Conservative-friendly social network Parler was launched on the Internet due to links to the US Chapter siege
The Conservative-friendly social network Parler was launched on the Internet Monday due to links to last week’s US Chapter siege, but not before hackers archived its posts, including anyone who could help organize or documentation of the revolt.
Amazon dropped Parler from its web hosting service, and the social app immediately sued to return online, telling a federal judge that the tech giant had breached its contract and abused its market power.
It was an activity roller coaster for Parler, a 2-year magnet for the far right, which greeted a wave of new users and became the free app no. 1 on the iPhone late last week, after Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms silenced President Donald Trump’s accounts for comments that seemed to incite Wednesday’s violent insurgency.
The wave of Trump supporters who gathered at work was short-lived. Google removed Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday because it allowed posts aimed at “inciting continued violence in the US”
Apple followed suit on Saturday after giving Parler a day to resolve complaints it used to “plan and facilitate other illegal and dangerous activities.” He was later joined by Amazon, who informed Parler that he would have to look for a new web hosting service after Sunday.
Parler CEO John Matze condemned the sentences as “a coordinated attack by technology giants to kill competition in the market.”
Parler’s lawsuit in a federal court in Seattle argues that Amazon violated antitrust laws to harm Parler and help Twitter. He also claims that Amazon violated his contract by not notifying him 30 days before terminating his Parler account. Amazon and Parler did not return requests for comment on the dispute Monday.
Matze noted that there is little chance of bringing Parler back online immediately after “every provider, from text messaging to email providers to our lawyers, abandoned us on the same day.” he told Fox New Channel “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 data centers and buying its own servers.”
Trump can also launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to reduce incendiary rhetoric as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the US Capitol by a Trump-instigated mafia. .
Meanwhile, a group of activist hackers saved much of what happened to Parler before it went offline and said they intended to put it in a public archive. One described the operation on Twitter as “a bunch of people running into a burning building trying to grab as many things as possible.”
The download and archiving of posts, including image files that may be linked to geographic locations, instilled some fear in Parler users, although law enforcement could have access to the data anyway, and experts said the archive did not include information that was not accessible to the public.
“If we didn’t do that, we would only have snippets and snippets of information that were on Parler before the removal,” said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist at McGill University who studied the hacker’s movements. “It’s important because there are more and more forums where people come together to get organized. You learn about motivations, ideological tactics. “
Coleman said Trump’s loyalists are likely to find other ways to communicate, such as encrypted messaging apps or old-fashioned email lists, but only if they already know where to find like-minded groups.
“Where it hurts to lose places like Twitter or Parler is for recruiting,” she said.