After Parler, QAnon faces wrath for Capitol riots, Twitter, Amazon take measures

The world’s largest online retailer drew scrutiny for having apparel with QAnon insignia and related books up for sale days after QAnon followers joined last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead.

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QAnon backers have pushed conspiracies on social media based on web postings from the anonymous “Q,” citing insider knowledge of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

The action by Amazon follows a decision to stop hosting the web content of Parler, a social network used by some supporters of Trump. The company alleged that Parler had violated the terms of service of its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), for failing to deal with an increase in violent social media. Parler sued AWS on Monday in response.

Twitter said it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content.

Parler Sues Amazon

Parler, meanwhile, sued Amazon for ending web-hosting service for the site in the wake of rioting at the U.S. Capitol last week.

The web hosting site went offline early Monday morning after Amazon’s cloud services division stopped providing the service. Last week Apple and Alphabet Google had withdrawn Parler from their app stores.

Parler said in a lawsuit filed Monday, Amazon’s action is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support. AWS will kill Parler’s business — at the very time it is set to skyrocket.

Amazon said there was no merit to the claims.

“AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow,” the company said in an emailed statement. “It is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service.”

PayPal blocks site that helped raise funds for Capitol violence

PayPal said on Monday it had blocked a Christian crowdfunding site, GiveSendGo, after it helped raise funds for people who attended last week’s event in Washington when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol.

The digital payments processor also confirmed to Reuters that it closed an account held by Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the gathering. The news was reported earlier by Bloomberg, which cited an unidentified source.