Parler Goes After Amazon With Antitrust Suit

On Monday, January 11, Parler hit back at Amazon, filing a lawsuit accusing the tech giant of violating antitrust law by cutting off the conservative-friendly social media site’s presence on the web.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Washington state, Parler claimed that Amazon’s decision was “motivated by political animus” and designed to reduce competition to the benefit of Twitter, which is also a customer of the online retailer’s Amazon Web Services division.

Parler asked for an emergency order to reject Amazon’s shutdown of its account, saying it was the equivalent of “pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support.”

Amazon “will kill Parler’s business — at the very time it is set to skyrocket,” the complaint stated.

Google and Apple also kicked Parler’s app from their respective app stores over the weekend, on similar grounds.

Parler has become a popular alternative to Twitter and Facebook as those firms have cracked down on content posted by President Donald Trump and others. Last year, about 10 million people downloaded Parler, according to mobile app analytics company Sensor Tower, with about 80% of those in the United States.

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