Parler has been having a rough day. First Apple kicked the app off the iOS app store, and now Amazon is ending their web services agreement citing breech of terms of service.
Amazon Web Services is suspending Parler’s access to its hosting services at the end of the weekend, potentially driving the service offline unless it can find a new provider.
“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 wrote to Parler in an email obtained and first reported by BuzzFeed.
The email from AWS to Parler cites several examples of violent and threatening posts made in recent days, including threats to “systematically assassinate liberal leaders, liberal activists, BLM leaders and supporters,” and others. “Given the unfortunate events that transpired this past week in Washington, D.C., there is serious risk that this type of content will further incite violence,” the message adds.
Parler launched in 2018 as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter and Facebook. Through 2019 and 2020, it drew a number of conservative, right-wing, and far-right fringe users. Usage has dramatically increased in the past few days in the wake of Wednesday’s events at the US Capitol and President Donald Trump’s subsequent total ban from Twitter and other platforms.
That increased traffic has also brought increased threats of violence to the platform, which technology companies across the board seem to be taking more seriously after this week—and no wonder, as the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol made widespread use of social media to plan, carry out, and brag about their activity.
Parler, however, has not articulated a clear plan for dealing with violent threats on its platform. As Amazon wrote:
“It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service. It also seems that Parler is still trying to determine its position on content moderation. You remove some violent content when contacted by us or others, but not always with urgency. Your CEO recently stated publicly that he doesn’t “feel responsible for any of this, and neither should the platform.” This morning, you shared that you have a plan to more proactively moderate violent content, but plan to do so manually with volunteers. It’s our view that this nascent plan to use volunteers to promptly identify and remove dangerous content will not work in light of the rapidly growing number of violent posts.”
Apple also removed Parler from its iOS App Store earlier today, citing similar concerns.
If you are unfamiliar with Parler, Em took a trip there a while back, and Andrew has written about the app here.
I’ll be curious who might host Parler. Maybe a Russian service?Report
Zensurfrei.com is a US company that specializes in it. They host sites for a number of organizations in Europe whose content would be illegal if hosted in their own country.Report
So not exactly in the wilderness…Report
Thinking about it some more, I was probably wrong. At this point, I would speculate that they were buying storage and compute services. Lots fewer choices in that space, and their software may be cloud platform specific.Report
There’s Azure. Unless Parler has called for Bill Gates’s death recently. That would be awkward.Report
It’s not even a close call who the hero is, right? Free-speech upstart versus corporate titan? I’m thinking John Lithgow and a young Dustin Hoffman type.Report
Sure, and if any violence actually happens, police will have all kinds of evidence.
Assuming that the police are not joining in on it (a large number of cops were storming the castle, and are now on suspension pending an investigation).Report
“Sure, and if any violence actually happens, police will have all kinds of evidence.”
Right. Where your nose begins.Report
Amazon is a private company, so this isn’t really censorship. Unless your position is that once a media corporation reaches a certain size, it becomes a de facto government entity. In that case said media companies should be subject to the democratic process with the body politic electing it’s officers and the profits being used for the benefit of all citizens.Report
I don’t think it’s such an easy question. I’m not shedding any tears for Parler here but there are legitimate concerns about a small number of tech companies put in the roll of gatekeepers.Report
*Role I mean.Report
There are many hosting companies.Report
I spent a chunk of the afternoon doing some superficial reading on microblogging platforms and the underlying code. At this point, my speculation is that Parler was buying cloud infrastructure: compute, storage, network.
Lots fewer cloud platforms available, and greater likelihood that the code is cloud-specific. For example, open-source cloud-based Twitter alternatives — I was surprised at how many have been at least started — seem to be specific to one of AWS or Azure, but not both.Report
Yeah. There aren’t standards, so either you’re very disciplined about not using any vendor-specific features, or changing vendors means reimplementation.Report
I didn’t say it was censorship.Report
“Freedom is the freedom to say ‘Hang Mike Pence’. If that is granted, all else follows.”Report
How about illegal stuff is illegal, and the entire internet doesn’t have to reside on the particular balance between publisher and platform as Twitter?Report
If Parler deleted the illegal stuff, they wouldn’t be losing their AWS contract.Report
RE: illegal stuff is illegal
In practice this is a LOT harder to do than it seems. “Insulting Islam” is illegal in lots of places. Stuff about Nazis is illegal in others.Report
True. My point was that anything which is illegal is already illegal, so there’s no need to add an additional layer of complexity to the argument.
A lot of racers hang out in my local grocery store’s parking lot. Street racing is illegal. The grocery store isn’t setting up quarter-mile markers; they also haven’t fenced it off and made it approved shoppers only. I’m sure they’d cooperate if the police investigated the lot, and would have no complaints if the FBI chose to infiltrate the racers. If they wanted to change business models, they could become a grocery / parking lot security company.Report
Ah yes, “free speech” “upstart” funded by money from known fascist Rebbekah Mercer.Report
“Fascist”, huh? I hope you looked up that word in the past few days, because you couldn’t use it correctly a week ago. What known fascist things has Rebbekah Mercer done?Report
Wow, that many? She truly is a fascist. My hat is off to you, Saul, for proving it so thoroughly, and your credibility has grown correspondingly.Report
Or, Parler could stay on AWS by agreeing to remove violent content, but their whole business plan is to be the gangsta version of Twitter.Report
Related: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/10/business/stripe-trump-campaign-suspended-payments/index.htmlReport
Citigroup has halted all political donations for the next 3 months.
Shut the flow of money down.Report
Neutral vs. Conservative: The Eternal Struggle is relevant here.Report
Hardly. Parler got in trouble because it refused to police its content. It refused to exercise even a modicum of restraint in a civil society – all the while claiming to be a home for people whose political leanings allegedly have the market on “law and order” cornered.Report
Parler sues Amazon, not over breach of contract, but over anti-trust?
Ohhhhkay then.Report
Not going so well for Parler so far:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/956486352/judge-refuses-to-reinstate-parler-after-amazon-shut-it-downReport