Parler went offline after Amazon fulfilled its promise to drop the controversial social media site from its AWS web hosting services. Amazon pulled the plug at 11:59 pm Pacific Time, saying that Parler was not moderating the content properly and that the violence incited on the site was “a very real risk to public safety.”
John Matze, CEO of Parler, announced on his site on Monday that the service was likely to be interrupted for a while, calling Parler his “last stand on the Internet.”
“I wanted to update everyone on Parler. We will probably be out longer than expected, ”Matze wrote early Monday. “This is not due to software limitations – we have our software and everyone’s data ready to use. Rather, the statements made by Amazon, Google and Apple to the press about the discontinuation of our access have resulted in most of our other suppliers also giving up their support for us. “
Matze, a self-proclaimed libertarian, said on Sunday that absolutely no one wants to do business with him and that big tech companies like Apple and Amazon are conspiring to “suppress freedom of speech” by booting Parler from their platforms.
“Every supplier, from SMS services to email providers to our lawyers, has let us all down on the same day,” Marze wailed to Maria Bartiromo on Sunday during a phone interview on Fox news.
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Parler shot to the top of the Apple App Store on Saturday after President Donald Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, leading his neo-fascist followers to look for an alternative social media site. Trump delivered a speech on Jan. 6 that sparked a riot in the Capitol that killed five people, and Twitter said it banned Trump from reducing the likelihood that the president would lead to more violence.
But Parler gained fresh pressure in the wake of the Capitol coup attempt to address the extremist calls for violence, something that gave Apple the service 24 hours before it was withdrawn on Sunday.
“Well, like I said, they claim we were somehow responsible for the, you know, what they call the uprising on the sixth, which we never allowed violent … of this stuff on our platforms, ”said Matze.
You know, we have never allowed this kind of thing on our platform. And we don’t even have a way to coordinate an event on our platform, so they want to make us accountable in some way. “
To be clear, Apple never blamed Parler for the violence that occurred on January 6. The company, like dozens of others, was shocked by the fact that allowing pro-fascist speeches on its platforms could literally inspire a coup d’état and duly elected leaders of the US government, such as President-elect Joe Biden.
Bartiromo became weirdly connected to Trump’s attempt to legally destroy Section 230, something Matze had previously opposed. But Matze now says he thinks section 230 should be abolished, a strange position for someone tasked with moderating a website where he could potentially be held criminally responsible without section 230.
Matze also addressed Amazon’s threats to launch Parler on Sunday, complaining that he didn’t have enough time to find alternative hosting.
“Amazon is the largest cloud storage provider in the world and we use them to host our servers, you know, hundreds, hundreds of servers. And they gave us … basically they said you have 24 hours to get all your data and find new servers, ”Matze told Bartiromo.
So, you know, where do you find 300 to 500 servers in a 24-hour window, and how can you send everyone’s data to them in a 24-hour period? It’s an impossible feat. You know, we will do everything we can to get back online as soon as possible. But, you know, this is … there are just a few things that are practically impossible. “
What kind of content will people miss with Parler offline now? A video that was popular before the site went offline was made by a QAnon supporter who pulled together old Trump sound bites to make all of the subtext an explicit neo-fascist text.
“January 20 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again,” the video shows Trump says, featuring smashing images of things like “the hour has come.”
Strangely enough, that’s really what Trump said, but it was from his infamous first inauguration on January 20, 2017. The video ended with an image of the United States dated January 20, 2021 and the QAnon tagline WWG1WGA, which stands for Where We Go One, We Go All.
There was also content on Parler such as this post from Milo Yiannopoulos, a far-right troll who got started from Twitter in 2016 for harassment.
Parler is owned in part by Fox News personality Dan Bongino, a fact never mentioned during Matze’s interview with Bartiromo on Sunday. Parler has also taken money from Rebekah Mercer, a far-right financier of pro-Trump radicalism. Mercer is also the daughter of Robert Mercer, a co-founder of Cambridge Analytica.
While Matze’s company is clearly fighting for its life, Parler is likely struggling with poor management as well. You see, Matze is not the brightest bulb, as they say. When Matze described how he felt on Sunday, he summed it up nicely.
“Not only is it scary, it is even extremely scary,” said Matze.
Correction: This article originally had a typo in QAnon’s slogan. The real catchphrase is “Where We Go One, We Go All”, not “Where We Go One, We Do All”, a much nicer catchphrase if we’re honest. Gizmodo regrets the error.