The link to Thomas gained prominence online when it was promoted virally in a user-submitted blog post on the left-wing site DailyKos. That post’s argument stems from tweets tying Thomas to Turning Point USA and other right-wing political organizations involved in the rally.

While we point out that Kirk, no stranger to false claims, has provided no evidence of his organization’s funding of 80 buses to the rally, the link to Thomas — based on her work with Turning Point USA — is out-of-date even if Kirk is telling the truth. It is true that Thomas was once on the “Advisory Council” for Turning Point USA, a body that has at times included over 75 people, but she has not served in that role since at least early 2019, according to Turning Point USA’s website.

Thomas is indeed a well-known right-wing organizer and conspiracy theorist. She provided Trump with several memos outlining what she believed to be government officials unfaithful to Trump, lobbied successfully for appointments of Trump loyalists to government posts, and along with other activists met with him in 2019 to discuss “appointments … that they accused the president’s aides of blocking,” for example. In 2016 — as Snopes reported in an October 2020 investigation, she was also part of efforts to promote false talking points regarding illegal voting by immigrants in the 2016 election.

However, as Stern, the Slate reporter, tweeted: “even if [Turning Point USA] funded transportation to the insurrection (and we should not automatically believe Charlie Kirk), Thomas had nothing to do with it.” As such, the claim that Ginni Thomas organized “80 buses” for the Save America Rally is false.

. . .

[Initech]

21. Duly noted!

Fuck TP USA though!

[John1956PA]

22. Thanks, I share your sentiments about TP exactly! n/t

[Hekate]

40. Thank you for facts. It really irks me to fall for rumor posted here; DU is supposed to be better...

...than that & more careful to be factual.

[janterry]

13. Just to be clear, twitter also is full of threats

especially against women.

[Initech]

15. The MAGAs have done more damage to America than Al Qaeda or ISIS ever would or could.

It's time they pay.

[Traildogbob]

17. "With a little help from their friend"

Putin, Russia is laughing their fucking asses off. So is North Korea. Champagne! 🍸🥃🍺😂😂🇺🇸🔥🔥🔥

[iluvtennis]

23. They violated Amazon's Terms of Service, therefore Amazon is on solid standing in removing them.

BTW, Parler has the option to stand up their on backend servers, so why are they whining about Amazon/others refusing to host them. Don't have one iota of sympathy for them. Good riddance.

[MontanaMama]

25. Let Parler bleed their cash reserves dry fighting this.

PayPal and Venmo dropped them too. Scraping money together will be tough in the short term.

[DemoTex]

38. "After the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next."

Particularly disturbing. Teachers. Who else is on the hit lists of these miscreants? City sanitation workers? Linemen for the county? Letter carriers?

[Hekate]

42. College professors. Librarians. Go full Pol Pot & shoot all the people with glasses.

[BlueWavePsych]

39. Parler's bankruptcy is the least of their problems.

They are likely liable to tons of civil cases and criminal offenses.

[Evolve Dammit]

43. sounds like healing words all right..... Violent, murderous, insurrectionists. nt