3 years ago268Amazon defended its decision to suspend Parler from Amazon Web Services in a response to a lawsuit filed by the social media company.
Parler on Monday initially filed a suit against Amazon just after its suspension. Amazon cited a violation of its terms of service when it booted Parler, which has become popular in recent months with conservatives as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter. Parler was reportedly used to plan and coordinate the U.S. Capitol riots last week, BuzzFeed reported.
In its suit, Parler accused Amazon of violating antitrust law and said the tech giant breached a contract, among other allegations. It asked for a temporary restraining order to help keep the site online.
Amazon on Tuesday filed an opposition to the motion for a temporary restraining order. In its response, the Seattle-based company said “there is no legal basis in AWS’s customer agreements or otherwise to compel AWS to host content of this nature.”
Amazon said it reported more than 100 pieces of content advocating violence to Parler in November and December, including posts such as “after the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next,” and “death to @zuckerberg @realjeffbezos @jackdorsey @pichai.” It said content encouraging violence grew rapidly after the riots on Wednesday.
“AWS notified Parler repeatedly that its content violated the parties’ agreement, requested removal, and reviewed Parler’s plan to address the problem, only to determine that Parler was both unwilling and unable to do so,” according to the suit. That gave it the right to suspend Parler, Amazon alleges.
Amazon said the suspension was a “last resort to prevent further access to such content, including plans for violence to disrupt the impending Presidential transition.”
It described Parler’s lawsuit as “no more than a meritless claim for breach of contract,” alleging that Parler was the company that breached a contract “by hosting content advocating violence and failing to timely take that content down agreement.”
Parler has been offline since Monday. Apple and Google removed Parler from their respective app stores over the weekend before AWS suspended its account.
The suits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Amazon declined to provide additional comment. We’ve reached out to Parler for comment. Read Amazon’s full response below:
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