President Trump has been kicked off most mainstream social media platforms following the siege of the US Capitol by his supporters. But it remains to be seen how quickly and where – and wherever – on the internet he can reach his followers.
The far-right friendly Parler was the lead candidate, at least until Google and Apple removed it from their app stores and Amazon launched it from its web hosting service just after midnight Pacific time Monday.
Parler was unreachable on the Internet from 4:30 a.m. EST.
Parler’s CEO said it could go offline for a week, although that could be optimistic. And even if it finds a more friendly web hosting service, without a smartphone app, it’s hard to imagine Parler achieving mainstream success.
Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The 2-year-old magnet for the far-right claims more than 12 million users, although Sensor Tower, a mobile app analytics company, estimates the number at 10 million worldwide, with 8 million in the U.S. That’s a fraction of the 89 million followers that Mr. Trump had on Twitter.
Still, Parler may be attractive to Mr. Trump because his sons Eric and Don Jr. are already active there.
Parler faced headwinds on Friday when Google ripped off its smartphone app from its app store for allowing postings that “incite ongoing violence in the US.” Apple followed suit Saturday night after Parler gave 24 hours to deal with complaints that it was being used to “plan and facilitate even more illegal and dangerous activities.” According to Apple, public safety issues must be resolved before it is remedied.
Amazon struck another blow on Saturday, letting Parler know it should start looking for a new web hosting service at midnight on Sunday. It reminded Parler in a letter first reported by Buzzfeed that it had briefed 98 examples of messages in recent weeks “clearly inciting violence” and said the platform “poses a very real risk to the public safety”.
Parler CEO John Matze condemned the punishments as “a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace.” We were too successful too soon, ”he said in a Saturday night post, adding that Parler might not be available for up to a week“ while we rebuild from scratch. ”
“Every vendor, from text messaging services to email providers, to our attorneys, dumped us all on the same day,” Matze said on Fox New Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” Sunday. He said that while the company is trying to get back online as soon as possible, it “has a lot of problems because every vendor we talk to says they won’t work with us because if Apple doesn’t approve and Google doesn’t approve, they won’t. they don’t. “
The loss of access to Google’s and Apple’s app stores – whose operating systems power hundreds of millions of smartphones – severely limited Parler’s reach, although it was still accessible through the web browser. Losing Amazon Web Services forces Parler to look for another web host in addition to the re-engineering.
Meanwhile, another site widely used by the far right, Gab.com, apparently took advantage of Parler’s troubles. Gab tweeted early Monday that it “had gotten more users in the last two days than in the first two years we were there”.
While Twitter and Facebook initially expressed their need to be neutral on speech, they are gradually yielding to public pressure, drawing the line, especially when the so-called Plandemic video surfaced early in the coronavirus pandemic urging people not to wear masks, noted ethan Zuckerman from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Zuckerman expects Trump’s de-platforming could cause significant online shifts. Among them, a possible accelerated fragmentation of the social media world along ideological lines.
“Trump will attract a lot of audiences everywhere he goes,” he said. That could mean more platforms with a smaller, more ideologically isolated audience.
Mr. Trump can 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 incendiary language as Americans take stock of the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol. Wednesday by a mob incited by Trump.