This illustration picture shows social media application logo from Parler displayed on a smartphone with its website in the background. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Tech giants Apple and Amazon suspend free speech social media site ‘Parler’ from their services.
On Saturday, the decision came due to claims that the social networking site was not taking enough measures to prevent the spread of posts inciting violence.
Parler became popular among the President’s supporters as his Twitter account was permanently removed Friday. The app was seen as a haven for people who were expelled from Twitter.
Apple claimed the Capitol Hill protests were coordinated on Parler’s site. In a statement on Saturday, Apple announced the app would be unavailable until they had time to look into several issues.
The tech giant told Parler they would have to implement fact-checkers on posts if they wanted to avoid suspension. However, Parler’s Chief Executive John Matze said the app could be unavailable for days. He accused Google, Amazon and Apple of trying to kill competition in the marketplace.
This all came after Parler climbed to number one on Apple’s app store before it was suspended.
On Saturday, Matze announced Amazon was shutting off their access to the server hosting service in an attempt to”completely remove free speech from the internet.” Matze said the ban was intentionally coordinated to inflict the most damage on President Trump.
Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech off the internet. There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch. We prepared for events like this by never relying on amazons proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products. We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business, however Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies. This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place. We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out. #speakfreely
— John Matze 🇺🇸 John Saturday, January 9, 2021
Apple will be banning Parler until we give up free speech, institute broad and invasive policies like Twitter and Facebook and we become a surveillance platform by pursuing guilt of those who use Parler before innocence. They claim it is due to violence on the platform. The community disagrees as we hit number 1 on their store today. The same day “Hang Mike Pence”, a disgusting violent suggestion, was trending nationally on Twitter. Displaying the horrible double standard Apple and their big tech pack apply to the community. Apple, a software monopoly, provides no alternatives to installing apps on your phone other then their store. We do not own our phones, Apple simply rents them to us. Apple, Google and the rest of the anti-competitive pack of big tech tyrants coordinate their moves and work together to stifle competition in the marketplace. More details about our next plans coming soon as we have many options.
— John Matze 🇺🇸 John Saturday, January 9, 2021
The President’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., described the situation in a tweet as a “purge of conservative ideas and thought leaders.”
My thoughts this morning on the flagrant assault on free speech that’s happening in America today. Check it out and let me know your thoughts. https://t.co/7SH5nFymCR
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 9, 2021
“This is a monopoly on free speech that these companies have,” Trump Jr. said. “Of course, the Republicans as always, they tuck tail and run — they don’t fight 230 reform.”
Matze noted Parler will move to a new provider and that several are already competing for business. In the meantime, conservative social media users in the U.S. have begun flocking to other apps and sites like ‘Telegram’ and ‘Gab’ due to what they call “aggressive policing of political comments” on Twitter and Facebook.
Matze added the app will be back up and running in a week once it rebuilds from scratch.
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