Parler, a social media app popular with President Donald Trump’s conservatives and supporters, went offline after Amazon withdrew its support in the wake of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last week.
The application depended on the cloud computing power provided by Amazon Web Services.
AWS told Parler on Saturday that it will stop providing cloud services to the company starting Sunday at 11:59 pm PT, according to an email obtained by CNBC. An Amazon spokesman confirmed the letter’s authenticity to CNBC, but declined to comment further.
John Matze, the founder and CEO, said in a statement on Monday that the Parler app will be inactive “more than expected” because other cloud hosting companies do not want to work with Parler in the light of press releases issued by Amazon , Google and Apple.
“We will probably be out more than expected,” wrote Matze. “This is not due to software restrictions – we have our software and everyone’s data ready for use. Instead, statements from Amazon, Google and Apple to the press about suspending our access have meant that many of our other vendors to withdraw their support for us as well. “
He added: “Most people with enough servers to host us have closed their doors for us. We will update everyone and update the press when we are online again.”
AWS told Parler in the email that it flagged 98 examples for Parler of posts that “clearly encourage and incite violence”. Among the posts he reported to Parler, which were seen by CNBC, users of the platform made violent threats directed at “liberal leaders, liberal activists #blm leaders and supporters”, in addition to other groups.
Screenshots of the Parler app viewed by CNBC show users posting references to firing squads, as well as calls to bring weapons into presidential tenure later this month.
Matze condemned the movements of the tech giants in a series of posts on Parler over the weekend, claiming that his platform had removed its violent content and adding that community guidelines do not allow Parler to be consciously used for criminal activities.
“We are the worlds [sic] last hope for freedom of speech and free information. What they are doing is unprecedented, unfounded and absolutely disgusting, “wrote Matze on Saturday night.” They want to maintain their monopoly on speech. “
In response to this, an AWS spokesman told CNBC that AWS provides services to customers across the political spectrum and confirmed that the suspension was due to content that the company clearly says encourages violence.
Apple removed Parler from the iPhone App Store on Saturday. The company said Parler’s riot-related posts on the United States Capitol last week included calls for violence, which violates Apple’s rules against questionable content.
“We have always supported a variety of views represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activities,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “Parler has not taken adequate measures to deal with the proliferation of these threats to people’s security. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these problems.”
Google removed Parler from its Android app store, Google Play, on Friday.
“In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps that display user-generated content have moderation and enforcement policies that remove blatant content, such as posts that incite violence,” said one port -Google’s voice.
“All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in the past few months. We are aware that ongoing posts in the Parler app seek to incite continuing violence in the U.S. We recognize that there can be a reasonable debate about the content and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all infringing content, but in order to distribute an app through Google Play, we require apps to implement robust moderation for blatant content. In light of this continuing and urgent threat to public safety, we are suspending app listings on the Play Store until it resolves those issues. “
The news follows Twitter’s permanent suspension of Trump’s Twitter account, which had 88 million followers, about what it said was the president’s incitement to violence linked to the attack on the Capitol, which caused five deaths. Trump later condemned the violence. Trump was also banned from Facebook and Instagram.
Gab, a social network similar to Parler, known for its far-right user base and a frequent host of hate speech, appears to be benefiting from the consequences. On Monday, Gab CEO Andrew Torba announced that the platform has gained 600,000 new users.
– Additional reporting by Annie Palmer and Natasha Turak from CNBC.