Parler Drops Lawsuit Against Amazon Over Hosting Takedown

Parler, the Twitter-like social media app popular with the far right, has dropped its lawsuit against Amazon Web Services (AWS).

After the storming of the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January by supporters of Donald Trump, that resulted in the deaths of five people, including one police officer who was beaten to death, Google and Apple removed Parler from their respective App Stores.

Soon after, Parler was taken offline when AWS stopped hosting the platform, which resulted in Parler launching a lawsuit against AWS, alleging the hosting provider had made an illegal, politically motivated decision to shut it down, so as to benefit Twitter.

AWS clash

Parler was founded in 2018 and billed itself as a “free speech-driven” social media platform, but it became a haven for many on the far right who objected to the rules governing misinformation and falsehood on Facebook and Twitter.

During its enforced shutdown, Parler founder and CEO John Matze was fired by the app’s board of directors.

But last month Parler re-launched online and announced its new platform was built on “sustainable, independent technology.”

Parler reportedly now uses CloudRoute LLC as its new host and replaced Amazon with open-source software platform Ceph.

Lawsuit dropped

And now in early March, Reuters, citing court documents from late Tuesday, reported that Parler has dropped its lawsuit against Amazon for cutting off its web-hosting services.

Amazon reportedly said that Parler had ignored repeated warnings to effectively moderate the growth of violent content on its website.

This included calls to assassinate prominent Democratic politicians, leading business executives and members of the media.

Parler, however, has said there was no evidence apart from anecdotes in the press that it had a role in inciting the riots in Us Capitol and argued that it was unfair to deprive millions of law-abiding Americans a platform for free speech.

Far right

Parler was mostly used by supporters of former US President Donald Trump and the right wing, and is also reportedly awash with QAnon conspiracy content.

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy that allege there is a “deep state” campaign against Donald Trump and his supporters.

Essentially QAnon touts there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who rule the world, and who control politicians, the media, and Hollywood.

It should be noted that @donk_enby had previously archived the Parler posts of Trump’s supporters, to help reconstruct the role the social media platform played in the deadly assault on the US Capitol.

Posts on Parler have called for the killing of Democrats, Muslims, Black Lives Matter leaders, and mainstream media journalists.