Alternative social media platform Parler goes dark as Amazon suspends service

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Evie Fordham | FOXBusiness




Alternative social media platform Parler went down early Monday following Amazon Web Services' decision to suspend Parler from its cloud hosting service after Wednesday's U.S. Capitol riot.

CEO John Matze told "Sunday Morning Futures" that the site will try to "get back online as quickly as possible," after writing on the platform that the site may be down for up to a week.

Google suspended Parler from its app store Friday due to a failure to moderate "egregious content" posted by users related to the violent siege on Capitol Hill last week.

Parler is facing criticism over Wednesday’s riot that saw supporters of President Trump storm into the U.S. Capitol, attack police, vandalize the building and steal items from inside.

Screenshots taken from Parler and shared on other social media platforms appear to show Parler users openly discussing plans for violence at the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, including bringing weapons and imagining how they would wield them against their political opponents.

Amazon says the move was made for violating Amazon Web Services' terms of services by failing to effectively deal with a steady increase in violent content, according to an email by an AWS Trust and Safety team to Parler, seen by Reuters.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the letter was authentic.

“We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business. However, Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this in a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies,” Matze added.

Like Google, Apple suspended Parler from its App Store even as it surged to the No. 1 spot in the free apps section earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, Gab, another upstart social media platform, extended a welcome to Matze and Parler users while the site is down.

"We welcome John Matze, Dan Bongino and everyone on Parler to speak freely on Gab while they work to get the platform back online," Gab wrote on its official Twitter account.

[FBD]

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Joshua Klein - Breitbart




On Friday, the Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox web browser, shared a list of additional actions intended to alter the “dangerous dynamics” of the internet, claiming that “the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms” is not enough.

“This week we saw the culmination of a four-year disinformation campaign orchestrated by the President,” Mozilla wrote. “We have to acknowledge how the internet was misused to get here.”

The attached article, penned by Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker and which appears on the Mozilla Foundation site’s blog, claims that “rampant use of the internet to foment violence and hate, and reinforce white supremacy is about more than any one personality.”

After criticizing the president’s “reprehensible” actions, the article then calls for more “solutions.”

“We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done,” the essay continues. “Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms.”

According to the essay, additional “precise and specific actions” that platforms should commit to include the following:

• Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted.
• Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact.
• Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
• Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.

The article concludes by calling for the building of a “better” internet.

Ironically, the Mozilla Foundation’s website states it “works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to us all.”

On Friday, in an unprecedented step, Twitter suspended President Trump’s official account, along with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch, which have indefinitely suspended the president’s access on those platforms.

As a result, there has been much backlash.

“Big tech & social media platforms want to act like media orgs but don’t want to be held accountable with the rest of media,” wrote Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson. “Speech should be free whether you agree or not.”

“We are living Orwell’s 1984. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few,” wrote President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. “This is absolute insanity!”

“Silencing speech is dangerous. It’s un-American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years,” wrote U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We cannot let them silence 75M Americans. This isn’t the CCP.”

Also on Friday, Kate Ruane, a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), released a statement condemning Facebook and Twitter’s decision to suspend the president’s account, warning against “unchecked power” and the precedent it sets for other activists.

In addition, many have taken to alternative platforms to express their views.

On Saturday, Gab.com, the free speech friendly social network, said traffic has increased by more than 750 percent in the past few days, following the blacklisting of the president from most mainstream tech platforms.

In 2019, Mozilla banned Gab’s Dissenter extension — intended to “bring a free speech comment system to every site on the Internet” — from their browsers’ extension stores.

Meanwhile, Apple has removed social media platform Parler from its App Store, claiming the platform has not adequately implemented moderation policies that crack down on free speech.

Google banned Parler from its Android app store on Friday.

“Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech from the internet,” said Parler CEO John Matze in a statement. “There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch. We prepared for events like this by never relying on Amazon’s proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products.”

“We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business, however Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies,” continued Matze.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

It is crazy this amount of removal of speech is being allowed

[FBD]

It is crazy this amount is removal of speech is being allowed

We'll all have a nice collective sigh of relief after the fact that this glimpse of the brick wall at the back of the theater is no longer on our timeline

[lost in melb.]

It's not a game anymore.

(from Parler)

[Teh One Who Knocks]

It's not a game anymore.

And you don't think that kind of stuff is all over Twitter, except from the left? You can't be that naïve.

[lost in melb.]

And you don't think that kind of stuff is all over Twitter, except from the left? You can't be that naïve.

Parler doesn't censor enough. Big tech doesn't want responsibility

[FBD]

Parler doesn't censor enough. Big tech doesn't want responsibility

Big tech doesnt have the lawful authority to censor except for actually illegal stuff.

Except there plenty, from pedos talking about fucking kids to antifa or celebrities talking about killing trump or conservatives.

Hardcore double standards on display.

[FBD]

https://www.krem.com/article/news/lo...=snd-autopilot

[DemonGeminiX]

[lost in melb.]

Parler suing Amazon. The good thing is we will now get an accurate gauge of what was being censored and what wasn't etc. We are all just armchair observers.

If violence at the capital and poor censorship can be linked though it's game over. Whataboutisms don't apply when it comes to Congress people safety

[DemonGeminiX]

Free speech is free speech. I know you guys across the ponds believe in reasonable restrictions that goes far beyond what we believe would be reasonable, but to us, free speech means you've got to take the good, the bad, and the fucking horrific all in the same boat. You don't have to like what people say, you don't even have to listen to them if you don't want to, but you have to respect that they have a right to say whatever fucked up thing pops up in their head.

The problem with these companies is that they serve the world, so yeah, they're taking their cues from y'all's ideology, but they're American-based companies that use our tax dollars for their growth and continued existence, so they should be required to treat speech on their platform the same way our government is required to treat speech. Any entity that takes our tax dollars should be required to respect our Constitutional rights.

Ok, so the courts said that they could regulate it on their platform. Fine. Somebody went out and created a similar but different platform and chose to regulate it a little less than the older guys, because it seems the older guys are being a little biased to one side of the aisle. Now everybody's taking them down because they're allowing speech that doesn't agree with the older guys. Not cool.

And before y'all jump all over me saying they're allowing horrible speech on their platforms, consider this: Iran's Supreme leader is on twitter. Venezuela's Maduro's on twitter. They're about as bad as bad can get when it comes to human rights abuses, terrorizing people, etc etc etc... and yet twitter allows them to stick around. This has absolutely nothing to do with limiting speech in the interest of public safety. It has everything to do with squashing conservative speech, and using the crazies as an excuse to do it. It's painfully obvious that they're openly picking sides, and it's painfully obvious why they're doing it now: with a Dem President on the way, and both Houses of Congress going blue, nobody's going to do jack shit about it. It only benefits the Democrats, and the Republicans won't be able to do anything about it.

And the divisions grow deeper and deeper...

[lost in melb.]

Yeah, but people died.

This has absolutely nothing to do with limiting speech in the interest of public safety.

More stuff was planned

[lost in melb.]

Amazon's issue might be about income. People will blacklist Amazon if they retain Parler