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Parler Files Lawsuit Against Amazon

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

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Parler filed a lawsuit Monday against Amazon, alleging that the company violated antitrust laws and breached its contract when they prohibited Parler from accessing their servers.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleges that Amazon violated antitrust laws because their decision to terminate Parler’s account was politically motivated and designed to reduce competition between social media companies. Parler, which has positioned itself as the free speech alternative to Twitter, claims that Amazon worked together with Twitter in order to reduce competition.

Amazon also breached its contract with Parler by terminating their account with less than 30 hours of notice, the complaint alleges. According to the lawsuit, Amazon was contractually obligated to provide Parler with 30 days’ notice before terminating their account. (RELATED: Twitter Follows Trump Suspension With Massive ‘Purge’ Of Conservative Accounts)

Parler asks the judge to grant a temporary restraining order preventing Amazon from shutting down its account. “Doing so is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support,” the lawsuit says. “It will kill Parler’s business—at the very time it is set to skyrocket.”

Dan Bongino, who is a Parler investor, said on WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall radio show that the Parler team has been working on drafting the antitrust litigation since Friday.

Parler’s account was terminated as part of a widespread crackdown following last week’s riot at the Capitol building. Google Play was the first company to remove Parler from its app store. Apple also removed Parler, which was the number one free app on the app store at the time. Twitter users had flocked to Parler after Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account.

After Google and Apple removed Parler, Amazon said that it would no longer allow Parler to access their servers.