Big Tech giant Amazon has kicked free speech app Parler off its web hosting services, on the same day that Silicon Valley giant Apple banned Parler from the App Store.
Amazon’s suspension of Parler’s account means that once the ban kicks in on Sunday, Parler will have to scramble to find a new host and will be taken offline.
An Amazon Web Services (AWS) Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the “calls for violence” on the app violated its terms of service.
“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” the email reads. “[W]e cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others. Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST.”
Amazon’s sudden termination of Parler’s service follows Apple and Google booting Parler from their app stores after accusing Parler of failing to remove posts that “incite violence” or contain “threats of violence and illegal activity.”
Of course, Twitter, an app that allowed “Hang Mike Pence” to trend earlier today, is still on both app stores, highlighting the double standard with which these rules are applied.
Big Tech’s actions against Parler highlight the mass power these companies hold over their smaller competitors. Over the last two days, three of the world’s most powerful tech companies have prevented smartphone users from downloading the app to their phones and could temporarily take the app off the internet.
Parler CEO John Matze warned that Amazon’s actions could take Parler offline for “up to a week” and accused Amazon, Apple, and Google of engaging in a “coordinated attack” against Parler:
“Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech off the internet. There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch. We prepared for events like this by never relying on amazons proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products.
We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business, however Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies.
This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place. We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.”
“Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said on Fox News.
Matze said that the bans could put the company out of business, calling it “an assault on everybody.”
“They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet,” Matze said. “They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company. And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”
Before these Big Tech companies attempted to crush Parler, there was a mass censorship campaign across social media with thousands of users, including the President of the United States, suddenly purged.
After these users were forced off the mainline social media platforms, they sought out alternatives such as Parler which led to it having an influx of new users since Wednesday. But despite huge user demand for this alternative, the Silicon Valley giants have collectively kneecapped Parler.
This mass censorship has been encouraged by the mainstream media and even some politicians who pressured these Big Tech companies into taking action against Parler.
