On Monday (Jan. 11), social media company Parler sued Amazon, alleging that Amazon’s hosting service violated antitrust laws and the parties’ contractual agreement.
Parler’s website went offline early Monday morning after Amazon shut down its servers, and Parler asked a federal judge in Washington state to reject Amazon’s action to shut down its service.
In its complaint, Parler said Amazon’s move was “politically motivated” and designed to reduce competition in favor of Twitter. Twitter is also a customer of Amazon’s Web Services division.
The lawsuit asks a judge to issue an emergency order denying Amazon the right to shut down Parler’s account, charging that Amazon’s move is akin to unplugging (an instrument) that keeps hospital patients alive.
Amazon “will kill Parler’s business in the near future,” Parler’s complaint says.
“When Twitter announced two nights ago that it would permanently ban President Trump‘s personal account, conservative users began fleeing Twitter in droves and flocking to Parler,” the lawsuit reads.
The number of customers fleeing Twitter was so large that Parler became the No. 1 free App downloaded from Apple’s App Store the next day (last Saturday), the suit said.
Parler’s website was offline on Monday
Parler has seen a surge in popularity in recent months, thanks to the company’s modest policies, and is especially popular with big conservative names.
Amazon’s Trust and Safety team told Parler that it was suspending the Web hosting service because the company “poses a very real risk to public safety.
As of Monday, Parler’s website was offline.
The violence occurred during a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6, when someone illegally entered the Capitol and caused some damage. On Friday night, Twitter permanently canceled President Trump’s personal account. On Friday and Saturday, Google and Apple took down the Parler app from their respective app stores.
Parler CEO John Matze said Sunday (Jan. 10) that Parler could be unavailable “within a week” and said the company may have to “rebuild from the ground up. In the meantime, his team will seek alternative web hosting services.
In a post, Martz wrote that, to be precise, the announcements by Amazon, Google and Apple about banning access to Parker have led most other providers to drop support for Parler as well. And most of those with enough servers to host Parler have closed their doors to Parler.
Speaking on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on Sunday, Mazzie said the company conspired “to make sure that we lose access to our application at the same time, and that they’re shutting down all their servers and shutting down the Internet tonight.
He also revealed that other companies, including Parler’s law firm, have joined the fight against the company.
Parler CEO: It would be wrong to hold Parler responsible for the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol
“They’re not just trying to kill the app, they’re actually trying to destroy the whole company. Not just these three companies, but every provider from the text messaging service to the email provider to our lawyers, every provider abandoned us on the same day and they are trying to falsely claim that we are responsible for the (Jan. 6) incident.” Martz told Fox.
Critics point out that the posts on Parler appear to be encouraging violence. They also claim protesters organized the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 through Parler. Maz said social media platforms are unable to organize events, noting that violent phrases were becoming more popular on Twitter on the same day Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their online stores.
Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer, said collusion among large tech companies with the goal of shutting down websites is similar to anti-utopia.
“Do we want all content posted online to be censored by them for ‘objectionable content,’ where every (message) is (censored) 24/7 and if it’s algorithmically flagged and removed without proper processing, those seem to be the things that it (the the tech giant) told Parler we had to comply with the standards.” Peikoff said.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company is not working with Google or Apple. Referring to a letter from Amazon to Parler, she said Amazon “has seen a steady increase in this violent content on your site, all of which violates our terms.
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