Parler says in a legal filing that a representative from Amazon Web Services (AWS) had “repeatedly asked whether the President had joined or would join Parler now that he was blocked by Twitter and Facebook.”
In a lawsuit filed against Amazon on Monday, Parler says that the tech giant was “motivated by political animus,” and violated antitrust law when it booted the social media platform from its web hosting service.
Amazon claims that it kicked Parler offline because because words on the platform might “incite violence.”
In Parler’s latest legal filing against Amazon, the social media platform says that between January 6 and 8, “AWS expressed no concerns with Parler’s content moderation.”
Parler added that an “AWS representative repeatedly asked whether the President had joined or would join Parler now that he was blocked by Twitter and Facebook.”
On January 8, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump from its platform, claiming that his account may incite violence.
Two days later, Amazon knocked Parler offline, while large numbers of conservatives — including prominent media personalities — announced that they were moving from Twitter to Parler.
Amazon responded to Parler’s lawsuit on Tuesday, insisting that its “decision to suspend Parler is about nothing more than Parler’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to remove from the servers of AWS content that threatens the public safety.”
Amazon’s justification for kicking Parler offline is part of a narrative that many big tech companies are now using to take action against the president, political dissenters, and their competition – while seeming to ignore content found on Twitter, such as, “Hang Mike Pence,” which was trending just last week.
“Furthermore, despite media attempts to tie Parler to the Capitol Riot, not one person that the news media has reported so far (as of the filing of this suit) was arrested for the riot has a Parler account,” added Parler in its lawsuit.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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