President Trump has been kicked off most common social media platforms following his investors’ investment in the US Capitol. However, it remains to be seen how fast or where he can reach his followers on the internet.
The very legal-friendly Parler was the leading candidate, at least until Google and Apple removed it from their app stores and Amazon kicked it off its web hosting service just after midnight Pacific time Monday.
Parler was unavailable on the internet from 4:30 a.m. EST.
Parler’s chief executive said it could be offline for a week, although it may be optimistic. And even if it finds a friendlier web hosting service without a smartphone app, it’s hard to imagine Parler achieving major success.
Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The two-year-old magnet for the far-right claims more than 12 million users, though mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower puts the global number at 10 million, up from 8 million in the US. This is a fraction of the 89 million followers that Mr. Trump had on Twitter.
Parler can still be attractive to mr. Trump, because this is where his sons Eric and Don Jr. already active.
Parler was hit by the wind on Friday when Google chased his smartphone app out of its app store because it allowed messages to incite ‘continuing violence in the US’. Apple followed suit on Saturday night after Parler was given 24 hours to address complaints he is being used for ‘planning to facilitate more illegal and dangerous activities. “Public safety issues need to be resolved before they are repaired,” Apple said.
Amazon dealt another blow on Saturday, informing Parler that he would have to search for a new web hosting service on Sunday at midnight. It reminded Parler in a letter, first reported by Buzzfeed, that he had informed it over the past few weeks of 98 examples of posts ‘that clearly encourage and incite violence’ and said that the platform ” poses a real risk to public safety. ‘
Parler CEO John Matze punished the punishment as a coordinated attack by technology giants to kill competition in the market. “We were successful too quickly,” he said in a message Saturday night, saying Parler might no longer be available. to a week “if we rebuild from scratch.”
“Every provider, from texting services to email providers, to our lawyers, also dropped us all on the same day,” Matze said Sunday in Fox New Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. He said that while the company is trying to get back online as quickly as possible, it’s having a lot of problems’ because every supplier we talk to says they will not work with us because if Apple does not approve it and Google does not approve it. ‘
The loss of access to the Google and Apple app stores – the operating systems of which run hundreds of millions of smartphones – limited Parler’s reach, although it was still accessible via a web browser. The loss of Amazon Web Services means Parler will have to move up to find another web host in addition to the redevelopment.
Meanwhile, another site widely used by the far-right, Gab.com, has apparently benefited from Parler’s problems. Gab tweeted early Monday that it’s gained more users in the last two days than we did in our first two years of existence. ‘
While initially arguing their need to be neutral about speech, Twitter and Facebook gradually succumbed to public pressure and drew the line, especially when the so-called Plandemic video appeared early in the coronavirus pandemic, urging people to not wearing masks, noted Ethan Zuckerman, a civilian media professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Zuckerman expects the Trump platforming to spur significant online shifts. Among them a possible accelerated fragmentation of the social media world along ideological lines.
“Trump will attract a lot of audience wherever he goes,” he said. This could mean more platforms with smaller, more ideologically isolated audiences.
Mr. Trump could also launch his own platform. But that will not happen overnight, and freedom of speech experts expect growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb arson, as Americans take stock of the violent takeover of the US Capitol by a Trump-fueled crowd on Wednesday .