Yesterday, Parler officially went offline a minute before midnight when Amazon pulled the plug on their web hosting. Amazon’s cloud computing service Amazon Web Services had been powering the network that billed as a pro-free speech alternative to other social networks – prior to being silenced.
This came after both Google and Apple removed Parler’s app from their respective app stores for download, though users who had the Parler app downloaded on their phones prior to the removal could still access it, until now. Amazon sent an email to Parler announcing their decision to pull the plug on Saturday, and offered 98 examples of posts that “clearly encourage and incite violence” – something that could be easily done for any social media platform on earth.
Parler now has to find a new cloud hosting company willing to work with the site. Parler founder and CEO John Matze said that teh company will likely be down longer than expected. “This is not due to software restrictions — we have our software and everyone’s data ready to go. Rather it’s that Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s statements to the press about dropping our access has caused most of our other vendors to drop their support for us as well.”
Matze initially said that it would take a week to get back online, though those comments could be interpreted as casting some doubt on that timeline.
On Fox and Friends this morning, Dan Bongino, who is an investor in Parler, was optimistic on the “one week” timeline, saying “Parler will be back, just so the audience understands. I will go bankrupt and destitute before I let this happen. My eyes are wide open. Parler will be back by the end of the week.”
“This is an existential fight” Dan said. “Don’t be surprised if they come for Fox next” Brian Kilmeade replied.
“They’re already coming for Fox!” Dan pointed out. “…How are we going to talk, by carrier pigeon?”
