- The far-right social media platform Parler is suing Amazon for antitrust violations after Amazon banned the site from using its AWS service for failing to moderate threats of violence more effectively.
- Amazon claims that Parler does not effectively police threats of violence on its platform, but the lawsuit claims that Amazon’s decision is politically motivated and competitive because it did not take similar action against Twitter, which also used AWS.
- Parler mentions that he is committed to freedom of speech and that he has little moderation policy. It is favored by many on the right, including Trump’s supporters and Senator Ted Cruz.
- The lawsuit comes after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol and so many view the role that tech companies play in providing platforms to those who want to incite violence.
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Parler, the far-right social media service, is suing Amazon for antitrust violations, according to a court affidavit filed Monday.
The move comes after Amazon shut down Parler from its cloud hosting service after saying that Parler did not moderate the threats of violence following the deadly siege of the US Capitol last week.
Parler claims that Amazon’s decision was politically motivated and that it violated a contract between the two companies, which entails Amazon’s cloud hosting service supporting posts published on Parler. Pursuant to the lawsuit, AWS must provide 30 days’ notice to Parler before terminating the service.
It’s also claims that Amazon’s actions are competitive because it did not take similar action against Twitter, Parler’s competitor, which also uses AWS.
The documentation claims that “AWS’s decision to terminate Parler’s account effectively appears to be motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market in favor of Twitter.”
The case calls for a temporary restriction on AWS to prevent the service from shutting down Parler’s account at the end of the day.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
After pro-Trump rioters stormed the federal building while lawmakers worked to certify the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Congress confirmed the election of President Joe Biden. Trump posted tweets during and after the siege in which he continued to spread more misinformation, prompting Twitter and Facebook to make unprecedented decisions to permanently suspend Trump from their platforms.
Those on the right have long, like Twitter, accused them of discriminating against conservatives by adding warning labels to their messages, and that the faith is accompanied by the events that have unfolded since last week.
Since Trump’s inception, smaller social justice networks like Parler and Gab have become very popular – Parler has jumped to the first place in Apple’s app store, and Gab said he gets 10,000 new users every hour.
Apple and Google have since banned these sites due to hate speech violations, and Parler is possibly up to a week offline after AWS was shut down.