Judge Barbara Rothstein ruled Thursday that Parler did not meet the legal requirements for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction.
The ruling does not end the lawsuit, but it does mean the court will not force Amazon Web Services to return Parler to its cloud platform again. Amazon’s move effectively kicked Parler off the public Internet.
Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by the far-right, sued AWS earlier this month after AWS alleged Parler had not done enough to remove instances of incitement from its website.
Amazon had earlier said Parler’s lawsuit had “no merit” and argued in a lawsuit that Parler had shown “unwillingness and inability to remove content from Amazon Web Services’ servers (‘AWS’) that threatens public safety.” ‘
Parler CEO John Matze told the court on Monday that Parler did not have the means to house himself on his own servers. Parler tried to find a host alternative to AWS at at least six different potential suppliers after it became clear that Amazon would not work with it, but according to a court file, Parler was turned down.
Parler’s website suddenly reappeared on Sunday afternoon with a message from Matze: “Hello world, is this thing on?” It remains unclear who can actually deliver the servers on which Parler’s social network will operate.