Parler drops lawsuit against AWS, then sues them again

Parler
(Image credit: Parler)

In what is rapidly resembling  a game of legal checkers, beleaguered social media platform Parler has withdrawn its Federal lawsuit against Amazon, and instead filed a new one, but on different grounds, in Washington State court.

The supposed "free speech" app was infamously knocked offline after Amazon Web Services (AWS) decided to withdraw the infrastructure that powered the social platform following concerns over its content moderation policies.

Parler responded with an antitrust lawsuit against AWS' parent company, which it has now withdrawn in favour of a new case for breach of contract and defamation, alleging a conspiratorial agreement between Twitter and Amazon, according to documents shared by NPR.

Changing tactics

In its new lawsuit, Parler claims that instead of any issues with its content moderation policies, it was AWS’ tie up with Twitter, which Parler calls as its principal competitor, that was one of the main reasons for AWS booting Parler.

Parler further alleges that AWS was aware of its negotiations with the then-US President Donald Trump, to hop onto Parler, following his ouster from Twitter and Facebook. 

Had the transition materialized, Parler claims, the social platform would have become a “huge threat to Twitter in the microblogging market, and to Amazon itself in the digital advertising market.”

In a statement to The Verge, an Amazon representative dismissed these new claims as meritless citing the evidence it submitted in the Federal lawsuit. “As shown by the 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,” notes the representative.

Via: The Verge

Mayank Sharma

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.