This illustration photo shows Parler’s social media application logo displayed on a smartphone with his website in the background. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP via Getty Images)
TO Newsroom
UPDATE 18:00 PT – Sunday 10 January 2021
Technical giants Apple and Amazon are suspending the speechless social media site ‘Parler’ from their services.
On Saturday, the decision was made due to allegations that the social networking site was not taking enough measures to prevent the spread of violence-inciting posts.
Parler became popular among the president’s supporters as his Twitter account was permanently deleted on Friday. The app was seen as a haven for people who were suspended from Twitter.
Apple claims that the protests on Capitol Hill are being coordinated at Parler’s site. Apple announced in a statement on Saturday that the app would not be available until they had time to look at various issues.
The tech giant told Parler that they should implement fact-checkers on posts if they want to avoid suspension. However, Parler CEO John Matze said the app could not be available for days. He accuses Google, Amazon and Apple of trying to kill competition in the market.
It all happened after Parler climbed to first place in Apple’s app store before being suspended.
Matze announced Saturday that Amazon is closing its access to the server hosting service, in an effort to “completely remove speech freedom from the Internet.” Matze said the ban was deliberately coordinated to inflict the greatest damage on President Trump.
Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight, Amazon will shut down all our servers in an effort to completely remove freedom of speech from the internet. There is a possibility that Parler will not be available on the internet for up to a week, as we are rebuilding from scratch. We prepared for such opportunities by never relying on Amazon’s infrastructure and building bare metal products. We will now try our best to move to a new provider, as there are many competing for our business, but Amazon, Google and Apple have done so deliberately as a coordinated effort to know that our options would be limited and to know that it would cause the greatest harm. since President Trump was banned from the technology ventures. It was a coordinated attack by technology giants to destroy competition in the market. We were successful too quickly. You can expect the war against competition and freedom of speech to continue, but do not count us out. #spreekvry
– John Matze 🇺🇸 John Saturday 9 January 2021
Apple will ban Parler until we give up freedom of speech, introduce broad and intrusive policies such as Twitter and Facebook and we become an observation platform by practicing guilt on those who use Parler before innocence. They claim it is due to violence on the platform. The community does not agree as we reached number 1 in their store today. The same day, ‘Hang Mike Pence’, a disgusting violent proposal, worked nationally on Twitter. The terrible double standard Apple and their huge technology package apply to the community. Apple, a software monopoly, offers no alternative to installing apps on your phone other than their store. We do not own our phones, but Apple simply rents them out to us. Apple, Google and the rest of the competitiveness group’s big tech tyrants coordinate their movements and work together to stop competition in the market. More details on our next plans coming soon as we have many options.
– John Matze 🇺🇸 John Saturday 9 January 2021
The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., described the situation in a tweet as a “purification of conservative ideas and thought leaders.”
My thoughts this morning on the blatant attack on freedom of speech that is taking place in America today. Take a look and let me know your thoughts. https://t.co/7SH5nFymCR
– Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) 9 January 2021
“It’s a monopoly on free speech that these companies have,” Trump Jr. said. “Of course the Republicans, as always, are pulling tails and running – they are not fighting 230 reform.”
Matze noted that Parler will be moving to a new supplier and that several are already competing for business. Meanwhile, conservative users of social media in the US have started flocking to other apps and websites like ‘Telegram’ and ‘Gab’ due to ‘aggressive policing of political comments’ on Twitter and Facebook.
Matze added that the app will be able to work again within a week once it has been rebuilt from scratch.