The social media platform Parler, which went out after being hacked by major service providers who accused the app of not policing violent content, may never go online again, said its CEO John Matze.
WASHINGTON POST, PROVIDED BY CEO AMAZON JEFF BEZOS, ENDOSSA PARLER CLOSURE
As a procession of business sellers broke ties with the site two years after the US Capitol invasion last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if he will return.
“It may never be,” he said. “We do not know yet.”
This illustration shows the logo of Parler’s social media app displayed on a smartphone with its website in the background in Arlington, Virginia, on July 2, 2020. (Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP via Getty Images)
The application reported in a lawsuit that has more than 12 million users.
Matze said Parler was talking to more than one cloud computing service, but declined to reveal names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could return to Amazon.
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Parler filed a lawsuit against the company on Monday, which Amazon.com Inc said had no merit. Matze said the company is considering suing other suppliers, but declined to say more.
Amazon cut Parler, a platform favored by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, from its servers this weekend for failing to moderate violent content effectively. Alphabet Inc’s Apple Inc and Google also kicked Parler out of their app stores.
“It is difficult to know how many people are telling us that we can no longer do business with them,” said Matze.
Amazon presented exhibitions on Tuesday that showed it alerted Parler at the end of last year about vile and threatening language on its website before cutting off the platform after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Matze said Parler was also kicked out of Stripe and American Express online payments service and lost his Scylla Enterprise database. Parler was unable to send SMS messages after being banned by Twilio and was unable to use Slack to contact his “jury” of paid and volunteer users who make Parler’s content moderation decisions after being rejected by the workplace messaging app.
Suppliers did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
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Matze said that some Parler employees had requested a leave of absence for a few weeks from work and also said that he and other employees had received threats and people appearing at their homes.
He said there were no changes for investors in Parler, which gets financing from hedge fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer.
Elizabeth Culliford reporting; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Kenneth Li and Lisa Shumaker