Amazon is Being Sued by Free Speech App Parler Over Being Shut Down

It’s been a hectic past week with the attack on our Capital and many fearing that another attack may happen before president-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Parler LLC, a social media platform that is supported by many fans of U.S. President Donald Trump and conservatives, is now suing Amazon.com Inc. and accusing it of making an illegal, politically motivated decision to shut it down to benefit Twitter Inc.
Parler had been banned by Apple, Google and Amazon.

In an antitrust complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Seattle this week, Parler said Amazon delivered a “death blow” by suddenly cutting off Web-hosting services on Sunday night.

It was after this move that Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google removed the Parler app from their own app stores.

Parler says Amazon made their move against the company despite making no threats to suspend Twitter, where a recent top-trending tweet demanded to “Hang Mike Pence,” the U.S. vice president.

“AWS false claims have made Parler a pariah,” and the Web services cutoff “is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support,” the complaint reads.

Amazon has stated that the lawsuit has no merit.

While the e-commerce giant respects Parler’s right to decide what content to allow, Parler has been “unable or unwilling” to remove the “significant” and growing amount of content that “encourages and incites violence,” leading to its service suspension.

Parler wants a court order requiring Amazon to reinstate its account.

President Trump is not a Parler user, but the platform already features several high-profile contributors including Texas Senator Ted Cruz with 4.9 million followers and Fox News host Sean Hannity who has about seven million followers.

Apple suspended Parler and said that it has not taken adequate measures to prevent the spread of posts inciting violence.

“We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues,” Apple stated.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.