Tech giant Amazon has been sued by conservative platform Parler for blocking its access to the internet following the invasion of the US Capitol by pro-Trump supporters.
Parler has been accused of being used as a breeding ground to foment the violence that played out at the Capitol last week Wednesday.
The social media platform that serves as a conservative-friendly social media app and an alternative to microblogging platform Twitter has asked a federal court to issue a restraining order blocking Amazon from restricting access to internet servers.
In the suit, the platform explained that shutting down servers would be tantamount to “pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support.”
It added that the action taken by Amazon “will kill Parler’s business — at the very time it is set to skyrocket.”
The suit stated that “AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.”
READ ALSO: Facebook, Twitter Flags Trump’s Posts For Misinformation
Amazon is yet to respond to the filed suit.
War On Free Speech
The CEO of Parler John Matze said that Amazon had embarked on a “war on free speech”.
This follows Twitter and Facebook’s ban of Trump over inciting violence.
Matze said, “Our team worked hard to produce a strong set of community guidelines, which expressly forbids content which incites or threatens violence, or other activity which breaks the law.
“Parler is not a surveillance app, so we can’t just write a few algorithms that will quickly locate 100 percent of objectionable content.”
Parler’s users have been largely conservatives who have taken a liking to the app for accommodating like minds. It has seen ultraconservatives switch from using Twitter that has laid rules for which users could be screened for certain speeches if violated.
