Parler CEO says the social network might never come back online, report says
John Matze tells Reuters the social media platform hasn't found a new cloud service since being booted from Amazon Web Services.
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Parler's CEO reportedly said Wednesday its service might never return to the internet since it lost cloud hosting services from Amazon.
Since losing cloud hosting from Amazon Web Services, social media company Parler might not return to the internet, the company's CEO reportedly told Reuters on Wednesday. Other cloud hosting companies have refused to work with Parler, Matze said, and the company's best chance is to get its platform running again with Amazon's services.
Parler is popular with conservative and far-right users who have posted racist content encouraging violence against politicians, celebrities and regular people with liberal viewpoints. Amazon stopped providing cloud hosting services to Parler on Jan. 9, citing the company's unwillingness to moderate content promoting violence. Parler didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
After it lost Amazon's service, Parler sued Amazon for antitrust and contract law violations in federal court, claiming the move helps Parler's competitor Twitter. Amazon has called the suit meritless and said in a court filing Tuesday that there's no precedent for a court to compel a company to continue hosting content that "plans, encourages and incites violence." Amazon argued in the filing that the court shouldn't grant a temporary order requiring it to continue offering cloud services to Parler.
The cloud hosting giant also said Parler's claims that Amazon acted to benefit Twitter were baseless. Amazon Web Services doesn't host Twitter's feed, Amazon said, "so of course it could not have suspended access to Twitter's content."
Amazon also said it flagged more than 100 posts to Parler starting in November and talked with the company about how it planned to remove posts that broke its own community standards as well as its legal agreement with Amazon not to permit posts that could cause harm to others.
Amazon included examples of posts it flagged to Parler, including "We are going to fight in a civil War on Jan.20th, Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets," and, "Death to @zuckerberg @realjeffbezos @jackdorsey @pichai." Another post allegedly called for Amazon delivery trucks to be set on fire and for members of Congress to be tortured and killed.
In a reply to Amazon's motion, Parler said it had grounds for each of its legal claims. Regarding its request for the temporary order requiring Amazon to resume services, Parler said "it has established irreparable injury in the form of a high likelihood of being forced out of business forever."
In the filing, Parler went on to say that Amazon didn't give any indication it was at risk of losing cloud hosting services until the decision had already been made. Under its agreement with Amazon, Parler was entitled to a 30-day warning, the company said.