Parler was launched on the Internet by Amazon’s cloud hosting service, but its users may face another problem: the social media network favored by supporters of President Donald Trump “has been hit by” a massive data scrape, “web security research. company CyberNews reported.
A Reddit thread on Sunday announced: ‘All Parler user data is being downloaded while we talk! ‘
What appears to be evidence of such a download is being circulated on Reddit and Twitter, but the authenticity of the data has not been verified. False rumors spread last November that a Parler hack had led to users’ social security numbers and private messages being stolen.
Technology news site Gizmodo reports that before Amazon pulled Parler’s stick on Monday, a ‘stand-alone researcher’ worked feverishly from January 6 to archive every Parler post, believing the site would have ‘very incriminating’ evidence about those involved in the storm. of the U.S. Capitol on that day – including a video shot by contestants. The riot in Washington, DC, has killed at least five people, including a Capitol police officer. The U.S. House of Representatives appears ready this week to prosecute President Trump, with an article of indictment alleging he incited the violence.
Gizmodo says the researcher who determined how to download Parler’s data asked that she be identified only by her Twitter handle.
“With little sleep, @donk_enby began archiving all of Parler’s posts, which eventually captured about 99.9 percent of the content,” Gizmodo wrote Monday morning. “Included in this amount of data, now more than 56 terabytes in size, @donk_enby confirmed that the raw video contains GPS coordinates, indicating the location of users when the videos were filmed.”
One Redditer who claimed to be aware of the possible archiving, or data scratch, wrote:
‘[A]All of this information was considered secure and private by individuals who did the posts. A significant number of the individuals underwent the process of ‘Verified Citizen’ on Parler. ”
BuzzFeed News reported on Saturday that Amazon Web Services told Parler that it had seen a “constant increase [in] violent content ”on the site, including what users appear to be planning to disrupt the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
The Washington Post pointed out that Parler “has historically had an aggressive practical approach to content moderation.”
Parler did not address the unproven allegations that his data was compromised, but John Matze, his chief executive, told Fox News on Sunday that Amazon’s decision to suspend the site could “destroy” the business.
– Douglas Perry