After Parler was banned in both the Apple and Google app stores for not restraining violent and threatening content on his platform, the social media site is now completely offline as a result of Amazon’s termination of Parler’s web hosting services. The official Parler website now returns a 403 error, while the app shows network errors and cannot load content.
Amazon let Parler know late Saturday in a letter to Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff. The Amazon Web Service (AWS) “cannot provide services to a customer who cannot effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others,” reads the letter to Peikoff, adding that Parler “poses a very real risk. for public safety. ”
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Reports on Parler encouraging violence which led to the Wednesday attack on the Capitol that left five people dead was spread on other platforms in the wake of the riot. An example: ‘take zippers with you, sneak them up like ninjas and tie their hands and feet with a zipper, to which another poster replies:’ around their neck, it can not get off in time, they die. ‘
According to the AWS Policy for Acceptable Use, customers may not use their services “for illegal, harmful, fraudulent, infringing or offensive use.”
Parler was launched in 2018 and introduces itself as a free speech and an alternative to other social media sites. The number of users has increased over the past few months as Twitter and Facebook have tightened their moderation policies, especially around election and coronavirus information. The ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign challenging President Trump’s loss has gained momentum among Parler users, as well as other conspiracy theories surrounding the election. Parler’s less stringent moderation policies were part of the appeal for many users, but the lack of content moderation is a big part of why companies suspended their services.
When it removed Parler from the Play Store, Google said that while reasonable content policy debate was possible, it could be difficult for apps to remove infringing content immediately, ” because we need to distribute an app through Google Play, ‘ but we need programs to implement robust moderation for serious content. Apple has told the company that ‘the processes that Parler has instituted to moderate or prevent the distribution of dangerous and illegal content have proved inadequate. Specifically, we have continued to find immediate threats of violence and incite calls for lawless action. ”
Even if the app was removed from the Play Store, users could still install Parler on their Android devices by downloading it directly from Parler’s website and downloading it later. Because the AWS services are now disabled, the site and apps are no longer working.
John Matze, CEO of Parler – who according to his LinkedIn page worked at AWS for three months in 2017 – wrote in a post on Parler late Saturday that he believes Amazon, Google and Apple ‘worked together to try to secure that they have not. competition, ”adds“ They will NOT win! We are the worlds [sic] last hope for free speech and free information. ”
Matze said in a separate report that the Parler could be offline for up to a week “if we rebuild from scratch.” Matze added: “You can expect the war against competition and freedom of speech to continue, but do not count us out.”
Perhaps the social network Gab is the most well-known recent case of spreading a site for violent content. After a gunman killed eleven people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, PayPal banned Gab from his platform when it came to light that suspect Robert Bowers had placed anti-Semitic threats on Gab before the shooting. Apple rejected Gab’s application to appear in the App Store in 2016, and Twitter removed Gab’s access to its API. Google downloaded the Gab app from its Play Store in 2017 for violating the hate speech policy, and AWS severed ties with Gab in 2019 for violating its hate content policy.
Parler did not respond to a request for comment. The edge.