Following the ban on outgoing US President Donald Trump by several social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, the Parler app has received increased interest. The interest, however, might turn out to be short-lived as Amazon, Apple and Google are taking the app down temporarily.
The ban on President Donald Trump has given rise to essential debates on how social media giants are restricting free speech with Trump supporters calling for a boycott of the popular and powerful social media platforms in favour of Parler.
The attention Parler seems to be getting might become its very own undoing as Amazon Web Services has revealed that it will take the app down from its cloud hosting service which will effectively disrupt the app’s services.
Amazon explains that it had seen about 98 examples of posts on Parker that encourage and incite violence. This is against AWS terms and services and the Amazon-affiliated company has given the developers 24 hours before the takedown will be effected.
Apple too made a similar announcement before taking down the Parler app from App Store. “[T]here is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity […] The processes Parler has put in place to moderate or prevent the spread of dangerous and illegal content have proved insufficient.
“Specifically, we have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action in violation of Guideline 1.1 – Safety – Objectionable Content,” Apple’s statement reads in part.
