Parler Files Antitrust Suit Against Big Tech
Over the weekend I wrote an opinion piece that made the case for Parler to file an Antitrust suit against Amazon and any other big tech company that blocks their subscribers from getting to them. I rather doubt that the folks at Parler heard me, but to my delight they are doing it.
The free speech site known as Parler has taken Amazon to court claiming the internet giant blocked them for political reasons. Many conservatives dropped Twitter in favor of Parler. That is because Parler does not block or harass political points of view that they disagree with. All speech is allowed, except those advocating violence, according to Parler's terms of service.
In the lawsuit Parler claims that “AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.”
Amazon has shown tolerance for leftist offending content on Twitter. The suit shows the “Hang Mike Pence” theme was trending on Friday the 8th. Over this last summer of rioting, looting, and burning cities, violent hate speech from leftist groups was allowed.
In the suit Parler Claims: "Given the context of Parler’s looming threat to Twitter and the fact that the Twitter ban might not long muzzle the President if he switched to Parler, potentially bringing tens of millions of followers with him, AWS moved to shut down Parler."
The suit is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent them from shutting down Parler's account.
Amazon responded that there is "no merit to these claims" and that it informed Parler of its concerns around increasing violence over the course of a few weeks. However, it said it saw a "significant increase," not decrease, in "dangerous content."
"It is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service," Amazon said.
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