The social media platform Parler, which went dark after being cut off by major service providers who accused the app of not policing violent content, may never come online again, CEO John Matze said.
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While a march of entrepreneurs broke ties with the two-year-old website after the storm of the American Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when it will return.
“It can never be,” he said. “We do not know yet.”
This illustration photo shows Parler’s social media application logo displayed on a smartphone with his website in the background in Arlington, Virginia on July 2, 2020. (Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP via Getty Images)
The app said in a legal submission that it has more than 12 million users.
Matze said Parler spoke to more than one cloud computing service but declined to disclose names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could knock on Amazon again.
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Parler on Monday filed a lawsuit against the company, which according to Amazon.com Inc has no merit. Matze said the company is considering suing other sellers but refuses to say more.
Amazon hacked Parler, a platform favored by supporters of US President Donald Trump, from its servers over the weekend because it did not effectively moderate violent content. Apple Inc. and Google from Alphabet Inc. also kicked Parler out of their app stores.
“It’s hard to keep track of how many people tell us we can no longer do business with them,” Matze said.
Amazon on Tuesday submitted exhibits showing that Parler warned late last year about bad and threatening language use on his website before cutting off the platform following the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Matze said Parler was also kicked out of the online payment service Stripe and of American Express and lost its Scylla Enterprise database. Parler could not send text messages after being banned by Twilio, and could not use Slack to contact his “jury” of paid and volunteer users who make decisions about moderating Parler after being hacked by the workplace messaging program .
The sellers did not immediately respond to Reuters’ comments.
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Matze said some Parler employees had requested to take a few weeks off from their jobs, and also said he and staff received threats and people showed up at their homes.
He said there were no changes to investors in Parler, which is getting funding from hedge fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer.
Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin; Edited by Kenneth Li and Lisa Shumaker