After being shut down by Amazon on Monday morning, Parler announced that it is filing a lawsuit against the technology juggernaut.
A court filing shows that Parler, a conservative social media alternative, has accused Amazon of violating antitrust laws and breaching the contract between the two parties.
“Last Month, Defendant Amazon Web Services, Inc. (‘AWS’) and the popular social media platform Twitter signed a multi-year deal so that AWS could support the daily delivery of millions of tweets. AWS currently provides that same service to Parler, a conservative microblogging alternative and competitor to Twitter,” the document said.
“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. Thus, AWS is violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in combination with Defendant Twitter. AWS is also breaching its contract with Parler, which requires AWS to provide Parler with a thirty-day notice before terminating service, rather than the less than thirty-hour notice AWS actually provided. Finally, AWS is committing intentional interference with prospective economic advantage given the millions of users expected to sign up in the near future.”
Parler is requesting a temporary restraining order against Amazon to stop it from “shutting down Parler’s account at the end of today.”
“Doing so is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support,” the suit reads. “It will kill Parler’s business—at the very time it is set to skyrocket.”
Amazon contended that Parler presented a real security risk by remaining online and that it was not confident the website could get things under control.
Good luck to Parler. It is going to need it in its battle against the richest company in the world.
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