John Matze says he was fired as CEO of Parler, which was among the social media services used to plan January 6. attack on the US Capitol by supporters of then President Donald Trump.
Matze’s announcement followed on Wednesday Amazon’s decision on January 11 to remove Parler from its web hosting service about his reluctance to remove posts calling for the death, rape and torture of politicians, technology executives and others. Google and Apple removed Parler’s app from their online stores.
Matze, in a post on the professional networking site LinkedIn, thanked Parler’s employees. “This is not goodbye. Just bye for now,” he wrote.
His LinkedIn page shows the date of termination of the employment contract in January 2021:
LilnkedIn
Matze linked to a Fox Business report citing a memo from him to employees saying he was fired on January 29 by the Parler board controlled by conservative donor Rebekah Mercer.
“The Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler,” said the memo. “I did not participate in this decision.”
He was quoted as saying in the memo that, “In the past few months, I have encountered constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in freedom of speech and my view of how the Parler website should be managed.”
But in a video on Facebook confirming Matze’s departure, Parler’s co-founder, Dan Bongino, disputes Matze’s account and describes internal fights in the upper echelons of Parler.
Referring to Matze’s assertions that he was a strong advocate of free speech and product stability, Bongino said: “That is not necessary … We were the ones who actually struggled to get Parler back. There were some really important decisions bad things done by people inside. And listen, it’s not us doing dirty laundry. That’s protecting a company that is absolutely committed to freedom of expression.… There were two distinct views for the company. freedom of expression? was ours – the other owners of the company. “
“… The relationship with Parler and the CEO didn’t work out because the CEO’s vision was not ours. … Our vision was crystal clear. We needed to stand up and fight. Some terrible decisions were made in the past that led us to be overturned by Amazon and others. It was … me and the other two owners who were constantly beside this site would either be a free speech platform or it would be nothing. “
“… We could have (stepped back) in a week if we had bent the knee and followed all of Apple’s ridiculous decrees to become a heavy moderation site to the left of Twitter. That’s not what we’re going to do … We were a site freedom of expression and we will continue as such and that’s why it took so long to get back up and running. ”
A federal judge on January 22 rejected Parler’s request to ask Amazon to restore the web service. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said she did not dismiss Parler’s charges against Amazon.
Matze, who co-founded Parler in 2018, said in a lawsuit that Parler’s abrupt closure was motivated at least in part by “a desire to deny President Trump a platform on any major social media service”.
Parler experienced an increase in the number of users after Twitter banned Mr. Trump amid pressure to contain the incendiary speech after the January 6 attack, which resulted in five deaths. Mr. Trump was also banned by Facebook and Instagram.
Trump considered joining Parler under a pseudonym, Matze said.
He told the court that Parler “has no tolerance for inciting violence or breaking the law” and relied on voluntary “jurors” to flag problematic posts and vote on whether they should be removed.
Amazon said the suspension is a “last resort” to prevent Parler from harboring violent plans to interrupt the presidential transition.