Amazon has announced that it will stop hosting the social network Parler on its servers, which is popular with right-wing extremists in the United States and accused of distributing hateful content. The move comes after Google and Apple removed the app from their stores.
The tech giant will suspend the platform’s account starting at 5 a.m. (Brasília time) on Monday (11) and is therefore expected to temporarily prevent access to the network, unless it finds a new company to host its services. In a letter sent to Parler and posted on the BuzzFeed website, Amazon says it has “recently seen a persistent increase in violent content.”
“Given the unfortunate events that have taken place this week in Washington, there is a real risk that this type of content will incite more violence,” the company said, referring to the invasion of Congress by supporters of the current US President Donald Trump on Wednesday. (6).
After the Republican was banned from Twitter for good and at least until Joe Biden took over from Facebok and Instagram, his supporters looked for an alternative and found Talking place.
However, the platform that claims to be a “free speech” option for not having content moderation was removed from Apple’s app stores on Saturday (9), after Google already did the same on Friday ( 8), at least until Parler adopts post exclusion criteria.
Apple justified its decision in a letter to the social network, declaring that “the measures described are insufficient to deal with the proliferation of dangerous and questionable content” in the application. “Talk has not supported its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or harmful content, encourage violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with App Store rules.”
The company had given the social network 24 hours to detail its moderation plan, highlighting users who were using the platform to coordinate the Capitol invasion.
Parler chief executive John Matze said Apple was banning the service until the platform waived free speech and instituted “broad and invasive policies like Twitter and Facebook “.
“They claim this is due to the violence on the platform. The community does not agree, because we have reached number 1 [entre aplicativos gratuitos para iPhone] in store today [sábado]”Matze published in Speak, according to Reuters.” More details on our next plans will come soon, as we have so many options. “
The executive director admitted, also in a post on the social network itself, that Parler may not be available for a week, “while we are rebuilding from scratch”, and called the decisions of the technology companies to end competition in the market. “You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count on us.”
The migration movement from Twitter and Facebook did not start immediately after Trump’s ban. Speaking has become one of the fastest growing apps in recent months, with demand from millions of the president’s supporters, according to the New York Times, after the platforms started tagging Republican posts with alerts. misinformation and incitement. violence.
The boom came on Saturday, when the app rose to number 1 among free iPhone tools in the Apple Store. The removal of the app from the stores of two leading companies in the industry seriously limits Parler’s ability to find new users and puts the platform’s future in doubt.
“It’s very important,” Talking’s chief policy officer Amy Peikoff told Fox News on Friday when Apple threatened to pull it out for the first time. Without access to the App Store, she says, “we’re fried.”
Earlier on Saturday, Matze told the New York Times in a text message that Twitter recently classified the phrase “hang Mike Pence” as a hot topic. However, most of the talk on the social network has been about invaders in Congress chanting the phrase Wednesday.
“I saw no clue that Apple was chasing them,” Matze said. “It seems like a double standard, because all social networks face the same problems, perhaps on a worse scale.” The Executive Director added that the matter was taken very seriously.
The deletions make it clear that businesses will take action against apps that violate their store’s policies, which is expected to affect other platforms.
Several little-known apps are already trying to lure Trump supporters with promises of being ‘unbiased’ social media and ‘free speech’ – showing that they are, in fact, free digital marketplaces , where users hardly have to worry about being banned. spread conspiracy theories, utter threats or publish hate speech. In addition to Speaking, right-wing social media users in the United States have migrated to the Telegram messaging app and the Gab website, citing more aggressive comment monitoring on conventional platforms.
The application of stricter measures by Apple, Google and Amazon can prevent these tools from becoming real alternatives. The deletions mean that from now on, these apps must choose between stepping up control over posts – undermining their core feature in the process – or losing their ability to reach large audiences.
With the New York Times and Reuters