OLYMPIA, WA – Parler, the “free speech” social media competitor to Facebook and Twitter has sued Amazon after its service was terminated with just a 24 hour warning notice Sunday night. The company was also removed from both the Apple and Google mobile app stores this weekend over its supporters and owners support of President Donald J. Trump. Amazon said Parler’s users violated the company’s terms of service for issuing violent statements regarding the 2020 election.
The social media startup claims Amazon’s shutdown was motivated by political animus and designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter. Parler said Amazon Web Service suspended their service because they are a dangerous rival to Twitter’s market share. Parler, at the time of the take down was the top download app on the Apple iTunes store for several weeks.
Last month, Twitter signed a multiyear deal to continue hosting Twitter on its web server platform.
“When Twitter announced two evenings ago it was permanently banning President Donald J. Trump, from its platform conservatives began to flee Twitter en masse for Parler,” the company said. “The exodus was so large that the next day, Parler was the number one free app from Apple’s App Store.”
Amazon told Parler the shutdown was because it was not policing its subscribers, yet on Sunday night, one of Twitter’s top trending tweets was “Hang Mike Pence”.
“But Amazon has no plans nor has it made an threats to suspend Twitter,” the company said.
Parler is arguing that the AWS shutdown is nothing more than political animus aimed at reducing competition in the micro blogging market. It also claims when AWS coordinated its shutdown with Twitter, it violated Anti-Trust laws. Parler asked the court for an immediate restraining order against Amazon to reinstate the service until Parler can find a new home. Parler is also suing Amazon for breaching its commercial hosting contract.