Parler Sues Amazon Over Allegations Of Political Bias, Favoring Twitter

Parler accused Amazon.com, Inc AZMN of favoring Twitter Inc TWTR in a lawsuit filed Monday after the former shut down its services following last week’s Capitol Hill riot.
What Happened: The social network — favored by President Donald Trump's supporters — in a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Seattle said it was dealt a “death blow” by the Jeff Bezos-led company when its web hosting services were suspended on Sunday night, as first reported by Geekwire.

Parler is reportedly claiming that Amazon Web Services (AWS) did not take similar action against Twitter despite a recent top-trending tweet on the rival network called for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence.

“AWS false claims have made Parler a pariah,” and the service termination “is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support,” the social media company claimed. 

Why It Matters: Parler claims that it tried to find an alternative service provider but its efforts “have fallen through.”

See Also: Parler Goes Dark As Amazon Pulls Web Hosting Support

Amazon said it respects Parler’s right to moderate content on its platform but the social network has been “unable or unwilling” to remove the “significant” and growing amount of content that “encourages and incites violence,” reported Reuters.

Aside from reinstatement of its AWS account, Parler is seeking triple damages claiming it had over 12 million users and stands to lose millions more as conservatives encourage migration from Twitter to its services, as per Reuters.

Parler rose to the top of the most-downloaded App rankings on Apple Inc’s AAPL App Store after Twitter took action against right-wing extremists. 

See Also: Twitter Permanently Bans President Donald Trump Citing 'Risk Of Further Incitement Of Violence'

Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG has also removed Parler from its Android app store.

Price Action: Amazon shares closed 2.15% lower at $3,114.21 on Monday and gained 0.31% in the after-hours session. On the same day, Twitter shares closed nearly 6.4% lower at $48.18 and gained 0.33% in the after-hours session.

Update: An Amazon AWS spokesperson gave the following statement to Benzinga post the publication of this article:
"There is no merit to these claims. AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow. However, it is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service. We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening.”