Big Tech’s rejection of Parler shuts down a site favored by Trump supporters – and used by participants in the US Capitol insurrection
Amazon Web Services will kick Parler off its platform on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.
"Probably not the end to Parler," one disinformation expert told Insider. "They just have to find another server space
Early in the morning of Jan. 11, the social media platform Parler went offline after Amazon withdrew the platform’s web hosting services. Parler sued Amazon in response.
Amazon’s move followed Google and Apple’s banning the Parler app from their app stores. The tech companies cited the platform’s inability or unwillingness to block calls for and threats of violence. Amazon’s move shut the platform down, at least until the company can find an alternative web hosting service.
Parler had a surge in new users following Twitter’s ban of President Donald Trump on Jan. 8. Since the November election, when it saw a spike in usage, Parler has contributed to the widening gap between the different perceptions of reality held by the polarized public.
Competitor Gab was similarly forced offline after the 2018 mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh but it was only temporary. Shooter Robert Bowers had been posting anti-Semitic and violent content on the platform, and the revelation resulted in PayPal, GoDaddy and Medium’s banning Gab from their services. Gab has since come back online and has reportedly gained hundreds of thousands of new users since Parler’s shutdown.
On the rise on the right
After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Parler caught on among right-wing politicians and influencers – people with large online followings – as a social media platform where they could share and promote ideas without worrying about the company blocking or flagging their posts for being dangerous or misleading. However, the website also became a haven for far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists who interacted with the mainstream conservatives flocking to the platform.
As the three highest-profile social media companies – YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – continued to take action to mitigate the spread of extremism and disinformation, Parler welcomed the ensuing exodus of right-wing users. It exploded in popularity, doubling its members to 10 million during the month of November, and claimed 12 million at the time of its shutdown – although that’s still dwarfed by Twitter’s roughly 330 million monthly active users.
On mainstream social media, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the presidential election, and theories alleging crimes by the Biden campaign and Democrats are flagged as misinformation. On Parler, Trump won in a landslide, only to have his victory stolen by a wide-ranging alliance of evildoers, including Democrats and the so-called “deep state.”
But along with its success came the reality that extremist movements like QAnon and the Boogalooers thrived in the platform’s unregulated chaos.
Parler’s origins
Parler was launched in 2018 and found its place as another niche platform catering to right-wing users who ran afoul of content moderation on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Its user base remained small – fewer than 1 million users – until early 2020.
Other primarily right-wing platforms, especially Gab, had housed fringe and violent ideologues and groups by the time Parler was launched. These included violent far-right militias and the mass shooter Robert Bowers.
The shooter in the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh in 2018 posted hate speech on the alternative social media platform Gab.
Parler, in contrast, gained a reputation for catering to mainstream conservatives thanks to a handful of high-profile early adopters like Brad Parscale, Candace Owens and Sen. Mike Lee. As a result, in 2020 when Twitter began labeling misleading Trump tweets about possible fraud in absentee and mail-in voting, politicians like Ted Cruz embraced Parler as the next bastion for conservative speech.
The 2020 election
In the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, the big social media sites took steps to mitigate election-related extremism and disinformation. Twitter rolled out labels for all mail-in ballot misinformation and put a prompt on tweeted articles to encourage people to read them before retweeting. Facebook blocked QAnon groups and, later, restricted QAnon-adjacent accounts pushing “SaveTheChildren” conspiracy theories. Facebook also began prohibiting holocaust denial posts. YouTube labeled and blocked advertising for election-related fake information, though it left in place many videos promoting conspiracy theories.
These actions continued in the wake of the election, especially as mainstream conservative politicians and Trump pushed the false claim that Biden and the Democrats committed large-scale voter fraud to steal the election. Consequently, millions of users migrated to alternative platforms: Gab, MeWe and, in particular, Parler.
Users flocked there because of the promise of a site that wouldn’t label false information and wouldn’t ban the creation of extremist communities. But they also moved because Republican politicians and well-known elites signaled that Parler was the new home for conservative speech. These include commentator Mark Levin and Fox host Sean Hannity.
Promoting racism, anti-Semitism and violence
Parler has only two community guidelines: It does not knowingly allow criminal activity, and it does not allow spam or bots on its platform. The lack of guidelines on hate speech has allowed racism and anti-Semitism to flourish on Parler.
My research center has spent several years building an extensive encyclopedia of far-right terminology and slang, covering niche topics from the spectrum of white supremacist, neo-fascist and anti-state movements. We have studied the ways that far-right language evolves alongside content moderation efforts from mainstream platforms, and how slang and memes are often used to evade regulations.
Parler has become a haven for overt white supremacists and anti-Semites.
We have monitored far-right communities on Parler since March and have found frequent use of both obvious white supremacist terms and more implicit, evasive memes and slang. For example, among other explicit white supremacist content, Parler allows usernames referencing the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division’s violently anti-Semitic slogan, posts spreading the theory that Jews are descended from Satan, and hashtags such as “HitlerWasRight.”
In addition, it is easy to find the implicit bigotry and violence that eventually caused Facebook to ban movements like QAnon. For example, QAnon’s version of the “blood libel” theory – the centuries-old false conspiracy theory the Jewish people murder Christians and use their blood for rituals – has spread widely on the platform. Thousands of posts also use QAnon hashtags and promote the false claim that global elites are literally eating children.
Among the alternative platforms, Parler stands out because white supremacists, QAnon adherents and mainstream conservatives exist in close proximity. This results in comment threads on politicians’ posts that are a melting pot of far-right beliefs, such as a response to Donald Trump Jr.’s unfounded allegations of election crimes that states, “Civil war is the only way to drain the swamp.”
Behind the scenes
Parler’s ownership is still kept largely secret. However, the few pieces of information that have come to light make Parler’s spike in popularity even more concerning.
For example, Dan Bongino, the highly popular right-wing commentator who published a book about the “deep state” conspiracy theory and frequently publishes unverified information, has at least a small ownership stake in the company. CEO John Matze said in a post on Parler that is now unavailable because the site is down that the ownership is composed of himself and “a small group of close friends and employees.”
Notably, conservative billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, are investors in the platform. Rebekah Mercer helped co-found it with Matze. The Mercers are well known for their investments in other conservative causes, including Nigel Farage’s Brexit campaign, Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica. The connection to Cambridge Analytica has, in particular, alarmed experts, who worry that Parler may harvest unnecessary data from unwitting users.
Parler’s privacy policy doesn’t put to rest concerns about user privacy, either: The policy says that Parler has permission to collect a vast amount of personal information, and gives its members much less control than mainstream platforms over what that data can be used for.
Parler’s future
If the company can find a new web hosting service, Parler’s fate will hinge on what its members do over the next few months. Will the company be able to capitalize on the influx of new users, or will its members slowly trickle back to the larger platforms, particularly amid recriminations for the platform’s role in the U.S. Capitol insurrection? A major factor is how Trump himself reacts, and whether he eventually creates an account on Parler. Prominent right-wing figures, including Sen. Lee, have called on him to do so.
Having catered to a right-wing audience and allowed hate speech to thrive on its platform, Parler is also at the whims of its user base. Online extremism and hate can lead to real-world violence by legitimizing extreme actions. Parler’s tolerance of hate and bigotry, and its affiliation with violent movements enabled right-wing extremists to rally supporters to go to Washington, D.C., prepared to force Congress to yield to their will, by violence if necessary. Like Gab, Parler is now dealing with the repercussions of members’ having committed acts of violence.
Although it’s hard to know whether Parler will recover and grow in the future, my research suggests that the extremism among its user base will persist for months to come.
Judge Refuses To Reinstate Parler After Amazon Shut It Down
Even before Amazon booted Parler off its Web service, Apple and Google had banned it from their respective app stores.
A federal judge has refused to restore the social media site Parler after Amazon kicked the company off of its Web-hosting services over content seen as inciting violence.
The decision is a blow to Parler, an upstart that has won over Trump loyalists for its relatively hands-off approach to moderating content. The company sued Amazon over its ban, demanding reinstatement.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein sided with Amazon, which argued that Parler would not take down posts threatening public safety even in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and that it is within Amazon's rights to punish the company over its refusal.
"The Court rejects any suggestion that the public interest favors requiring [Amazon Web Services] to host the incendiary speech that the record shows some of Parler's users have engaged in," Rothstein wrote on Thursday. "At this stage, on the showing made thus far, neither the public interest nor the balance of equities favors granting an injunction in this case."
Parler's looser rules of engagement also attracted far-right activists among the some 15 million users who, the company says, posted messages before Amazon pulled the plug.
That anything-goes philosophy ran headlong into demands that social media platforms be held accountable for allowing rioters to discuss plans to storm the Capitol on the day Congress was certifying President Biden's election.
Shortly after the Jan. 6 attack, Parler began to feel the squeeze. First, Google and Apple banned it from their app stores, which made it nearly impossible to download the app. Then Amazon's Web-hosting services, Amazon Web Services, terminated Parler's account.
Parler filed a lawsuit, arguing that Amazon's crackdown was driven by "political animus." Parler contended that the tech giant was abusing its power and attempting to kneecap a competitor.
In submissions to the court, Parler said Amazon's severing ties threatened Parler with "extinction."
An attorney for Parler wrote that the last six Web hosts the company has approached have refused to work with the site.
Yet the website recently flicked back on as essentially no more than a welcome page. It promised to return soon with the message: "We will not let civil discourse perish!"
Judge: Amazon doesn't have to host "abusive, violent content"
In defending against the suit, Amazon considered the matter a simple case of breach of contract. The company flagged dozens of posts advocating violence, which is against its policies, and Parler failed to remove the posts, according to Amazon's attorneys. The posts cited by Amazon include violent threats directed at Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and leaders in the Democratic Party.
In defending its decision to boot Parler off its Web services, Amazon pointed to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the much-debated 1996 federal law that prevents people from suing Internet companies over what users post.
The law also lets tech companies create and enforce rules over what is allowed and not allowed on their sites.
"That is precisely what AWS did here: removed access to content it considered 'excessively violent' and 'harassing,' " attorneys for Amazon wrote in a submission to the court.
In her opinion, Rothstein agreed with Amazon, ruling that Parler's antitrust claim is "dwindlingly slight" and that the breach of contract argument "failed." She wrote that it was Parler, not Amazon, that violated the terms of the contract.
She pointed to the rioters who stormed the Capitol and documented their violent acts on Parler.
"The Court explicitly rejects any suggestion that the balance of equities or the public interest favors obligating AWS to host the kind of abusive, violent content at issue in this case, particularly in light of the recent riots at the U.S. Capitol," Rothstein wrote. "That event was a tragic reminder that inflammatory rhetoric can — more swiftly and easily than many of us would have hoped — turn a lawful protest into a violent insurrection."
Rothstein did not dismiss the lawsuit outright but rather rejected Parler's request for a preliminary injunction. That said, the decision does not bode well for the future of Parler's legal fight.
Parler is expected to appeal.
In a statement, Jeffrey Wernick, Parler's chief operating officer, said Rothstein not dismissing the case outright was notable. "We remain confident that we will ultimately prevail in the main case," he said.
Meanwhile, Parler is struggling to resuscitate its social network.
David Groesbeck, a lawyer representing Parler, told the court that the company's hope that it could quickly find a new Web-hosting service has not come to fruition, creating a dire situation that Parler's CEO has said could spell the death of the site.
"The notoriety and fallout from the break-up have driven away current and potential business partners, utterly frustrating Parler's pre-termination plans to quickly replace and recover from AWS," Groesbeck wrote in a recent filing.
Parler, which is funded in part by Rebekah Mercer, a major donor of former President Donald Trump, has discussed housing its own servers and supporting its own Web hosting. Trump, too, floated the idea of launching his own social media service after Twitter permanently suspended him.
Disinformation researchers said Amazon's shutdown of Parler eliminated a key gathering place for the sharing and discussion of the election-related conspiracies that Trump has often fanned.
"The reason why we're experiencing this corporate denial of service is because there are really no other levers possible to stop this group of people from reassembling and either trying this again or trying something else that's just as dangerous," said Joan Donovan, an expert on online extremism at Harvard. "It's going to be really important that when they make these decisions, they stick and that they don't walk them back once the heat is off."
A new focus on who controls "the guts of the Web"
To experts who study online speech and infrastructure, the predicament Parler finds itself in reveals just how much control over the Internet is vested in Web hosts, an out-of-sight part of the Web that has the power to decide which sites live or die.
"The guts of the Web that no one ever wants to see, or deal with, or think about" is how Greg Falco, a cyber-risk management researcher at Stanford University, describes these service providers. "It is critical infrastructure for our society, but it's been pushed behind a curtain."
In recent months, the biggest social media companies have drawn brighter lines around the limits of online free speech. And in the wake of the attack on the Capitol, they've taken uncharacteristically aggressive actions against groups and accounts that glorified the violence.
But, as the case of Parler shows, the pressure on social media companies to police the speech on their platforms is shared by Web-hosting companies.
"The question becomes tricky: When do you actually take someone down? It's a really gray territory," Falco said. "The reality is, it comes down to understanding when it reaches some public attention, when there's actually some physical implications."
It is hard to find an example more stark than the insurrection on the Capitol, when droves of rioters turned to Parler and other alternative sites to post videos of vandalism, property damage and other violence, as ProPublica recently documented at length.
"When you have something that's outwardly violent or causes some other crisis or tragedy in the world, that's when Web infrastructure tends to come out of the shadows," said Dave Temkin, a former Netflix executive who oversaw the management of the company's servers.
Web-hosting companies, like social media platforms, address content in their terms of service. Violators can be punished.
Back in 2018, GoDaddy, a major player in site-hosting, kicked Gab offline after it was revealed that the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue had posted anti-Semitic messages to the site. Gab, which removed the suspect's account, came back online with the help of Epik, a company with links to the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer and theDonald.win, a far-right discussion board created after Reddit banned a forum popular with Trump's most ardent fans. The site recently rebranded as Patriot.win, and Epik supports its domain, the company confirmed.
Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, predicts more battles over online speech will erupt between sites that choose a hands-off approach and Web hosts that demand a more aggressive stance. And that troubles her.
"Is that the right place for content moderation to be occurring?" Douek asked. "It's harder to bring accountability to those choices when we don't even know who's making them or why they're being made."
In other words, when a Web host has a problem with content on a client's site, usually these discussions are hashed out between the two parties, far from the public light. And Web hosts, unlike social media platforms, are not used to explaining these decisions publicly.
Another issue, Douek said, is the lack of oversight of Web hosts. She pointed to the 98 pieces of objectionable content Amazon cited in court papers about Parler.
"It sort of made me laugh a little bit," she said. "Has Amazon read the rest of the Internet? Ninety-eight pieces of content or whatever is not that many. I mean, has Amazon read Amazon?"
Amazon's decision to sever ties with Parler might not kill the controversial social media platform
Amazon will kick Parler off its web servers, leaving the controversial social network to scramble for a new web host.
Parler grew to prominence by cultivating far-right audience
A protester holds a Trump flag inside the US Capitol Building.
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