On Thursday, U.S. District Judge, Barbara Rothstein says Parler’s case against Amazon’s alleged antitrust violation is at this stage marginal.
‘Parler has failed to do more than raise the spectre of preferential treatment of Twitter by AWS.’ Rothstein stated in her ruling which also included the rejection of Parler’s argument that AWS broke their contract. ‘Importantly, Parler has submitted no evidence that AWS and Twitter acted together intentionally —or even at all.’
This means that Amazon is not compelled to reinstate cloud hosting services that Parler desperately needs to get their platform back online.
Amazon applauded the ruling and stated that the case had nothing to do with “free speech.” They claim that Parler was a customer of theirs that continually violated their policies and terms and also encouraged violence.
This leaves Parler for the moment with a bare minimum website presence online which a Russian-owned web security service, DDos-Guard consented to host in a limited form. The Home Page displays a message under the heading “Technical Difficulties” that informs it plans to overcome its challenges and welcome visitors back soon. How long “soon” will be is becoming more unclear. Parler has said it reached out to six potential providers that declined to take on the app as they were intimidated by AWS.
“There is simply no way for Parler to remain competitive and therefore viable without using someone else’s servers,” Parler stated in the filing. “And AWS knew this when it pulled Parler’s plus.”
Researchers have claimed that far-right groups at the Capital had a robust online presence on platforms including Parler, where they spread and shared violent inventory.
Parler adamantly denies that it played a role in inciting the riots and said it was unfair to deprive millions of law -abiding citizens a platform that allows free speech.
Many supporters of former President Donald Trump favor Parler that is alleged to have more than 12 million users.
Parler was also dropped by Apple and Google Play.
Another similar social network to Parler with a far-right user base has benefited from Parler’s demise. On Monday, Gab CEO Andrew Torba announced that the platform had gained 600,000 users.
John Matze claims that Amazon booted Parler “in part on a desire to deny President Trump a platform on any large social-media service.”
After a once commanding online presence, Trump himself has virtually disappeared online after being banned from Twitter and suspended from instagram, facebook, youtube, twitch, snapchat, Reddit and Shopify.