Parler, the angel-backed social media app popular with supporters of President Trump, is struggling to rebound from being forced offline after losing the support of Google, Apple and Amazon over the network’s lack of violent-content moderation.
Extremists who stormed the US Capitol reportedly used the app to spread hate speech, make threats and encourage last week’s riots.
The company, based in Henderson, Nev., is suing to block Amazon Web Services, the cloud-hosting giant, from suspending its account, The Wall Street Journal reported.
AWS said it kicked Parler off its servers after it became clear the company has been “unable or unwilling” to remove violent messaging from its network.
“We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks, and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Parler CEO John Matze said in a post on Parler that it could be up to a week before it can find alternative web hosting.
PitchBook data shows that Parler’s investors include Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer, the conservative political donors who backed Breitbart News.
Over the weekend, Apple and Alphabet-owned Google removed Parler from their app stores, making it harder for people to communicate over its network. In making its move, Apple said the company had missed a deadline to filter content that violates their terms of service.
Parler promotes itself as a “free speech” network that doesn’t censor user messaging based on opinions being expressed.
In its community guidelines dated last December, the platform says: “We do not curate your feed; we do not pretend to be qualified to do so. We believe only you are qualified to curate your feed, and so we give you the tools you need to do it yourself.”
Featured image by Hollie Adams/Getty Images
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