Parler, the far right-friendly social media start-up, has sued Amazon, accusing the company of breaking antitrust laws in kicking the platform off its hosting service.
In a suit dated Sunday, but not filed until Monday, Parler asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent Amazon from blocking access to its cloud-based computing services. Over the weekend, Amazon told Parler they’d be coming off their web service because of "a steady increase in violent content" that violated user terms.
Just hours before, the controversial platform had been removed from Google’s and Apple’s app stores.
"It’s unclear whether there are actually legal issues here," said KCBS Radio Contributor and "Bloomberg Technology" Anchor and Executive Producer Emily Chang. "To our understanding, private companies, whether it’s Amazon, Facebook or Twitter, they have a legal right to do business with who they want to do business with. They are private companies. But there certainly is an issue about free speech and what that means."
Parler’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, also accused Amazon of conspiring with Twitter, and said the company should have gotten a 30-day notice before Amazon suspended its account.
The two-year-old company has become a magnet for the far right and claims to have roughly 12 million users, however, tech analytics firms place that number closer to 10 million.
While it’s unclear where President Donald Trump will take his social media presence after a permanent Twitter ban and a stop to his Facebook posts until at least Inauguration Day, Parler’s future remains equally murky as major platforms back away from the app following last week’s siege on the U.S. Capitol.
"Surely they will be able to find somebody else who will do business with them, but it is a very unprecedented move on the part of Amazon," Chang said.
Parler CEO John Matze has said the punishments are "a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace."
Related
