Here’s what we’re Sifting today
Getty Images/Photo by Hollie Adams (file)A smartphone with the Parler appJudge turns down Parler’s request to reboot service
by Rachel Lynn Aldrich
Posted 1/21/21, 05:28 pm
A conservative-friendly social media platform claimed Amazon Web Services breached its contract by shutting it down without fair warning. U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle on Thursday found Parler seemed unlikely to win its lawsuit and denied its request to order Amazon to put the site back up while the case goes to trial.
What caused the shutdown? Amazon Web Services hosted Parler and accused it of failing to moderate violent and incendiary comments as required by the contract. Rothstein noted in her ruling that Parler did not dispute the claim that some of the user posts violated the rules. So far, CEO John Matzke has not succeeded in fully reconstituting the platform using different web services.
Dig deeper: Read a report by Megan Basham and Steve West that details Parler’s silencing and the free speech fallout from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
Read more from The Sift
Sign up for The Sift email
Rachel Lynn Aldrich
Rachel is an assistant editor for WORLD Digital. She is a Patrick Henry College and World Journalism Institute graduate. Rachel resides with her husband in Wheaton, Ill.
Comments
OldMike
Posted: Tue, 01/26/2021 03:45 pmI see "violent and incendiary comments" in various places on the internet on a daily basis. It might appear to some of us that Parler was shut down only because it was conservatives who were making such comments. But some of the most violent and racist things I see posted are from "conservatives." Perhaps the sites' moderators see those eventually and delete them, but those rantings are there for all to see at least for a little while.
Cyborg3
Posted: Mon, 02/01/2021 07:46 amAre you really sure they are from conservatives? I often see leftists posting as conservatives saying the worst things. You really watch them post and you see they are not what they seem. This is Big Tech with their bots posting trying to manipulate voters - oftentimes.