When Twitter suspended the accounts of Donald Trump and a number of posters advocating violence leading up to the presidency of Joe Biden, many conservatives looked for a microblogging site that would allow them to openly share their opinions. They found it in Parler, a site that catered to expressions of conservative thought. Through its lack of content monitoring (intentional or otherwise), Parler saw a dramatic increase of posts that ranged from conspiracy theories to those who advocated for violence. These posts described, in vivid detail, rape, torture, murder, and the violent overthrow of the government.
Following the assault on the Capitol, AWS, the Amazon-linked platform used by Parler, demanded that Parler remove content inciting violence or that they would close the site down. Seeing no effort to do so, Parler was taken offline due to “violations of terms of service.” Parler then filed suit against Amazon’s parent company, claiming antitrust violations and breach of contract. They also requested an injunction against AWS and an order to immediately restore service.
On Thursday, two separate but interrelated events occurred. Dan Bongino, a conservative political commentator and part owner of Parler, issued an extensive interview where he outlined how Parler was being irreparably damaged by the actions of AWS.
Concurrently, a court hearing on the injunction was being held. The oral response by the attorney for AWS, though couched in legal terms, was essentially that actions have consequences. After both sides presented their preliminary arguments, the judge repeated pressed Parler’s attorney to specify the emergency that would require an immediate order. Parler’s lawyer ultimately acknowledged that taking a longer, more deliberate approach to a permanent resolution would be the “better avenue.”
The difference between the approach in court and the public allegations of Parler spokespeople might be reminiscent of my comments yesterday: “if you want to hear things that support your point of view, tune into your media of choice. If you want evidence, you’ll need to be patient. It will come out in court.”
The use of social platforms raise a number of complex legal and practical issues. I'll be breaking those down in later posts. [January 16, 2021]
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