By Hellen Zaboulani
Parler, a social networking service launched in August 2018, attracted supporters of President Donald Trump and other right-wing activists with a vow to be a haven for free speech, while popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter banned the President. It seems free speech cannot be so easily attained, however.
As reported by the NY Post, Parler went offline on Sunday night, after Amazon kicked the controversial social network off of its servers. On Monday morning, Parler’s official website was inaccessible, after Amazon Web Services said it would suspend the company’s operations due to the violent content on the platform. Apple and Google also pulled Parler’s app off their stores over the weekend, citing comparable concerns.
Initially, Parler CEO John Matze downplayed the situation, saying the site and app would be offline for “up to a week” while the company finds another web host. Later on in the day, however, his message became more bleak, as it became evident that the tech giants’ clampdown was scaring other companies out of working with Parler. “We will likely be down longer than expected,” Matze reportedly wrote on his Parler profile. “This is not due to software restrictions — we have our software and everyone’s data ready to go. Rather it’s that Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s statements to the press about dropping our access has caused most of our other vendors to drop their support for us as well. And most people with enough servers to host us have shut their doors to us.”
Parler users reportedly began taking advantage of the microblogging app’s lax policies, and used it to post threats of violence. Amazon Web Services pointed to 98 Parler posts that incited and encouraged violence before the insurgence on the Capitol building on Wednesday. Posts included threats against “liberal leaders” and “dirty left demonrats,” as per BuzzFeed News.
“It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” Amazon reportedly wrote in a letter to Parler. “[W]e cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others.”
Twitter permanently suspended Trump from its platform, saying his account posed a “risk of further incitement of violence”. Last week, Facebook and Instagram froze President Trump’s accounts indefinitely, and banned the phrase, “Stop the Steal”.
