One has to wonder if Big Tech realizes that they validate every argument put forward for antitrust intervention anyway. Too bad it took so long to get to that point, but perhaps Parler’s lawsuit will provide the necessary catalyst.
And it certainly seems like Parler has a pretty good case here:
Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by the far-right, sued Amazon on Monday in response to the fact that it was abused, claiming it had obstructed the government against antitrust, breach of contract and interference with the company’s business relationships with users.
The lawsuit asks a federal court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Amazon (AMZN) and calls Amazon Web Services’ ruling a “death knell” for Parler.
“Without AWS, Parler is done as it has no way of getting online,” the complaint said. “And a delay in the allocation of this TRO by even one day could also sound like Parler’s death knell as President Trump and others move to other platforms.”
Parler’s lawsuit alleges that Amazon tried to restrict competition illegally by removing a player from the market.
Second look for conservatives at net neutrality? Read Jazz’s post yesterday about the gatekeepers’ attack on Parler to answer the question. It now involves almost every Big Tech organization except Facebook, and that’s just because Facebook has no gatekeeper status for Parler. Both Google and Apple have demanded that Parler’s content be moderated to present its app in their stores, and that was before Amazon closed it on the same issue.
In any other industry and in any other context, it will look a lot like … monopolistic behavior and collusion. It must prompt government action in connection with the Sherman Act, either at the Federal Trade Commission or at the Department of Justice, to determine whether such a conspiracy had taken place. More importantly, it demonstrates the dangers of consolidation in any industry, but perhaps especially in the technology and communications industry.
ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner warns that these decisions have consequences, even if they are currently popular. It goes beyond the Twitter purge involving Donald Trump and his supporters, which the ACLU has criticized for deepening issues of freedom of speech and other civil liberties:
This is what lawyer Ben Wizner, ACLU, told me in full about Parler getting dark due to AWS. pic.twitter.com/aIELab0kze
– Davey Alba (@daveyalba) 11 January 2021
Note the reference to “principles of neutrality”. At the beginning of their term, the Trump administration renounced net neutrality regulations, which applauded conservatives. If it is recalculated to provide some sort of brake for this form of exhaustion – or even if it is sold as such by the Biden government – conservatives may eventually encourage their re-imposition.
The real problem here is the let me do approach to consolidation over the past few decades, and the unwillingness to understand what it means in political power. I have been arguing for years about this blind spot on the Right and what it would ultimately mean for access and influence. Parler is the canary in the coal mine – and a harbinger of what is to come, unless we start conservatively concentrating and dismantling the mega-corporations.