You own what you own, and if you don’t own it, well, it’s not yours. Amazon owns their cloud and many large and small businesses rely on their cloud serving technology to sustain their businesses.
In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across the social network violated its terms of service.
Amazon said it was unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate calls for violence and hate speech would be effective.
“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms,” the email reads. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”
Now, let’s get real. Whether you are left, right, or could give a shit about politics, this is scary. And yes, this is political. If you run a business or website with any cloud service, I’d think twice.
Since the beginning of social media, pedophiles, murderers, thieves, conspiracy theory crazies, racists, fascists, right and left-wing nut jobs, have plagued those digital airways. Countless calls for insurrection, death, and civil unrest.
Now, if the reason for Amazon Web Services (AWS) to pull the plug on Parlers’ hosting, is for reasons of violence. So be it, as that should not be tolerated on any platform. But I would imagine that Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and many others, would fall into the same category and should be pulled as well, whether they are on AWS or their own servers.
But that’s not the case.
A group of Amazon corporate employees called on the company to stop providing cloud services to Parler, following the riots at the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.
“We cannot be complicit in more bloodshed and violent attacks on our democracy,” Amazon employees wrote in a tweet.
By Saturday night, Amazon informed Parler it would no longer provide cloud services to the site, with the suspension taking effect on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Parler CEO John Matze said that his company has been dropped by virtually all of its business alliances after Amazon, Apple and Google ended their agreements with the social media service.
“Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said on Fox News.
“They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet,” Matze said. “They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company. And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”
Now, what happens to your online business if AWS employees don’t agree with what you sell, say, or post? I’d think twice.
The pendulum swings fast these days, and what was popular yesterday, may be canceled tomorrow.