Amazon.com Inc warned Parler about vile and threatening language on its site before cutting off the social media platform favored by many supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump from its servers, according to a court filing.
In exhibits that were part of a filing to the U.S. district court in Seattle late on Tuesday, Amazon provided copies of emails from late last year. One of them gave examples on Parler of vile language, for example, used to describe former first lady Michelle Obama, as well as postings such as "the only good democrat is a dead one. Kill'em all."
Parler defended the insults to Obama as hateful but covered by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The direct threat, the respondent said, "has been passed on to our regulator contact for investigation."
A second exhibit includes a long list of Parler postings that threatened specific acts of violence against people, some of whom are named while others are just described as "liberals" or black, gay, Jewish or transgender.
Parler's Laughably Bad Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon
by Mike Masnick
The key part of the lawsuit is that Parler, without evidence, claims that Amazon had "political animus" against it, and that it conspired with Twitter to shut down a competitor. It provides no proof of either thing, and... even if it did show proof of political animus, that's... not against the law. And that's kind of a big deal. They're basically saying it's an antitrust violation to dislike Parler. Which it's not. But even if it were, they are simply making up false reasons for why AWS booted Parler.
hit back hard with a very damning response to Parler that just dismantles Parler's argument bit by bit in fairly explicit terms.
This case is not about suppressing speech or stifling viewpoints. It is not about a conspiracy to restrain trade. Instead, this case is about Parler’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove from the servers of Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) content that threatens the public safety, such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture, and assassination of named public officials and private citizens. There is no legal basis in AWS’s customer agreements or otherwise to compel AWS to host content of this nature. 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. AWS suspended Parler’s account as a last resort to prevent further access to such content, including plans for violence to disrupt the impending Presidential transition.
As Amazon says, the antitrust claims are obviously silly, but even the breach of contract claims are ridiculous because if anyone breached the contract, it was Parler:
Despite Parler’s rhetoric, its lawsuit is no more than a meritless claim for breach of contract. But the facts are unequivocal: If there is any breach, it is Parler’s demonstrated failure and inability to identify and remove such content. AWS was well within its rights to suspend Parler immediately for those failures. Parler also cannot hold AWS liable in tort for enforcing the agreement’s express terms. And there is no antitrust claim where, as here, Parler cannot plausibly plead an agreement to cause it harm and the complained-of conduct is undeniably compatible with a legitimate purpose.
Compelling AWS to host content that plans, encourages, and incites violence would be unprecedented. Parler has no likelihood of prevailing on the merits, and the balance of equities and public interest strongly tip against an injunction. The motion for a temporary restraining order should be denied.
In the Amazon filing, the company notes that it began sending breach reports to Parler in November of last year and detailed the nature of the content that it was concerned about, often directly calling for violence. They include a ton of screenshots of the kind of violent speech that was on Parler, that goes way beyond what you'd see on other platforms, and which other platforms would remove.
Amazon also notes that the exhibit is only a small sampling. Read more via TechDirt