Parler, the social media platform often described as a pro-free speech alternative to Twitter, has filed another lawsuit against Amazon, arguing the company stifled free speech under false pretenses.
In a new legal complaint filed Tuesday in a Washington state court, Parler claimed Amazon Web Services, the network that hosted the site before pulling the plug on the platform in mid-January, “tried to justify the repudiation based on allegations against Parler” that it “knew were false,” Bloomberg reported.
The new defamation suit came the same day Parler dropped its Jan. 11 lawsuit alleging AWS violated antitrust laws.
In its latest filing, Parler, which came back online in mid-February with a new web host, accuses Amazon of attempting to “destroy an up-and-coming technology company through deceptive, defamatory, anticompetitive, and bad faith conduct.”
The suit further alleges AWS’ decision to terminate its agreement “breached its contract to host Parler’s website and app on AWS’ cloud services.” It went on to accuse Amazon of using “strong-arm tactics” that were “unlawful and tortious.”
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Much of the basis for the decision by AWS was rooted in the Jan. 6 riot inside the U.S. Capitol, carried out by radicals who support former President Donald Trump. The argument for banishing Parler from app stores — and ultimately the internet altogether — was that rioters used the site to organize.
However, in the days after the riot, it was revealed Facebook played an outsized role in providing space for radicals to organize ahead of the Jan. 6 incident.
Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of the leftist Media Matters, told Salon, “If you took Parler out of the equation, you would still almost certainly have wha happened at the Capitol.”
“If you took Facebook out of the equation before that,” he continued, “you would not. To me, when Apple and Google sent their letter to Parler, I was a little bit confused why Facebook didn’t get one.”
In a response to the latest lawsuit, AWS argued there is “no merit” to Parler’s new allegations, adding it “respect[s] Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow,” however, “as shown by evidence in Parler’s federal lawsuit, it was clear that there was significant content on Parler that encouraged and incited violence against others, which is a violation of our terms of service.”
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