Parler – the alt-right answer to Twitter – has been quietly removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, adding yet another social media hurdle for Trump, his supporters, and anyone else wishing to fan the flames of chaos in the US at the moment. Amazon will also cut it off from its Amazon Web Services cloud platform, meaning the social network will soon stop working entirely unless it’s quickly rebuilt on a different platform.
Parler was founded back in 2018. It quickly became a haven for the types of right-wing grifters who had already been banned from the likes of Twitter and/or Facebook, such as Milo Yiannopolous, Laura Loomer and Gavin McInnes, plus a few washed-up celebs to boot.
With US President Donald Trump being banned from Twitter (and pretty much every other social media platform) in the wake of the Capitol Hill riots, his supporters looked to Parler as a last-resort to stay relevant on social media.
That’s when Apple stepped in on Sunday, issuing the self-described “free speech social network” a 24-hour suspension until it starts actually moderating posts after a long list of issues over the past few years, including but not limited to inciting violence. In this case, Apple said Parler had been used to coordinate the storming of the Capitol building earlier this week.
BREAKING: Apple suspends Parler from the App Store indefinitely pic.twitter.com/S4oorND71O
— rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) January 10, 2021
If Parler doesn’t act properly before that 24 hours is up, it’ll be permanently banned from the App Store. With such a short timeframe and such a huge cesspit to be cleaned up, the chances of it coming back are slim.
Meanwhile, searching for Parler in the Google Play Store on Android simply returns the result: “Parler by Parler is not available on Google Play.”
That’s because Google issued Parler a similar ultimatum, referring to its current usage by rabid Trump supporters as an “ongoing and urgent public safety threat.”
Meanwhile, over on Parler they’re talking about blowing up AWS data centers pic.twitter.com/rp96No7yWu
— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) January 10, 2021
These two actions were already a pretty solid blow to the social media platform, but it was technically still possible – if much less convenient – to use Parler in the web browser or, on Android devices or jail-broken iPhones, to side-load the app.
But now even that won’t be an option for long, with internet giant Amazon sending a letter to Parler stating that it’ll soon cut the platform off from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which powers a massive chunk of all websites.
“there is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch”
“we prepared for events like this”
uhh if you’re gonna be offline for a week you most certainly did not prepare for events like this! pic.twitter.com/I3mXdVkbZ5
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) January 10, 2021
Parler’s CEO John Matze made a post on his own app showing just how pissed off he is.
“We will not cave to pressure from anti-competitive actors! We will and always have enforced our rules against violence and illegal activity,” he wrote.
“But we WON’T cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech!”
He said it may take up to a week to find a new platform other an AWS, but even that could be wishful thinking with the way things are going.
So in addition to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and countless other platforms, Trump supporters and QAnon conspiracy theorists yet again have one less platform to incite violence and spread hate speech on.
Cool. Now do the same for Gab.