Florida’s Freedom Watch Founder Larry Klayman Sues U.S. Tech Giants in Bid for Peaceful Revolution

As liberal tech giants wage war against conservative social media platforms, renowned trial attorney Larry Klayman has filed suit against Google, Apple and AWS (Amazon’s web services) in Palm Beach County, Florida. 

His beef is that his non-profit political organization, Freedom Watch, was severed from its social media followers when the defendant tech giants banned Parler, a conservative social media platform rivaling liberal-leaning Twitter.

Freedom Watch was experiencing growth when the tech giants pulled Parler’s plug.

In the press, the tech giants have claimed they only “suspended” Parler due to its unwillingness to moderate violent speech and that Parler could be accessed through the defendants’ app stores again if they cooperate with the tech giants’ demands.  

In court, Amazon accused Parler of attempting to incite the violence that occurred on Capitol Hill on January 6, although Twitter trended “Hang Mike Pence” without suspension after permanently banning Trump for violent speech. In an interview, Klayman said the tech giants are just “taking the heat off themselves” by calling their actions against Parler mere suspensions.

“In practice, it’s a ban,” said Klayman. He added, “Because Apple and Google control the app for Parler…even if Parler (somehow) goes back online the end of this month – which I frankly doubt will happen – you still won’t be able to access the app because they took the means to access away.”

There are various technical hurdles for Parler to jump if they are to succeed in rebounding the social media platform’s Google and Apple app presence, and alleged defamation by the tech giants against Parler may complicate their rebound further, if web hosting services shy away from potential backlash. Matze has indicated in press reports he might have a replacement web host, and he has also contended he moderates violence.  

A judge denied Matze’s request for a preliminary injunction against Amazon after they “suspended” his platform, but in the same case, Amazon failed to convince the judge that Parler’s platform was used to plan and execute the January 6 Capitol Hill violence, meaning Amazon erroneously suggested Parler did not attempt to moderate what has been cast as an insurrection.

However, despite the judge’s decision against Amazon, they continue to ban Parler, which may help make one of Klayman’s general points: Tech giants are attempting to censor conservative social media. In his lawsuit, Klayman expresses belief the tech giants want to quash Twitter’s competition where 90 million Trump supporters could jump ship to Parler.

Klayman described his current case filed in Florida.

“This is a very simple case of tortious interference. We’re claiming that Amazon interfered with Freedom Watch’s Parler account, which they did. They had reason to know that we had a Parler account, particularly since I’m very well known as founder of Freedom Watch and Judicial Watch and ran for U.S. Senate in 2003-2004.  Florida is a Plaintiff-oriented state, so it’s likely this case will move forward. So the Motion to Dismiss will fail, we will get discovery – get documents and depositions – and once we confirm there is collusion between these companies, then we can add an antitrust complaint. Once we get into the files, we’re going to find all kinds of stuff and take other actions. But right now, the case is simple and about interference. We don’t need some crazy judge dismissing it.”

Klayman was asked to elaborate on the tech giants’ demands that Parler moderate their content for violence. He replied, “They will never meet moderation, because there will always be a moving goal post on what is violence.  It’s whatever the tech giants decide it is.”

Klayman mentioned that ten years ago he filed suit against Facebook for violent threats kept posted for three weeks about Palestinians who threatened then killed Christians and Jews.

He said he lost the case because of a section of the Communications Decency Act, referred to in the news and political circles as “Section 230,” which prevents suing internet providers for user content. But he indicated Zuckerberg eventually took it down due to pressure. Klayman was adamant that no one understands Section 230, not even Trump or the U.S. Congress.

He also said cases are complicated by the U.S. Constitution’s fourteenth and first amendments that do not generally address political discrimination as they do race, color, national origin, and ethnicity.  Thus, a case purporting harm to business due to tech giant collusion is more feasible, pulling the Sherman Antitrust Act into play. “I think we have a really good case,” Klayman said, but remarked that Parler’s suit against Amazon was poorly crafted and poorly thought-out, then filed in the nation’s most liberal state. Washington.

“Parler is no more violent than anybody else,” Klayman said. “Other social media platforms let Louis Farrakhan threaten whites, white cops and Jews…Ayatollah Khamenei or Xi Jinping – they all have their Twitter pages and they’re all murderers.”

Klayman expressed grave concern for the left-wing attempt to transform America, stating, “They want to eliminate all opposition. This is a modern-day, Third Reich-Bolshevik Revolution- Chinese Tiananmen Square full-force action. So this is where we are and this is why we kept the case simple to move it forward.”

Klayman has a new book out titled “It Takes a Revolution: Forget the Scandal Industry!” In it, Klayman explains how the nation’s U.S. Constitutional supporters can avoid bloodshed and resolve the corruption in all three branches of government without violence. 

He recounts cases he has presented to the nation’s courts and his exposure to government-wide corruption. He encourages patriotic Americans to get off the couch.

“We need to turn off cable news and get to work trying to save this country because cable news is in it for profit, they try to scare people, they promise things that will never happen, like Sean Hannity saying ‘justice is just around the corner.’ I think people are tired of hearing that. I think what happened at the capital a few weeks ago was not just a few crazy people on both sides of the political spectrum. These were well-meaning Americans who rose up as Thomas Jefferson predicted they would – it was a shot across the bow that they can’t take it anymore, that they’re sick of the corruption in government, and the flashpoint was the fraudulent election which I still maintain was fraudulent and manipulated. So this is where we’re headed, and I’m trying to use the courts to bring about a peaceful and legal revolution so we don’t have bloodshed in the streets, which of course we already have. We can have citizen grand juries to keep people accountable like occurred in the Old West – this is legal and Justice Scalia confirmed in 1992 that the grand jury belongs to the people and not the three branches of government.”

One of the nation’s latest citizen grand jury activities involved Klayman, who in 2013 formed a citizen grand jury accusing Obama of fraud.

Larry Klayman, Esq., founder and former chairman of the successful non-profit foundation Judicial Watch, has dedicated his career to fighting against injustice and restoring ethics to the legal profession and government. He was born and raised in Philadelphia, graduated with honors in political science and French literature from Duke University, and later received a law degree from Emory University. He is the only lawyer ever to have obtained a court ruling that a U.S. president committed a crime, which occurred during his tenure at Judicial Watch.

He became so well known that NBC’s hit drama series The West Wing created a character inspired by him, named Harry Claypool of Freedom Watch. In 2003, Mr. Klayman left Judicial Watch to run for the U.S. Senate. After his Senate race, he established Freedom Watch. As head of that organization and his law firm Klayman Law Group, P.A., he now divides his time between South Florida, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.