Parler, a social media platform popular amongst conservatives, has filed a lawsuit against Jeff Bezos’ Amazon after the tech company suspended its application from Amazon cloud hosting services. Amazon’s decision was taken after last Wednesday’s attack on the US capitol which led to the death of five people including a police officer.
Parler planned to get a restraining order against the suspension, and it is also accusing Amazon of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
“The decision of Amazon to end Parler’s account is based on political animosity,” the lawsuit reads. “The action constitutes a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act alongside Twitter, also named a defendant. The company is also breaching its contract with Parler to give Parler a 30-day notice before taking the step to end the services, instead of the less than 30 hours notice that Amazon provided.”
Parler also accused Amazon of taking the step as a result of the projected economic gain that Parler stands to gain as millions of people are bound to join the platform. According to Parler, the decision to remove it from the cloud service is motivated by its competition with Twitter, Fox Business reports.
The filling stated that Amazon and Twitter signed a deal last year that would ensure that Amazon can be a part of the delivery of tweets, a service that Amazon also offers to Parler. Parler stated that after Twitter permanently suspended the account of President Donald Trump, his supporters decided to move en masse to Parler from Twitter. Parker added that the migration of conservatives from Twitter made Parler the top free application downloaded on the App Store.
An Amazon spokesperson explained that it respects Parler’s right to determine what kind of content its users can post, but the company has confirmed that there are a number of contents on Parler that encourages violence. The spokesperson added that Parler has done nothing to remove the contents or stop users from posting such contents and that even after Amazon brought the activities to Parler’s notice, the violence-inciting contents increased rather than reduce.
Parler was suspended on Sunday, and by Monday morning the platform had gone dark. John Matze, Parler CEO, addressed the issue in an interview. Matze urged its users to be patient while the services are being restored. The CEO said that there are a lot of contents on Twitter that can be classified as violence-inciting too. He said the problem is a phenomenon that is affecting every social media platform, and not limited to Parler alone.
Google and Apple have also taken steps against Parler for its role in encouraging the attack against the Capitol.
Source: cbsnews.com
