Amazon Kicking Parler Off AWS Today

Parler will be kicked off Amazon Web Servers late tonight / early Monday morning, leaving the service temporarily unusable as they scramble to find a new server host. Parler which has gained massive popularity and notoriety this year as it has attracted a large user base of right-wing conservatives with the appeal of little to no content moderation on its social network. Conservatives have felt that they have found a voice and home in the platform. Apple took the somewhat unusual move of removing the app from their app store after news broke that far right extremists and Trump supporters had used the social network to orchestrate the insurrection that took place on January 6th. Google followed suit also removing the app from their play store. Amazon was the last nail in the coffin announcing Friday they’d remove the service from their servers Sunday night.

This continues to spark the conversation of how much responsibility these technology companies bear when it comes to the content they allow to be propagated on their platforms amid calls for more action and moderation from these giant companies. However most experts agree that the service will likely live on, and this won’t be the end of the social network long-term. While parler will likely be down for a couple of weeks while they find a new server host and migrate, they will inevitably find a new web host. What will be more damaging to their popularity will be their removal from the app and play store, especially with the app store as Apple makes it near impossible for users to sideload applications onto iOS without jailbreaking their phone. It’s a fair bit easier to do so on Android but it will be interesting to see how many users take the steps to learn how to do so, just to keep using parler.