Parler sues Amazon for deleting servers after riot

Speaking, the conservative social media platform whose traffic has increased amid a crackdown on inflammatory content by rivals, sued Amazon.com Inc. for shutting down the site’s web hosting service over the riots at the United States Capitol last week.

The self-proclaimed “microblogging alternative and Twitter competitor” was offline Monday morning after Amazon’s cloud services division ceased providing the service. Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google pulled Parler from their app stores over the weekend.

Amazon’s action “is tantamount to disconnecting a hospital patient on life support,” Parler said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle on Monday, seeking an order requiring Amazon Web Services to maintain its account. AWS will “kill the Talking business – just as it’s about to skyrocket,” according to the costume.

Amazon said the claims were unfounded.

“AWS provides technology and services to customers from all political walks of life, and we respect the right of Speaking to determine for itself what content it will allow,” the company said in an emailed statement. “It is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and Parler is unable or unwilling to identify and promptly remove such content, which is a violation of our terms of service. ‘use.”

Antitrust complaint

The lawsuit comes amid long-running battles between President Donald Trump and social media platforms like Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. which have thrived on his populist posts but have also come under heavy criticism for allowing it. Many Trump supporters have moved to Talk to avoid what they see as Twitter censorship.

In the lawsuit, Parler alleges an antitrust violation.

Less than a month ago, AWS and Parler’s competitor, Twitter, reached a multi-year agreement, according to the lawsuit. Late Friday night, Twitter banned President Trump from using his platform, leading many of its users to Talk. Twenty-four hours later, AWS announced that it would indefinitely suspend Parler’s account. “

AWS said in its statement that it had raised concerns about inciting violence content known to Parler for several weeks. During that time, we’ve seen a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to their services being suspended on Sunday night, the company said.

Parler claims that by suspending their account, AWS “will remove a growing player from the marketplace, which will severely restrict trade in the microblogging services market.”

Alan Sykes, a professor at Stanford Law School, said that if it turns out that Twitter has prevailed on Amazon to ban Speak, the microblogger’s complaint could amount to a legitimate antitrust claim. – a legitimate and anti-competitive reason to remove someone from the web service, said Sykes. “Whoever hears the case will have to decide whether the plaintiffs have established a plausible case of conspiracy between Amazon and Twitter.” Sykes added. After Trump steps down and the dust settles, “if Amazon continues the ban indefinitely, it would reinforce the inference of a conspiracy.”

Parler is asking U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein to act immediately and issue a temporary order to keep the site going while the litigation unfolds. Rothstein, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, has set deadlines for both sides to submit briefs on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Parler also claims that AWS has broken its contract, which it says requires more notice of termination, and unlawfully interfered with its relationships with its customers. Additionally, Parler accuses AWS of “political animosity,” saying the company took no action against Twitter when the rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” was a trending tweet.

Booming business

In the week after Election Day, Nov. 3, Speak became the best free app in Apple’s iOS app store, up from 1,023 a week earlier, according to the costume. He said installations rose 355% after Twitter announced it would ban Trump permanently.

AWS is by far the largest cloud computing provider, and its on-demand software services are the backbone of many of the most popular Internet services. Talking has “no other options” for being on the web, he said.

The case is Parler LLC v Amazon Web Services Inc., 21-cv-00031, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington.