Reuters - Amazon.com Inc plans to take a more proactive approach to determine what types of content violate its cloud service policies, such as rules against promoting violence, and enforce its removal, according to two sources, a move likely to renew debate about how much power tech companies should have to restrict free speech.
Over the coming months, Amazon will hire a small group of people with its Amazon Web Services AWS division to develop expertise and work with outside researchers to monitor for future threats, one of the sources familiar with the matter said.
It could turn Amazon, the leading cloud service provider worldwide with 40% market share according to research firm Gartner, into one of the most powerful Arbiters' of content licensed on the Internet, experts say.
Amazon made headlines in the Washington Post last week for closing a website hosted on AWS, featuring propaganda from Islamic State that celebrated the suicide bombing who killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops in Kabul last Thursday. They did so after Amazon contacted the news organization, according to the Post.
Amazon has not responded to calls for comment.
Activists and human rights groups hold not just Websites and Applications accountable for harmful content, but also the underlying tech infrastructure that enables those sites to function, while political conservatives decry the loss of free speech.
AWS already prohibits its services from being used in a variety of ways, such as unacceptable activity, to promote child sexual abuse or incite or threaten violence, according to its illegal use policy.
Amazon first requests customers delete content breaching its policy or have a system to moderate your content. If Amazon cannot reach an acceptable agreement with the customer, it can take down the website.
Amazon aims to develop an approach toward content issues that it and other cloud providers are more frequently confronting, such as finding when misinformation on a company's website reaches a scale that requires AWS action, the source said.
The new team within AWS does not intend to sift through the vast volumes of content that companies host on the Cloud, but will aim to get ahead of future threats such as emerging extremist groups whose content could make it onto the cloud, the source added.
Amazon is currently hiring for a global head of policy on the AWS trust and safety team, responsible for protecting AWS against a wide variety of misuses in their plans, according to a job posting on its website.
AWS's offerings are cloud storage and virtual servers. It counts such companies as Netflix, Coca-Cola and Capital One as clients, according to its website.
Information preparation against certain types of content could help Amazon avoid potential legal and public relations risk.
If Amazon can get some of this stuff off proactively before it is discovered and becomes a big news story, there's value in avoiding reputational damage, said Melissa Ryan, founder of CARD Strategies, a consulting firm that helps organizations understand extremism and online toxicity threats.
Cloud services such as AWS and other entities like domain registrars are considered the backbone of the internet, but have historically been politically neutral services, according to a 2019 report https: www.cigionline.com. org articles navigation-tech stack-when - where and how-should-we-moderate - content from Joan Donovan, a Harvard researcher who studies online extremism and disinformation campaigns.
Some cloud-based sites had removed content before, such as in the aftermath of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, helping to slow organizing ability of groups, Donovan wrote.
Most of these companies have not done trying to get into content and not wanting to be the arbiter of thought, Ryan said. But when we talk about hate and extremism, you have to take a stand.