Parler CEO John Matze said his controversial social media platform may never come online again after major service providers accused it of not monitoring violent content and booting it off their networks, a report said.
Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he did not know when or if the fledgling outfit would be back.
‘It could never be. We don’t know yet, ”he said, but later sounded more optimistic.
“It could take days, it could take weeks, but Parler is coming back and when we do, we’ll be stronger,” Parler told the news outlet.
On Tuesday, the CEO condemned attempts to silence his app as “sick” and “bad,” saying that the actions technology companies have taken against Parler were in violation of the spirit of the constitution.
“I think it’s sick,” Matze told Fox News. That’s not what the constitution said. That is not what the constitution stands for, which bans more than 10 million US voters from the Internet and denies people freedom of speech. “
Parler’s users haven’t been able to access the Twitter-like platform since Amazon Web Services launched the site from its servers early Monday.
Apple and Google also pulled Parler from their app stores last week for failing to remove the forcible threats posted by its users.
The two-year-old company – which came under scrutiny in the wake of last week’s Capitol riots – has filed a lawsuit accusing Amazon Web Services of breaching contract and violating antitrust law for its decision not to use the site. longer to host. .
In response, AWS said it had repeatedly warned Parler about its users’ violent messages and that the company had not immediately removed them.
In his interview with Reuters, Matze said that Parler spoke to more than one cloud computing service, but declined to disclose names, citing the likelihood that the companies involved would be harassed.
He said the best outcome would be if the app could return to Amazon.com Inc.
“It’s hard to keep track of how many people tell us we can’t do business with them anymore,” Matze said.
He said the app was also kicked out of the online payment service Stripe and lost its Scylla Enterprise database, as well as access to Twilio and Slack in the workplace.
He also said it was started by American Express, but the company said it had no direct trade relationship with Parler, according to Reuters.
ScyllaDB and Twilio told the outlet that Parler violated their policies regarding violent content. Slack and Stripe did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.