Apple May Lift Parler Block, If Parler Beefs Up Content Moderation

Apple may reinstate Parler to the App store, if Parler improves its content moderation procedures, Apple CEO Tim Cook says.

“We've only suspended them,” Cook tells “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace in an interview clip posted online Friday. “If they get their moderation together, they would be back on there.”

Cook said Apple made the decision to take down Parler after the company “looked at the incitement to violence that was on there.”

Apple and Google both removed Parler's app from their marketplaces last weekend, days after an insurrectionist mob seized the Capitol. Amazon Web Services, which had hosted Parler online, suspended the social media platform's account on January 10.

Parler -- a platform favored by some right-wing figures -- sued Amazon over the move, and is seeking reinstatement on its web hosting service.

Amazon said in court papers filed Wednesday that Parler was used to incite the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle held a hearing Thursday on Parler's request. As of Friday evening, Rothstein hadn't issued a written decision.

Amazon added that it had told Parler for at least seven weeks that the company was hosting content that threatened violence, such as a post reading: “We are going to fight in a civil War on Jan.20th, Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets.”

Parler CEO John Matze, Jr. said in an affidavit filed with the court that the company was attempting to block inappropriate content, and had recently tested a content filtering system that relied on artificial intelligence to “pre-screen inappropriate content, including material that encouraged or incited violence.”

He added that between January 6 and January 8, Parler was “trying to address content moderation challenges exacerbated both by current events and by a corresponding and an unprecedented surge in Parler users and activity.”

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