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Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Parler, the alternative social media app preferred by conservatives, may now find itself homeless on the internet, after Amazon, Apple and Google banned the app from their platforms within about 24 hours.
Amazon will remove Parler from its cloud hosting service, AWS, on Sunday evening, which will effectively expel it from the public Internet after mounting pressure from the public and Amazon employees.
The decision, which will go into effect on Sunday at 11:59 PM PDT, will shut down the Parler website and app until it can find a new hosting provider.
Parler is an alternative social network popular with conservatives and has been widely used by supporters of President Donald Trump, including some who took part in the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday.
In a letter sent to Parler’s chief policy officer, Amy Bykoff, on Saturday, of which CNN obtained a copy, Amazon’s cloud hosting service said in recent weeks it had reported 98 examples of “posts that clearly encourage and incite violence.” The letter also included several examples from these publications.
AWS wrote in the message: “We have seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violate our terms. It is clear that Parler does not have an effective process for compliance with AWS Terms of Service. AWS provides technology and services to clients across the political spectrum, and we continue to respect Parler’s right. In determining which content it will allow on its site itself. However, we cannot provide services to a customer who is unable to effectively identify and remove content that promotes or incites violence against others. Given that Parler cannot comply with our Terms of Service and pose a very real risk. For public safety, we are planning to suspend Parler’s account. “
The decision threatens to cut Parler off from its entire audience, as new users will not be able to find Parler on the two largest app stores on the Internet, and those who have previously downloaded the app will not be able to use it because they will not be able to connect to Parler servers on AWS.
John Matzi, chief executive of Parler, warned that canceling the platform could result in an outage. In a post on his platform, Matzi said, after Amazon stopped the company from its web hosting service, Parler’s website could go offline for up to a week while “we rebuild from scratch.”
Matzi added, “We will do our best to move to a new provider for the time being as we have many competitors for our business.”
Matzi accused Amazon of trying to “completely remove freedom of expression from the Internet.” Amazon’s decision came shortly after Apple and Google removed “Parler” from their app store.
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