Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
As the evident deplatforming of United States’ President Donald Trump continues, Apple Inc and Amazon have suspended Parler from their respective App Store and web hosting service.
According to the services, the social networking platform, popular with many right-leaning social media users in the US, has not taken adequate measures to prevent the spread of posts inciting violence.
The action by Apple and Amazon follows a similar move by Google on Friday.
Parler is used by many supporters of President Trump, who was permanently suspended from Twitter on Friday.
“We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues,” Apple said in a statement Saturday.
Apple had given Parler 24 hours to submit a detailed moderation plan, pointing to participants’ using the service to coordinate Wednesday’s attack of the US Capitol.
On its part, Amazon suspended Parler from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit, for violating AWS’s terms of services by failing to effectively deal with a steady increase in violent content, according to an email by an AWS Trust and Safety team to Parler.
The correspondence noted that, “Due to the very real risk to public safety that Parler poses, AWS plans to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, at 11:59 p.m. PST.”
Responding, the Chief Executive of Parler, Mr John Matze lashed out at Amazon, Google and Apple, saying it was a coordinated effort knowing Parler’s options would be limited and it would inflict the most damage right as Trump was banned from other social media platforms.
“There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch,” he said in a post on Parler.
“This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place… You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.”
In addition to Parler, right-leaning social media users in the United States have flocked to messaging app Telegram and Gab, citing the more aggressive policing of political comments on mainstream platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
