- Parler CEO John Matze said in a lawsuit on Wednesday that Slack had “canceled his services” for his company.
- Matze said, in a lawsuit against Amazon’s AWS for his decision to sever relations with Parler, that Slack cited “a violation of his own terms of service based on AWS’s decision to withdraw Parler”.
- “The loss of Slack makes it extremely difficult to effectively enforce our terms of service with our nearly 600 voluntary and paid jury members,” said Matze.
- Major technology companies, including Amazon, Twilio, Apple and Google, have cut ties with Parler in recent days amid widespread reports that protesters used the app to organize and incite violence at the United States Capitol last week.
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Slack has joined the growing list of technology companies that refuse to do business with Parler, according to Parler CEO John Matze.
“Slack Technologies, which provided a chat messaging system for coordination with the Parler Jury that enforces our terms of service, abruptly canceled its services for Parler,” Matze said in a lawsuit on Wednesday.
Slack did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Matze filed the request as part of Parler’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services.
Parler opened the suit on Monday after AWS severed ties with the controversial social media company amid widespread reports that protesters who took over the U.S. Capitol last week used Parler to organize and incite violence.
“AWS’s highly publicized disruption … allowed the media to mischaracterize Parler in ways that alienated Parler’s partners,” said Matze, adding that when canceling his contract with Parler, Slack cited “a violation of his own terms of service. based on the AWS decision to leave Parler. “
“The loss of Slack makes it extremely difficult to effectively enforce our terms of service with our nearly 600 volunteers and paid jury members,” said Matze in the process.
Parler has faced great consequences in the wake of last week’s violence, when several business partners cut ties.
Apple and Google removed Parler’s app from their app stores, also citing their alleged refusal to remove violent content. Not long after, many of Parler’s service providers, including Twilio, Okta and Zendesk, also removed Parler from their platforms.
Parler’s platform went offline over the weekend after AWS suspended its contract, and with Google Cloud, IBM and Oracle refusing to take over Parler, the company reportedly hired the services of Epik, a domain registrar known for host far-right content.
Read More: Within Parler’s rapid and mysterious rise, Twitter’s ‘freedom of expression’ alternative, which created a platform for conservatives by burning the Silicon Valley script
Parler has gained notoriety in recent months, as major social media sites have faced increasing pressure to crack down on hate speech, misinformation and calls for violence.
After the United States presidential election in November, Trump supporters gathered on alternative social networks, including Parler, to plan election protests after Facebook and other sites banned groups promoting unmasked conspiracies. From November 3 to 9, Parler was downloaded about 530,000 times in the United States, according to data from Apptopia.