Parler is suing Amazon after the tech company launched the social network favored by the far right of its web hosting services, claiming it is being targeted for political reasons and to reduce competition.
Amazon Web Services kicked off Talking from its cloud services shortly after midnight, Pacific Time Monday, with the site inaccessible online from 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Amazon said it made Parler more daring because it did not trust its ability to control the content of its platform by promoting or inciting violence.
Apparently, “Amazon’s decision to effectively cancel Parler’s account is motivated by political animus. It is also designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market in favor of Twitter,” Parler said in a complaint filed Monday in Seattle Federal Court. The company claims it violates federal antitrust law.
Parler also accused Amazon of using a double standard over other platforms, noting that Twitter had recently signed a multi-year web hosting agreement with Amazon.
Parler is requesting a temporary restraining order that prevents Amazon from closing Parler’s account.
“Doing so is the equivalent of pulling a plug from a hospital patient with life support. It will kill Parler’s business, at the very moment it fires, the company said in its process.
“There is no merit to these claims. AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum and we respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow. However, it is clear that Parler has content. significant that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to identify and remove such content expeditiously, in violation of our terms of service. weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of its services on Sunday evening, “an Amazon spokesman said in a statement sent by email CBS MoneyWatch.
Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Conservative platform’s popularity rose after the November election and was seen as a likely vehicle for President Donald Trump to reach his followers after being ripped off from most conventional media platforms after Wednesday’s siege. United States Capitol. In addition to moving, Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores.
Talking’s CEO had dit this could leave him offline for a week, although this could be optimistic. And even if you find a friendlier web hosting service, without a smartphone app, it’s hard to imagine Parler gaining overall success.
The two-year-old far-right magnet claims more than 12 million users, although mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower stands at 10 million worldwide, with 8 million in the United States. Units. That’s a fraction of Trump’s 89 million followers. had on Twitter.
Still, Parler may be attractive to Mr. Trump, as it is where his sons Eric and Don Jr. are. they are already active.
Excerpted from the Google App Store
Parler came out on Friday when Google removed its smartphone app from its app store to allow posts that seek to “incite continued violence in the United States.” facilitate even more illegal and dangerous activities. ”Public safety issues need to be resolved before it can be restored, Apple said.
Amazon gave up again on Saturday, informing Parler that it should look for a new effective web hosting service on Sunday at midnight. In a letter, first reported by Buzzfeed, he reminded Parler that he had informed him in recent weeks of 98 examples of publications “that clearly encourage and incite violence” and said the platform “poses a real risk.” for public safety “.
Parler CEO John Matze denounced the punishments as “a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market.” We had too fast a success, “he said in a Saturday night post, adding that it was possible that Parler would not be available in a week” while we rebuild from scratch. “
“All the providers, from text messaging services, to email providers, to our lawyers, also left us the same day,” Matze told Fox New Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on Sunday. He said that while the company is trying to get back to the network as quickly as possible, “it has a lot of problems, because all the vendors we talk to say they won’t work with us, because if Apple doesn’t approve and Google doesn’t I approve, they won’t. “
Loss of access to Google and Apple app stores, whose operating systems allow hundreds of millions of smartphones, severely limits Parler’s reach, although access to through the web browser. The loss of Amazon’s web services means Parler has to struggle to find another web host in addition to reengineering.
Meanwhile, another site widely used by the far right, Gab.com, apparently benefited from Parler’s problems. Gab tweeted early Monday that “it had gained more users in the last 2 days than we did in our first two years of existence.”
Future of ideology-based platforms
Although they initially argued their need to be neutral in speech, Twitter and Facebook gradually succumbed to public pressure, marking the line especially when the so-called plandemic video emerged early in the coronavirus pandemic urging people not to wearing masks, noted civic media professor Ethan Zuckerman of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Zuckerman hopes Trump’s disfigurement can spur major changes online. Among them, a possible accelerated split of the world of social media in ideological lines.
“Trump will attract a lot of audience wherever he goes,” he said. This could mean more platforms with smaller and more ideologically isolated audiences.
Trump can also launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts predict growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speeches as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover. U.S. Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.