By Elizabeth Culliford and Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday rejected Parler’s demand that Amazon.com Inc restore web hosting services for the social media platform, which Amazon had cut off following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said Parler failed to show it was likely to prevail on the merits of its claims, or that the public interest supported a preliminary injunction requiring the restoration of service.
Amazon Web Services suspended Parler on Jan. 10.
It has said Parler violated its contract by ignoring repeated warnings to effectively address steady growth in violent content, including calls to assassinate prominent Democratic politicians, leading business executives and the media.
Parler said Amazon had no contractual right to pull the plug, and did so out of “political animus” to benefit Twitter Inc, a larger Amazon client that Parler said did not censor violent content targeting conservatives.
Many supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump favor Parler, which has claimed it had more than 12 million users.
Parler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)
