Amazon Web Services Ban Reveals Corporate Control Over Internet
Apple, Google, and Amazon remove Parler from their platforms following the Capitol riot, but Amazon's AWS ban highlights an unprecedented level of corporate power over web infrastructure.
Apple, Google, and Amazon show unprecedented coordination by kicking Parler off their platforms after the U.S. Capitol attack. The tech giants argue that the right-wing social network fails to adequately moderate violent content, which violates their terms of service. While Apple and Google remove the app from their stores, Amazon takes a much more severe step by cutting off the platform's essential cloud hosting.
Getting banned from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store presents a major hurdle for any business, but companies often survive by relying on web browsers or alternative platforms. Fortnite, for example, continues to thrive despite its highly publicized removal from Apple's ecosystem. These app store bans highlight a problematic duopoly, but they do not completely destroy a company's ability to reach users.
However, Amazon Web Services operates as the fundamental backbone of the modern internet, making its expulsion of Parler a potential death sentence. Unlike app stores, AWS provides the actual servers and computing power that websites need to exist online. This decisive action marks a significant shift in internet governance, proving that a few massive corporations now hold the ultimate power to decide which digital businesses live or die.