U.S. Judge AWS Was Within Its Rights To “De-Host” Parler

A Federal Judge in the United States says Amazon Web Services (AWS) was well within its rights to remove Parler from its hosting services. Parler had taken AWS to court over its removal following accusations by Amazon that the social media platform was used to plan and stage the riots on the Washington DC Capitol Hill.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle denied Parler’s request asking Amazon to reinstate it on their hosting platform. The Judge said Parler did not show sufficiently that AWS had conspired with Twitter to stop it as a potential competition to Twitter. On the hand, the Judge said Amazon was able to prove that it simply sought to further stop the spread of violence which was been organised on websites like Parler.

The evidence Parler “has submitted in support of the claim is both dwindlingly slight, and disputed by AWS,” she said in a decision denying Parler a preliminary injunction.

Before Amazon Web Service, AWS disconnected the social media platform from its server on Sunday, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Apple Inc had autonomously blacklisted Parler from their app store. 

The content of the antitrust complaint filed with the social media platform and the U.S. District Court in Seattle – Parler said that AWS suddenly used the “death bow” tactic to disconnecting their service operation.

Parler which has 10 million users with about 4 million active users is of the opinion that it was on track to take on Twitter. Twitter has about 340 million users globally and has far more engagements and has become a place where celebrities, world leaders and corporate organisations share updates and news about their activities. It is hard considering the tone of many of Parler users to see that it could really pose a threat to Twitter’s business in the foreseeable future but again its business and we never know.