Parler Lawsuit Against Amazon

Abhorsen

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A financial stakeholder is defined as "groups that stand to benefit if the venture or company succeeds" this very specifically includes "suppliers" which Amazon falls under because it supplies the hosting space for Twitter's servers.
You're trying to use the definition of a term I used offhand to simplify a legal principle. This doesn't help you position at all, because the law doesn't give a shit about how I summarize it.

I just used financial stakeholder as a way to say owner or partial owner. That's all. And Amazon isn't the owner or partial owner of twitter or a twitter-like, so this angle of attack won't work at all, other than making a judge laugh. And because of this, Parler (if you read their filing) didn't, because they aren't that stupid. Instead they allege collusion, which is a hail mary.
 

Vaermina

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You're trying to use the definition of a term I used offhand to simplify a legal principle. This doesn't help you position at all, because the law doesn't give a shit about how I summarize it.
No, I am using the legal defination, because that's what the law does give a shit about.

I just used financial stakeholder as a way to say owner or partial owner. That's all. And Amazon isn't the owner or partial owner of twitter or a twitter-like, so this angle of attack won't work at all, other than making a judge laugh. And because of this, Parler (if you read their filing) didn't, because they aren't that stupid. Instead they allege collusion, which is a hail mary.
As I explained to you, they don't have to be the owner or partial owner for this to apply.

They just need to have a vested financial interest, which they do, because Twitter gives them large amounts of money for service.
 

Captain X

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It seems to me that Amazon actually did collude with Twitter in order to eliminate a Twitter competitor, though, and one that was soundly beating Twitter as well.
 

Abhorsen

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No, I am using the legal defination, because that's what the law does give a shit about.
The phrase "financial stakeholder" isn't used in the Sherman Antitrust laws, or for that matter anywhere in 15 USC Chapter 1 (the stuff dealing with monopolies). For that matter, "stakeholder" isn't used either. (CTRL + F on this to verify) I used the word stakeholder to mean owner or partial owner, in an attempt to explain that if Amazon owned or partially owned Twitter, it would be a different story, but they don't, so they have to prove collusion instead.

It seems to me that Amazon actually did collude with Twitter in order to eliminate a Twitter competitor, though, and one that was soundly beating Twitter as well.
You'd need evidence of this, such as Twitter communicating with Amazon about Parler, to prove this. Parler is looking for a smoking gun in discovery, but I doubt it exists. Unfortunately, my guess is that no collusion was needed. Amazon didn't ban Parler because Twitter asked, Amazon banned Parler because it doesn't like conservatives. And that second thing, although bad, is legal and actually serves as a defense against the antitrust stuff.
 

Captain X

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I'm the other way around - there absolutely had to be collusion because of the timing of things. That didn't happen by itself. And on top of that, you have Twitter's owner bragging about how one of his apps is #1 in the app store now.
 

Battlegrinder

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Collusion is possible, but it's not as thought that's the only thing that could have lead to parler getting kicked off the platform when it was. People starting calling for Parler's removal right after the riot, Amazon could have just taken notice of those demands. Or they'd already decided to give parler the boot as soon as an excuse presented itself, and the riots gave them one.
 

Abhishekm

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Is there anyone who thinks its not atleast possible? I mean its already a pretty much assumed certainty that this was all to stop a new competitor from growing. Its just a matter of if it meets the legal standard and if that would even be enough for a likely biased court.

My opinion is its not, with a proper legal system it would meet the standard and with a proper court it would stand a chance to win. Neither are true so we really are just counting out the clock till this is dismissed anyway.
 

Abhorsen

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Is there anyone who thinks its not atleast possible? I mean its already a pretty much assumed certainty that this was all to stop a new competitor from growing. Its just a matter of if it meets the legal standard and if that would even be enough for a likely biased court.
Your argument here doesn't work. Amazon isn't a competitor of Parler, so the bolded part is wrong. Amazon almost certainly did this because they don't like the right, Trump, the capitol riot, or some similar reason. And all of those reasons are legally fine. Parler is basically going for a hail mary attempt at hoping Amazon and Twitter screwed up and they find it in discovery, along with the lawsuit being advertising + good PR for their target demographic, even if they fail. All the execs are way too smart to do this. If they do win, it'll be because some lower level, really political people from Twitter and Amazon were talking.

My opinion is its not, with a proper legal system it would meet the standard and with a proper court it would stand a chance to win. Neither are true so we really are just counting out the clock till this is dismissed anyway.
No, with the law as written, without a smoking gun linking Twitter and Amazon about Parler, they should lose. Laws need to be followed, because without them, the left wins.

What people don't realize, is that the rule of law and the courts are what prevents the majority from running roughshod over the minority. And pretending/believing the courts are biased plays into the Democrats hands, as they want to undermine the court system so they can have full control. Right now, they don't have the votes to do so, but they are working at it.
 

Abhishekm

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Your argument here doesn't work. Amazon isn't a competitor of Parler, so the bolded part is wrong. Amazon almost certainly did this because they don't like the right, Trump, the capitol riot, or some similar reason. And all of those reasons are legally fine. Parler is basically going for a hail mary attempt at hoping Amazon and Twitter screwed up and they find it in discovery, along with the lawsuit being advertising + good PR for their target demographic, even if they fail. All the execs are way too smart to do this. If they do win, it'll be because some lower level, really political people from Twitter and Amazon were talking.


No, with the law as written, without a smoking gun linking Twitter and Amazon about Parler, they should lose. Laws need to be followed, because without them, the left wins.

What people don't realize, is that the rule of law and the courts are what prevents the majority from running roughshod over the minority. And pretending/believing the courts are biased plays into the Democrats hands, as they want to undermine the court system so they can have full control. Right now, they don't have the votes to do so, but they are working at it.
Yeah they are going to lose. But the assumed certainty I mean isn't in terms of legal standing. I mean in terms of public appearance and opinion. Like politicians, reporters and the law can say what it wants but in terms of how this comes across to people that's how it looks. It won't change anything but public opinion wise even when Parler loses so does Amazon and Twitter and the rest.
 

Abhishekm

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Uh, but they're not competitors?
Again, not directly no. But more in the public perception of the 'in' crowd of Tech billionaires snubbing an upstart. Product wise Amazon had no horse in the social media race but now if you ask 5 people atleast 3 of them would probabaly lump it together with Twitter or Facebook when it comes to 'big tech' and user privacy now whatever their opinion on it.

Business wise this was pretty much throwing away some of their hard built public opinion for 'virtue signaling' as cliche as that sounds. Even if they face no legal repercussions which they probably won't this gives the company little to no benefit in exchange for a lot of public controversy and no small amount of ill will among a portion of their customers.
 

Megadeath

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Again, not directly no. But more in the public perception of the 'in' crowd of Tech billionaires snubbing an upstart. Product wise Amazon had no horse in the social media race but now if you ask 5 people atleast 3 of them would probabaly lump it together with Twitter or Facebook when it comes to 'big tech' and user privacy now whatever their opinion on it.

Business wise this was pretty much throwing away some of their hard built public opinion for 'virtue signaling' as cliche as that sounds. Even if they face no legal repercussions which they probably won't this gives the company little to no benefit in exchange for a lot of public controversy and no small amount of ill will among a portion of their customers.
But, you were asking about the viability of the lawsuit, and whether the court will rule about it meeting the legal standard for anti competitive practices. You imply it won't only because the courts are biased. That's ridiculous when they're not in competition at all, and the court of public opinion is entirely irrelevant to what you actually first said.
 

Terthna

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What people don't realize, is that the rule of law and the courts are what prevents the majority from running roughshod over the minority. And pretending/believing the courts are biased plays into the Democrats hands, as they want to undermine the court system so they can have full control. Right now, they don't have the votes to do so, but they are working at it.
That's what they're supposed to do, but only an ignorant fool would argue that they're not failing in that regard. The establishment has undermined the court system; perhaps not fully, but enough so that they could, say, conduct a blatantly fraudulent election, and not face any challenge from the judiciary.

The "Democrats" want you to believe that the courts are unbiased, so that you won't recognize the fact that they've already subverted them to a large extent, and won't do anything while they finish the job; because the first step towards fixing a problem is recognizing that there is a problem.
 

Abhishekm

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But, you were asking about the viability of the lawsuit, and whether the court will rule about it meeting the legal standard for anti competitive practices. You imply it won't only because the courts are biased. That's ridiculous when they're not in competition at all, and the court of public opinion is entirely irrelevant to what you actually first said.
Not in my last few no. I was referring more to the public opinion and perception of them from it. As to the bias of courts or competition of the companies involved. Again that doesn't matter much to the opinion of the situation and that was my point. PR wise this has done nothing for Amazon and has probably hurt it more. I said legally they will probably face nothing from it except a minor court date with a known judge and previously set precedents that was never in doubt. But the stink is gonna stay.
 

Captain X

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Honestly I'm surprised Parler was depending on someone else for hosting anyway - they really should have invested in their own servers.
 

Abhorsen

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And the lawsuit was retracted before even discovery. The lawsuit was marketing, plain and simple, just like all the other ones, like Nunes's and Gabbard's.
 

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