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Back to Press Play with Madeleine Brand

Press Play with Madeleine Brand

Parler is banned from Amazon, Apple and Google as tech companies silence right-wing hate speech

The social media app Parler is suing Amazon. Over the weekend, Amazon Web Services took Parler offline. Amazon said Parler didn’t do enough to curb violent threats.

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By Madeleine Brand • Jan 11, 2021 • 9m Listen

The social media app Parler is suing Amazon. Over the weekend, Amazon Web Services took Parler offline. Amazon said Parler didn’t do enough to curb violent threats.

Amazon is the world’s largest cloud provider. Parler says other options have fallen through — that without Amazon, it will be out of business.

Parler has been a gathering place for conservatives like Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro.

Google and Apple banned Parler’s app from their app stores. Twitter and Facebook removed President Trump from their platforms.

Conservative host Ben Shapiro said, “The entire tech infrastructure is now mobilizing in order to take conservative outlets off the air. In order to ensure conservative websites no longer appear, here's the thing, they may not be doing it right this second, but they have now set the predicate that they can do it whenever they want.”

Is this a reasonable reaction to last week’s insurrection? Or do tech companies have too much power to silence speech they don’t like?

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    Madeleine Brand

    Host, 'Press Play'

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    Sarah Sweeney

    Vice President of Talk Programming, KCRW

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    Angie Perrin

    Producer, Press Play

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    Michell Eloy

    Line Editor, Press Play

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    Michael Overing

    lawyer, professor teaching First Amendment and censorship at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism

    NewsPolitics
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