Parler’s website is offline on Monday after Amazon, Apple, Google, and a slew of other companies took action against the social media platform.
Users trying to access Parler were notified that the site couldn’t be reached.
Parler CEO John Matze said on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that companies had colluded “to make sure that at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they’re shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the Internet.
He also revealed that other companies, including the law firm that was representing Parler, had joined in acting against the company.
“They made an attempt to not only kill the apps but to actually destroy the entire company. But it’s not just these three companies; every vendor, from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too, on the same day, and they’re trying to falsely claim that we were somehow responsible for the events on [Jan.] 6.”
Critics have pointed to posts on Parler that appeared to encourage violence. They also claim protesters organized the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 on Parler. The social media platform had no way to organize events, Matze said, as he noted that violent phrases were trending on Twitter the same day Apple and Google removed his application from their online stores.
Parler is working to get back online “as quickly as possible, but we’re having a lot of trouble, because every vendor we talk to won’t work with us, because if Apple doesn’t approve and Google doesn’t approve, they won’t,” Matze said on Fox.
Apple and Google haven’t responded to requests for comment.
“We’re working and scrambling to do this, but it’s not something that you can do really quickly so there’s a good chance that we will be down for a while,“ Parler’s Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff added on ”Fox & Friends.”
Shortly after the companies removed Parler’s app from their stores—it was the No. 1 app in the Google store before its removal—Amazon announced it was forcing Parler to move its data from Amazon servers. They gave Parler 24 hours notice to move data from hundreds of services, which is “basically impossible” to do, Matze said.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company did not coordinate with Google or Apple. She pointed to a letter Amazon sent to Parler, saying the company has “seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms.”
Matze said the actions taken against Parler “would put anybody out of business.”
“They could destroy anybody. If they did any app, any company, it would completely destroy them,” he added, calling for a rollback of protections in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for tech companies. “I totally see the danger here. What they’re doing, and the amount of the power they have, is not just frightening, it’s actually extremely scary.”
