Parler CEO says social media app may not return

[JORMBO]

Exclusive: Parler CEO says social media app, favored by Trump supporters, may not return

Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, said its CEO John Matze.

www.reuters.com

As a procession of business vendors severed ties with the two-year-old site following the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if it will return.

“It could be never,” he said. “We don’t know yet.”

The app said in a legal filing it has over 12 million users.

Matze said that Parler was talking to more than one cloud computing service but refused to disclose names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could get back on Amazon.

Matze said Parler had also been booted from online payments service Stripe and from American Express and had lost its Scylla Enterprise database. Parler could not send SMS messages after being banned by Twilio and could not use Slack to contact its “jury” of paid and volunteer users who make Parler content moderation decisions after being ditched by the workplace messaging app.

 

[spandexmonkey]

They really should've just created their own web hosting services, electronic payment services, credit services, database services, SMS service, development tools, development communication tools, etc. It's not that hard.

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

 

[M1chl]

 

[JayK47]

Messed up. And yet that cancer known as Twitter is doing just fine.

 

[ManofOne]

Didn't they find a new host.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

After the data breach, who would willingly go on the platform? I will delete my account if it goes back online and never visit again.

 

[rorepmE]

After the data breach, who would willingly go on the platform? I will delete my account if it goes back online and never visit again.

I think it was just scraping publicly viewable data.

Which means they got nothing from me because I had 0 content.

 

[Amiga]

this was always how the real world works. everything else was imaginary. there is a hierarchy, don't get carried away with how far you can challenge it.

They really should've just created their own web hosting services, electronic payment services, credit services, database services, SMS service, development tools, development communication tools, etc. It's not that hard.

yes, complaints don't matter.

 

[M1chl]

Posting this gold in here also:

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I think it was just scraping publicly viewable data.

Which means they got nothing from me because I had 0 content.

Same, I just followed some users but never posted. Did the photo IDs of verified users get leaked? Because that seems real bad.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I would hope they are at least negotiating with amazon what they'd have to change to get back online.

They barely addressed the actual complaints other than to essentially lie and claim they already had violence against their rules. They only had illegal statements against their rules, which doesn't cover everything Amazon/Google/Apple are claiming are why they got the boot.

Apple has publicly stated their willingness already to re-instate:

Tim Cook says Parler can return after complying with App Store terms of service | AppleInsider

Parler can return to the App Store according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, but they must comply with Terms of Service first.

appleinsider.com

These companies are like dominoes; it's all for PR anyways.. once one agrees to take them back, the others will probably follow suit.

 

[rorepmE]

Same, I just followed some users but never posted. Did the photo IDs of verified users get leaked? Because that seems real bad.

Well I'm a racial minority so if anyone links up with my parler and let's face it it's mostly lefty white dudes. I'll just accuse them of racism.

I remember a black friend of mine had a ultra-lefty friend and didn't like my MAGA hat. Got into an argument and wouldn't let it go so I called him a racist. He claimed he wasn't but then I clued him into the fact that ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST. Silence after that.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Well I'm a racial minority so if anyone links up with my parler and let's face it it's mostly lefty white dudes. I'll just accuse them of racism.

I remember a black friend of mine had a ultra-lefty friend and didn't like my MAGA hat. Got into an argument and wouldn't let it go so I called him a racist. He claimed he wasn't but then I clued him into the fact that ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST. Silence after that.

Drop some ASHLEIGHTHELION on his ass.

 

[QuantumZebra]

"Tough guy cosplay" convention

Holy shit, lol

 

[rorepmE]

Drop some ASHLEIGHTHELION on his ass.

He's legit bald, so occasionally I see him around and I always say loudly "what's up Skinhead!".

 

[Amiga]

Apple has publicly stated their willingness already to re-instate:

"they must comply"

 

[QuantumZebra]

I would hope they are at least negotiating with amazon what they'd have to change to get back online.

They barely addressed the actual complaints other than to essentially lie and claim they already had violence against their rules. They only had illegal statements against their rules, which doesn't cover everything Amazon/Google/Apple are claiming are why they got the boot.

Apple has publicly stated their willingness already to re-instate:

Tim Cook says Parler can return after complying with App Store terms of service | AppleInsider

Parler can return to the App Store according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, but they must comply with Terms of Service first.

appleinsider.com

These companies are like dominoes; it's all for PR anyways.. once one agrees to take them back, the others will probably follow suit.

Apple, for all the hate they get, is pretty hard-on for security/privacy/freedom.

Case in point: refusing to break encryption for the FBI for those domestic terrorists in CA (which I agree with them on solely on privacy concerns).

 

[ManaByte]

Same, I just followed some users but never posted. Did the photo IDs of verified users get leaked? Because that seems real bad.

If it was just publicly scrapable data, then no.

 

[Agent_Nobody]

Everyone is trying to switch to Gab anyways. Apparently they are so dumb they can’t figure out how to use a browser.

 

[ManofOne]

"they must comply"

Which is the worst thing to say to a libertarian platform.

 

[Amiga]

Twitter about to get banned..

 

[Ricky_Bee]

Twitter about to get banned..

Who by?

No one can ban Twitter. Twitter can ban everyone.

 

[Nobody_Important]

 

[Kreen101]

"they must comply"

If Parler agrees to become Twitter, they'll be allowed to exist. Of course, as it would then be nothing but a Twitter clone with less members and less everything, it would die anyway. So they can choose between death or death.

 

[pramod]

Who by?

No one can ban Twitter. Twitter can ban everyone.

AWS can ban them from their servers.

 

[IntentionalPun]

"they must comply"

Must comply with the terms of service of the platform.

What exactly is the problem?

 

[Amiga]

Must comply with the terms of service of the platform.

What exactly is the problem?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Twitter about to get banned..

 

[mid83]

Must comply with the terms of service of the platform.

What exactly is the problem?

As I've mentioned before, Twitter is full of awful content, including direct threats to people, yet Twitter still exists.

 

[Durask]

Also the Mercers are probably not very happy about the security fiasco and resulting embarrassment.

 

[Singular7]

As I've mentioned before, Twitter is full of awful content, including direct threats to people, yet Twitter still exists.

Twitter is "left" though....

Your metric seems to be beyond that and therefore wrong.

 

[The Pleasure]

I think Parler got a TKO from Tokyo.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Pirate Bay Founder Thinks Parler’s Inability to Stay Online Is ‘Embarrassing’​

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi calls Parler’s face plant in the wake of its deplatforming 'embarrassing,' driven by 'egotism.'

Pirate Bay Founder Thinks Parler’s Inability to Stay Online Is ‘Embarrassing’

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi calls Parler’s face plant in the wake of its deplatforming 'embarrassing,' driven by 'egotism.'

www.vice.com

 

[A Regular Guy]

I've already signed into Minds.com, hopefully EviLore Creates a Minds account for NeoGAF

 

[AfricanKing]

This seems like a self inflected wound. Amazon reached out to Parler in November 2020 and told them they need to moderate their content and sent them clear examples of people on their platform advocating for rape and murder.

AWS kept on sending them content from their users that violated the TOS and Parler did fuckall.

At that point it’s 100% on Parler that they where booted off the platform. AWS actually tried to work with them but where pushed back.

As I've mentioned before, Twitter is full of awful content, including direct threats to people, yet Twitter still exists.

Twitter does moderate its content - if their hosting service asked them to show their moderation policy and provide evidence of its enforcement they could probably show that.

C. Parler Repeatedly Violates the Agreement.
In mid-November 2020, AWS received reports that Parler was hosting content threatening violence, in breach of the agreement. Executive 2 Decl. ¶ 4. On November 17, 2020, seeking to better understand Parler’s approach to content moderation, AWS provided Parler two representative examples, asked whether “this type of content ... violate [Parler’s] policies,” and asked for “more detailed information on [Parler’s] policies and processes for handling and mitigating” such content. Id. & Ex. D. Two days later, Parler responded that it had referred one of the examples to its “regular contact for investigation.” Id. Ex. D.
Over the next seven weeks, AWS reported more than 100 additional representative pieces

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Twitter moderates content. Absolutely.
By being the only platform in the current discussion to amplify incitement of violence:

(Note the number of tweets)
(Note also the date this occurred)
Those who appreciate how such platforms engineer their 'trending' topics will understand this outcome is far from accidental.

Facebook, according to journalists like Glenn Greenwald, was the platform that those suspected of co-ordinating January's attack were active users of.
Facebook is also the only platform to livestream a massacre (Christchurch shootings, 2019) (Remember, if an individual shares that footage then they will be imprisoned. Facebook is still enjoying all it's protection and freedoms though)
Google-owned Youtube allows for rhetoric like this

[Source: "Everything Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Does In a Day" thread]
(note the number of upvotes, and also down-votes)

As I've preached for a long time, the "Not a platform for hate" mantra these places roll out whenever they feel like someone has expressed the wrong opinions are not only demonstrably false, the opposite is demonstrably true.

I have no fondness for social media, I've expressed why elsewhere. These hypocrisies reaffirm my position.

 

[AfricanKing]

And this is where nuance is lost when comparing other Social Media Platforms - The issue with Parler is they did not act on Content that was reported to them that violated the TOS.

They even mentioned the HangMikePence hashtag in their lawsuit and Amazon Addressed it -

Parler’s Complaint is replete with insinuations that AWS had equal grounds to suspend Twitter’s account and thus discriminated against Parler. For example, Parler cites the hashtag “#hangmikepence,” which briefly trended on Twitter. Mot. ¶ 4. But AWS does not host Twitter’s feed, so of course it could not have suspended access to Twitter’s content. Executive 1 Decl. ¶¶ 5, 7. Twitter has since independently blocked that hashtag. Doran Decl. Ex. L.

 

[BadBurger]

I would hope they are at least negotiating with amazon what they'd have to change to get back online.

They barely addressed the actual complaints other than to essentially lie and claim they already had violence against their rules. They only had illegal statements against their rules, which doesn't cover everything Amazon/Google/Apple are claiming are why they got the boot.

I think I understand what you meant (looks like autocorrect may have burned you).

Parler signed up with Amazon (AWS) on June 12th, 2018. At that time they signed the AWS Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), agreeing not to use AWS to host certain content, including content that "violate(s) the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others". It is made clear in the AUP that if such content is found being hosted on AWS Amazon may suspend that account immediately. This means Parler was (or at least should have been) aware of these rules for over two years.

In mid-November 2020 Amazon began receiving reports of the violating content on Parler. Amazon asked them to comply by removing said content and Parler refused.

Before anyone accuses Amazon of being the arbiter of free speech by arbitrarily deciding what is "harmful to others", Here is Amazon's legal response. A small example of content that violated their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) begin being listed on page #4. It is some heinous stuff, and as you can see some is related to these far-right extremist activities such as what occurred on January 6th. Amazon claims they made Parler aware of the complete list of 100 items.

So this is the kind of content Parler wanted to host, did so for years, and knowingly did so for months even though they were aware that they were in violation of their contract with Amazon. Don't let anyone spin yarns to you that this was some kind of snap judgement by Amazon. It has been well known for months the kind of content Parler peddled.

 

[asustitan]

The service that innovates fastest will prevail, if Gab can optimize the site enough to handle the traffic they will become huge.

Something tells me though I think the government will shut them down if they are still based in the U.S,

Someone will eventually come out of this as the winner, the appetite for a social media service based on the laws of a country and not political think is too great. There is a gap in the market.

 

[azz0r]

Gotta say I was happy seeing Parler struggle, I did not expect this complete wipe out coming though.

Honestly the speed and the efficiency of the machine turning on them has been quite scary.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

14.4 thousand incitements to violence, demonstrably amplified by the platform that hosts them.

Live streaming of a massacre.

Vs

"Nuance"

This is up there with the "guilty-until-proven-innocent" argument.

 

[FunkMiller]

"Tough guy cosplay" convention

Holy shit, lol

Tough Guy Cosplay is the absolutely the best description I’ve ever heard for these small dick, big gun idiots who haven’t had an original thought in their entire lives

 

[AfricanKing]

14.4 thousand incitements to violence, demonstrably amplified by the platform that hosts them.

Live streaming of a massacre.

Vs

"Nuance"

This is up there with the "guilty-until-proven-innocent" argument.

Again you’re removing context - a fair comparison would be if Facebook never removed the video of the massacre - They did.

Within 24 Hours all footage was scrubbed and they implemented a new Policy to stop that happening again

Facebook Restricts Live-Streaming in Wake of Christchurch

Social media companies face pressure after the massacre was live-streamed

time.com

Compare that to Parler who where alerted about their content and made no changes.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Still desperately dodging the demonstrable amplification of 14k+ incitements to violence (targeted violence, no less) on a platform that insists it is not a platform for hate. And that's only one, very recent, incident.

Note that I have shown and referred to amplification each time, which is a severe and important distinction of the moderation standards of the favoured platform. Responded only in the form of hand-waving and nebulous, evidence-free dismissals.

Like a principle, arguing for a standard doesn't work when you immediately argue for exceptions to the standard at the same time.

You lose the weight of having a valid argument and are left with merely having a preference.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

They're just pushing the traffic/userbase to platforms that will offer faster, simpler communication. We'll see increasing headlines soon about such-and-such group banned from Discord or Twitch because they were using it to explain their beliefs spread their hateful beliefs to innocent Internet Users. Instead of keeping them contained to their own subforum or alternative apps, closing down those havens will cause them to ferret into smaller corners of existing platforms and use different manners of speaking. They won't have long multi-paragraph screeds about their rhetoric, since that's going to get them noticed and banned anyway. Shorter, dumber, gut-level platitudes and rhetoric will become the tools of the trade, moreso than before. It's not like we are without historical examples as to how this goes...

 

[Concern]

Best thing about this is how fast they can completely shutdown an app they deem "too dangerous" supporting free speech but somehow they just can't figure out how to remove child porn off the internet for good.

 

[AfricanKing]

Still desperately dodging the demonstrable amplification of 14k+ incitements to violence (targeted violence, no less) on a platform that insists it is not a platform for hate. And that's only one, very recent, incident.

Note that I have shown and referred to amplification each time, which is a severe and important distinction of the moderation standards of the favoured platform. Responded only in the form of hand-waving and nebulous, evidence-free dismissals.

Like a principle, arguing for a standard doesn't work when you immediately argue for exceptions to the standard at the same time.

You lose the weight of having a valid argument and are left with merely having a preference.

Again you are mixing truths and compiling logic based on your assumptions.

Is it true that #hangmikepence trended on Twitter - Yes

Do we know what the breakdown of these tweets are - i.e How many where reactionary vs Violent - No

When it was reported Twitter took it down and blocked the phrase from trending again. That is having an active moderation policy that Parler does not have. That is the issue.

We know that Amazon told Parler in November that their App was openly advocating for violence without Zero Moderation. Parler was given ample time to make changes which they did not. The standard is having an active Moderation Policy that acts on reports and aims to be pro-active in its approach.

We know Twitter picks and chooses when it wants to act on its moderation policy which is an issue. But it's by far better than what Parler has.

 

[spandexmonkey]

So this is the kind of content Parler wanted to host, did so for years, and knowingly did so for months even though they were aware that they were in violation of their contract with Amazon. Don't let anyone spin yarns to you that this was some kind of snap judgement by Amazon. It has been well known for months the kind of content Parler peddled.

Really good points comrade. I think the safe and important next step at this point is to find out who these developers and volunteers they were using are. Since they have skills they may be employed with someone that can be encouraged to fire them because of their incitement. This may even effect stuff like their banking right? I mean we got the Proud Boys guy dropped from Citibank for less so we should be able to nail every one of these guys fairly easily. Do you think moving on to their families would be to aggressive to soon or have the rules been amended so they're fair game too?

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

This is all after the fact and still does not address the demonstrable act of Twitter amplifying incitements of violence.

You cannot have a standard (incitements to violence are bad) and gloss over a preferred platform hosting and amplifying them.

I have no allegiance to any social media platform. I believe they are all fundamentally harmful and manipulative. I believe the same about double standards.