Amazon Court Filing Includes Chilling Death Threats Published on Parler [View all]

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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

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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.

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