From the start, John Matze positioned Parler as a “free speech” social network where people could say what they wanted. It was a bet that recently paid off, as millions of supporters of President Trump, fed up with what they considered censorship on Facebook and Twitter, migrated to Parler.
In the app, policy discussions have increased. But so did conspiracy theories that falsely claim the election was stolen from Trump, with users calling for aggressive demonstrations last week when Congress met to certify the election of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
These calls for violence soon returned to haunt Matze, 27, a Las Vegas software engineer and Parler’s chief executive. On Saturday night, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores and Amazon said it would no longer host the site on its computer services, saying it had not sufficiently policed posts that incited violence and crime. As a result, Parler was set to disappear from the web on Monday.
This sparked a furious effort to keep Parler online. Matze said on Sunday that he was rushing to save the data of about 15 million Parler users from Amazon computers. He was also calling one company after another to find one that supported Parler with hundreds of computer servers.
“I believe Amazon, Google and Apple worked together to try to make sure there was no competition,” said Matze in Parler on Saturday night. “They are NOT going to win! We are the world’s last hope in terms of freedom of expression and information ”. He said the app is likely to shut down “for up to a week while we rebuild from scratch”.
Parler’s situation immediately attracted condemnation from the right, which compared the big tech companies to authoritarian lords. Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, told Fox News on Sunday that “Republicans have no way of communicating” and asked his followers to send him a message to keep in touch. Lou Dobbs, the right-wing commentator, wrote in Parler that the app had a strong antitrust case against technology companies in the midst of these “dangerous times”.
Parler has now become a test case in a renewed national debate over free speech on the Internet and whether tech giants like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon have much power. This debate has intensified since Trump was prevented from posting to Twitter and Facebook last week after a violent crowd, instigated by the president and his social media posts, invaded the Capitol.
For years, Facebook and Twitter have championed people’s ability to speak freely on their websites, while Amazon, Apple, Google and others have remained virtually distant from applications like Parler. This allowed incorrect information and falsehoods to flow through online networks.
The actions of tech companies last week to limit this toxic content with Trump and Parler were applauded by liberals and others. But the measures also raised questions about how private companies can decide who stays online and who doesn’t, especially when it is politically convenient, with Biden set to take office on January 20 and Democrats taking control of Congress.
The new proactive approach of technology companies also provides grain to Trump in the last days of his administration. Even as he faces another potential impeachment, Trump is expected to try to fuel the rage on Twitter, Facebook and others this week, potentially as a launch pad to compete with Silicon Valley when he leaves the White House. After being prevented from accessing Twitter, Trump said in a statement that “he would examine the possibilities of building our own platform in the near future”.
Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was understandable that no company wanted to be associated with the “repellent speech” that encouraged the violation of the Capitol. But he said Parler’s situation was worrying.
That’s because the removal of Parler by Apple and Google from their app stores and the suspension of their web hosting by Amazon went beyond what Twitter or Facebook does when they restrict a user’s account or their posts, he said. “I think we should recognize the importance of neutrality when we talk about the infrastructure of the Internet,” he said.
In previous statements, Apple, Amazon and Google said they had warned Parler about the violent posts on their website and that they had not done enough to remove them consistently. The companies said they require sites like Parler to systematically enforce their rules. They declined to comment further on Sunday.
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Technology companies seeking support for certain sites are not new. In 2018, Gab, another alternative to Facebook and Twitter that is popular with the far right, was forced to go offline after losing support from other companies, including PayPal and GoDaddy, because it had hosted anti-Semitic posts from a man who shot and killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Later, Gab went back online with the help of a Seattle company, Epik, which hosts other far-right sites.
Even if Parler closes the doors, right-wing personalities like Nunes, who have created followers in the application, there is no lack of other communication channels. Many still have many followers on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, who welcome any user who does not break their rules, including threats of violence or hate speech posts.
Parler was founded in 2018 by Matze and a fellow programmer, one of several newcomers to social media who aimed to capitalize on the growing anger of Trump supporters towards Silicon Valley. But Parler had a significant advantage: money. Rebekah Mercer, one of Trump’s biggest donors, helped fund the site. Other investors include Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and commentator for Fox News. She plans to make money selling ads.
The application is essentially a Twitter clone. It allows people to transmit messages – known as “conversations”, not “tweets” – to followers. Users can also comment and “echo” – not “retweet” – other users’ posts. When signing up for a new account, people are asked to select their favorite color and follow a list of conservative voices, including Nunes, Fox News host Sean Hannity and actress Kirstie Alley.
These “influencers” dominate the experience on the site. On Sunday, the Parler newsfeed was a stream of his angry “negotiations”, criticizing Big Tech and begging his followers to follow them elsewhere.
“Please sign up for my daily newsletter today, before tech totalists ban everything,” wrote Bongino, who also controls one of Facebook’s most popular pages.
Parler grew slowly until early 2020, when Twitter started labeling Trump’s tweets as inaccurate and some of his supporters joined Parler in protest. After the November election, Parler grew even more rapidly, as Facebook and Twitter cracked down on false claims that the vote had been rigged. So many users registered that they sometimes overloaded the company’s systems and forced it to pause new registrations.
In total, people downloaded Parler’s app more than 10 million times last year, with 80% in the United States, according to Sensor Tower, the app data company.
Last Wednesday, Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to reverse their electoral defeat by starting a riot that left five people dead. The rally was planned on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. In Parler, people posted advice on which streets to take to avoid the police; some posted about carrying guns inside the Capitol.
In an interview with The New York Times hours after the turmoil, Matze said: “I don’t feel responsible for any of this and neither should the platform, considering that we are a neutral square that just complies with the law. “
But on Friday, Apple and Google told Parler that they needed to more consistently remove posts that encouraged violence. On Saturday, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores, limiting their ability to reach new users on virtually every smartphone in the world.
“There is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activities,” Apple said in a statement. Google said, “We require applications to implement robust moderation for shocking content.”
Late Saturday, Amazon told Parler that it would need to find a new location to host its website. Amazon said it sent Parler 98 examples of posts on its website that encourage violence, but many remained active.
“We are unable to provide services to a customer who is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others,” said Amazon.
Amazon was scheduled to withdraw its support for Parler shortly before midnight on Sunday on the West Coast. Amazon said it would preserve Parler’s data so it could transfer it to other servers.
“It’s devastating,” Matze told Fox News on Sunday. “And it’s not just these three companies. All suppliers, from text messaging services to email providers and our lawyers, also dismissed us on the same day. ”He said he was struggling to find another company to host Parler’s website.
But Jeffrey Wernick, Parler’s chief operating officer, said in an interview that the app heard from several companies that wanted to help. He refused to name them.
“I don’t know what Parler will be like in a month,” he said. “But Parler will not be leaving.”