John Matze says he was fired as CEO of Parler, which was one of the social media services used to plan the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
Matze’s announcement on Wednesday followed Amazon decides on January 11 to remove Parler from its web hosting service about his unwillingness to remove posts that called for the assassination, rape and torture of politicians, technology executives and others. Google and Apple have removed the Parler app from their online stores.
Matze thanks Parler employees in a post on the professional networking site LinkedIn. “It’s not a goodbye. Just as long,” he wrote.
His LinkedIn page shows a termination date of January 2021:
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Matze is referring to a report by Fox Business quoting a memorandum from him to employees saying he was fired on January 29 by the Parler board controlled by conservative donor Rebekah Mercer.
“The Parler board of directors, controlled by Rebekah Mercer, has decided to terminate my position as CEO of Parler immediately,” the memorandum reads. “I did not take part in this decision.”
He said in the memo: “I have been constantly resisting for the past few months with my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler website should be run.”
But in a Facebook video confirming Matze’s dismissal, Parler’s co – founder Dan Bongino disputes Matze’s report, describing infighting at the highest levels of Parler.
Referring to Matze’s claims that he is a strong supporter of freedom of speech and product stability, Bongino said: ‘This is not accurate. on the inside. And listen, it’s not us who air dirty laundry. It protects an enterprise that is absolutely committed to freedom of speech … There were two separate visions for the company … This freedom of speech? was ours – the other owners of the company. ‘
‘… The relationship with Parler and the CEO did not work out, because the CEO’s vision was not ours … our vision was crystal clear. We had to get up and fight back. Some terrible decisions have been made in the past leading … us to be pulled down by Amazon and others. It was … me and the two other owners who were constantly on the side of this site would be a free speech platform, or it would be nothing. ‘
“… We could have been (back) in a week’s if we had just bent the knee and followed all the ridiculous Apple edicts to become a heavy moderation site on Twitter. That’s not what we “We were a free speech website and will remain so and that’s why it took so long to get up again. ‘
A federal judge on January 22 Parler’s request to order Amazon to repair the web service rejected. Seattle District Judge Barbara Rothstein said she did not dismiss Parler’s claims against Amazon.
Matze, who co-founded Parler in 2018, told the court that Parler’s sudden strike was motivated at least in part by “a desire to deny President Trump a platform on any major social media service.” ‘
Parler is experiencing an increase in users after Twitter has Mr. Trump banned amid pressure to curb arson following the January 6 attack that led to five deaths. Mr. Trump has also been banned by Facebook and Instagram.
Mr. Trump has considered joining Parler under a pseudonym, Matze said.
He told the court Parler had “no tolerance for inciting violence or breaking the law” and relied on volunteer “jurors” to point out problem posts and vote on whether they should be removed.
Amazon said the suspension was a “last resort” to deter Parler from violent plans to disrupt the presidential transition.