> There has been no ruling by the court on the merits of the case.
Correct, but as part of the TRO process, the court is asked to view the merits of the case given what it knows, as part of the determination of granting a preliminary injunction is whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
The courts opinion, quite plainly, is that Parler is unlikely to succeed on the merits:
> In short, Parler has proffered only faint and factually inaccurate speculation in support of a Sherman Act violation.
> Parler has not denied that at the time AWS invoked its termination or suspension rights under Sections 4, 6 and 7, Parler was in violation of the Agreement and the AUP.
> Parler has failed to allege basic facts that would support several elements of this claim. Most fatally, as discussed above, it has failed to raise more than the scantest speculation that AWS’s actions were taken for an improper purpose or by improper means.
> IF data storage and/or social media can be viewed as critical digital infrastructure, an argument can and will likely be made that the services are tantamount to a digital company owned town.
This argument will fail, for reasons I outlined in a previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25781560. To briefly reiterate: Marsh v. Alabama concerned a privately owned town using state force (e.g. police) to enforce trespassing law.
But nothing about those rulings prevents the town from putting up a fence and a gate, and banning people from re-entering.
Twitter (and AWS) have a fence and a gate, and a guard who checks your ID anytime you try to enter the area.