Parler goes dark after move by Amazon

Parler went offline Sunday night after Amazon Web Services (AWS) suspended the social media platform, citing the far-right haven’s lack of content moderation.

AWS said in a statement that Parler, which has frequently billed itself as a free-speech alternative for people suspended from Twitter, had violated its terms of service. The platform has come under fire in recent days over its alleged role in coordinating the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol last week, with Apple and Google both removing its app from their stores.

Parler CEO John Matze said in a statement that the network could be offline for up to a week, according to The Washington Post, but was even less sanguine on Fox News early Sunday.

“It would put anybody out of business. I mean, this — they could destroy anybody. If they did this to any app, any company, it would completely destroy them,” Matze told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“And we’re going to try our best to get back online as quickly as possible,” he added. “But we’re having a lot of trouble, 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.”

The platform’s connection to last week’s violence has come under increasing scrutiny due to posts like those of pro-Trump attorney and conspiracy theorist Lin Wood, who reportedly used it to call for Vice President Pence’s execution.

The posts in question were later removed from the largely unmoderated site. Parler policies list “an explicit or implicit encouragement to use violence” as one of the only scenarios in which it will remove posts.

Twitter late last week permanently suspended President Trump, citing concerns the president would use his 88 million-follower account to incite further incidents similar to last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook has suspended the president’s account at least through President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.