The conservative-friendly social network Parler took off from the Internet because of ties to the US Capitol siege
The conservative-friendly social network Parler was launched off the Internet Monday because of ties to last week’s US Capitol siege, but not before hackers collected an archive of its messages, including those who allegedly helped organize or document the rel.
Amazon kicked Parler off its web hosting service and the social media app immediately sued for going back online, telling a federal judge that the tech giant had breached its contract and abused its market power.
It was a rollercoaster of activity for Parler, a 2-year magnet for the far right who welcomed a wave of new users and became the # 1 free app on iPhones late last week, after Facebook, Twitter and other mainstream social media. media platforms silenced President Donald Trump’s reports over comments that seemed to fuel Wednesday’s violent uprising.
The wave of Trump followers flocking to the service was short lived. Google ripped Parler’s smartphone app from the app store on Friday for allowing postings that “incite continued violence in the US”
Apple followed suit Saturday after Parler gave a day to deal with complaints that were used to “plan and facilitate even more illegal and dangerous activities.” Later it was joined by Amazon, which informed Parler that it would have to look for a new web hosting service after Sunday.
Parler CEO John Matze condemned the penalties as “a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace.”
Parler’s lawsuit in a federal court in Seattle puts forward the argument that Amazon violated antitrust laws to harm Parler and help Twitter. It also alleges that Amazon violated its contract by not giving a 30 day notice before Parler’s account was terminated. Amazon and Parler did not return requests for comment on the dispute on Monday.
Matze has indicated there is little chance of getting Parler back online shortly after “every vendor, from text messaging services to email providers to our lawyers dumped us all on the same day,” he told Fox New Channel’s “Sunday. Morning Futures. “
In a Monday interview with Fox Business, he said the company “may even have to go as far as buying and building our own data centers and buying our own servers.”
Trump may also launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and freedom of speech experts are anticipating mounting pressure on all social media platforms to curb inflammatory language as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the Capitol. by a mob incited by Trump.
Meanwhile, a group of activist hackers rescued much of what happened on Parler before it went offline and said they planned to put it in a public archive. One of them described the operation on Twitter as “a bunch of people running into a burning building trying to grab as many things as possible.”
The action to download and archive messages, including image files that can be linked to geographic locations, has sparked Parler users some fear, although law enforcement officials would likely have had access to the data anyway, and experts said the archive does not contain any information that was not publicly accessible.
“If this were not done, we would only have snippets and bits of information that were on Parler before the removal,” said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist at McGill University who has studied hacker movements. “It is important because more and more people come together in these forums to organize themselves. You learn about motivations, ideological tactics. “
Coleman said Trump loyalists are likely to find other ways to communicate, such as encrypted messaging apps or old-fashioned email lists, but only if they already knew where to find like-minded groups.
“Where losing places like Twitter or Parler hurts is for recruiting,” she said.