Check out Parler Status Updates. Parler.com is shut down, but they are struggling to get back online.
What happened? Well, that depends to some extent upon our point-of-view.
Apple, Google and Amazon have conspired to shut down the conservative social media platform Parler after millions of pro-life conservatives moved to the social media network following the decision by Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants to ban President Donald trump and censor conservatives.
As censorship has increased, pro-life and conservative Americans have moved to other social media networks like Parler and LifeNews has gained almost 70,000 followers looking for alternatives to Twitter so they can get the latest pro-life news and information free from censorship. (continued)
Apple, Google and Amazon Shut Down Parler After Pro-Life Conservatives Flock There | LifeNews.com
If your focus is pro-life, then you probably see the Big Tech shutdown as a proabortion plot.
If you are a rabid Liberal Democrat, however, you probably see Parler as a dire threat to the republic.
Just as the clock was to strike midnight on the U.S. west coast, Amazon suspended Parler from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a violation of the company’s terms of service against violent content.
Parler is a conservative-leaning social media site whose users mostly follow President Donald Trump, and it’s a landing spot for many conservatives who have been banned by other social media outlets.
The move comes in the same five-day stretch that President Donald Trump was censored on social media giants Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, and with Apple and Google already holding Parler’s feet to the fire. (continued)
Amazon Suspends Parler App From Its Web Services, Effective Immediately (newsweek.com)
The deactivation of Parler includes the app.
UPDATE: Parler is now down. See the latest here. And learn more about Gab, an alternative platform here.
A day after Parler was removed from the Google Play Store, Apple has made a similar step.
While the social media app was the top free app Saturday, Apple said in a statement sent to USA TODAY that it has suspended Parler. (continued)
Parler suspended from Apple App Store; Amazon to shut off web hosting (usatoday.com)
Is the truth some where in the middle? Don’t think so. Consider the conclusion of this article.
But major tech companies are making a misstep by going after Parler soon after a close election, wherein nearly 75 million Americans demonstrated support for the president. They could very well be further fracturing the country’s existing divides. But, if nothing else, they’ll reduce competition in the social media space and encourage an overzealous censorship culture — one with an unknowable victim tally. Tech companies are right to criticize President Trump for not being cognizant of the political consequences of his actions, but they should take care to do the same for themselves.
Shutting down Parler won’t stop domestic terrorism. But it could make it worse – Washington Times
The Washington Times, like any relatively small company that is dependent on the Internet walked very circumspectly around the topic, trying to make a logical argument against what the Big Tech giants had done to Parler without calling the move what it was, tyrannical.
Look at what is going in Washington D.C.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two U.S. Army National Guard members have been removed from the presidential inauguration security mission after they were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups, according to two U.S. Army officials. There was no threat to President-elect Joe Biden, they said.
The officials did not say which fringe group the Guard members belonged to or what unit they served in. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The removal comes as the FBI has warned law enforcement officials about the possibility that right-wing fringe groups could pose as members of the National Guard called in to help secure the city after a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters shocked the nation, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter. (continued)
Two Guard members removed from Biden inauguration (msn.com)
The security for the Biden inauguration is ridiculous. Unarmed people attacked the Capitol Building, and the Capitol Police, because they were poorly led and prepared, could not stop them. Messy? Yes, but it does not demonstrate a nationwide plot that requires 25,000 National Guard troops and shutting down our nation’s capital for a week? If the Democrats are not trying to create an excuse to justify the seizing tyrannical powers, they sure have a lot of people fooled into believing they are.
With the Liberal Democrats in power, Conservatives must support those who support us, and we must not waste our money on the people who hate us. That just impowers them.
We must reduce our usage of Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple as much as possible. If you can do without an app, then don’t bother downloading it from Google or Apple. Amazon, Google and Apple have business ties with China. Any company that does business in China must satisfy the demands of the Communist Chinese Party, which, for example, thinks slave labor is a great idea. That good?
Conservatives have a huge market share. We must use that market power. If we indicate the desire to take our business to people who have not shown an active dislike for us, plenty of companies will spring up wanting our business, but we must choose to be loyal to those companies, and that includes Parler.
Citizen Tom 
Reblogged this on boudica.us.
Thank you!
Tom.
i overlooked including the link below in my comment about the Bill Trump vetoed.
https://news.yahoo.com/defying-trump-republican-led-u-161738943.html
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Tom.
I am trying to discern this issue of the internet vs free speech. I seem to remember past controversy’s about allowing U tube to show people how to make bombs vs. the issues of selective censorship.
Trump tried to make Big Tech be liable for law suits but Congress overtuled his veto of the Bill…
I use my name on anything I post, perhaps if people could be sued for what they post is spread around like gossip, it might help to reduce the falsehoods or dangerous spread of rumors or inciting or providing information like bomb making as well as the selective censorship occurring.
Usually, lawyers jump to support the concept to support any opportunity to pass laws to profit, but they seem silent on this one. I am not understanding why?
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Trump wanted to have Section 230 repealed. Were that to happen, Tom would be legally responsible for each and any comment posted to his blog, WordPress would be legally responsible for each and any blogpost or comment on any of their hosted blogs, irrespective of how fast they move to remove objectionable content. A drive-by troll linking to child-porn and Tom can be convicted as a sexual predator. Is that the kind of internet you want to see? Because nobody in his/her right mind will be willing to take such a risk. Any content and any comment would need to be preaproved, not just by Tom, but by WordPress, too. As this would be associated with considerable cost, expect free blogs to be a thing of the past, expect forums to be a thing of the past, expect Facebook, Twitter, Parler, Reddit, to be shut down, with no alternative coming to replace them..
@marmoewp
Yep! I would not dare let you post a comment. 🤔
The problem is that the Big Tech Companies want it both ways. They want to censor people, mainly Conservatives, but they don’t want to held responsible for what everyone else said.
“Yep! I would not dare let you post a comment. 🤔”
X-D
Marmoewp
Thanks for your comment.
I wonder if your concerns or fears for Tom or WordPress are sound legally.
I am not a lawyer or have any college credits in criminal law. I have been trained to recognized a criminal act when I served as an auxiliary policeman in my community. However, I do have in civic laws college credits obtained fifty plus years ago.
f
I seem to remember that people cannot be sued by someone unless they have legal standing and can prove what was said had a direct cause or contributed them to incur or suffer a harm.
In my opinion, most of Toms blogs focus on opinions to prevent rather than incur harm
As I mentioned to Tom in my comment, I am still trying to discern the issue of free speech and how there are various sides or issues with the recent development in our Democracy with having access to internet.
What do you recommend should be done on this issue of making it possible to teach people how to build bombs or express opinions on the internet?
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@scatterwisdom
Most lawyers are Democrats, especially when it comes to getting laws passed that make their work more profitable.
AWS filed an opposition to a motion for a temporary restraining order by Parler.
Click to access gov.uscourts.wawd.294664.10.0_1.pdf
It contains examples of the kind of language that AWS made Parler aware of weeks before the Capitol riots, which violated AWS terms of service. According to AWS, Parler failed to remove content like this in a timely manner.
@marmoewp
I think it safe to say you will find the same stuff on all the social media platforms. Half the content on the Internet is pornography.
People have already made the case that Twitter’s removal of Trump was pure hypocrisy. They continued to host blatantly obvious calls for violence even though no one can point to what Trump said that incited violence.
Personalities in our so-called mainstream news media regularly compare Trump and Conservatives to Nazis. That doesn’t incite violence?
I’m sure trolls infiltrated Parler to make it look worse than it was- I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re affiliated with AWS and others that have ill will towards freedom of expression
@Jeffw5382
Trolls are everywhere. Twitter had a reputation long before Parler existed.
No man is good. To prove that a relatively good man does evil easier than it is to frame him, though that happens. My guess is that AWS just went looking for what anyone should know would already be there. They will play it up and ignore what can easily found on any other social website. Parler, because it will not have the access AWS had to its website, will have a difficult time proving any such thing, however.
Sure, it’s Twitter’s business model to have as much traffic to their website as possible. However, in contrast to Parler they also have efficient measures in place for reporting and actively finding such content and to swiftly delete it. Twitter kicked neo-Nazis off its platform, Parler seemed to have a, let’s say more relaxed attitude, and suffers the consequences of its inaction.
@marmoewp
Yeah! Sure!
I am not going to waste my time. The older companies like Facebook and Twitter have had Congress after them for years to censor terrorists, which can be quite difficult to define. In practice, Twitter has made its goal to censor opposing views. I am suppose to defend that?
In my lifetime Liberals have gone from condemning censorship of almost any kind including pornography, to their current position, which is censoring anything they want to call hate speech.
If current trends continue, it won’t be long before someone tries to put me in jail because of what I posted on blog. The fact that you others who comment on my blog support such nonsense (with your silence if nothing else) blows my mind. How can you be so foolish?
Let me take a step back form the current discussion about Parler. Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and Google have way too much market power and need to be divided up. Introduce way stronger data protection. Prohibit targeted advertising and profiling. Prohibit Facebook from aggregating the user data the way they do, break up Google into search engine, operating system, mail and other services, Microsoft into OS and Office software, and so on. Those monopolies hold way too much power over the internet and computer market and use it to keep upcoming competitors out of the market or buy them up and bury them that way.
@marmoewp
That all sounds great, but the politicians in charge won’t do it.
Standard Oil was the first company to broken up for antitrust violations (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Standard-Oil). The law strikes me as highly political. Given the help Big Tech has given the Democrats, the likelihood that the Biden administration will pursue antitrust actions against such allies is almost nil. For it to happen, the Big Tech companies will have to start fighting each other. So long as they are not that stupid….
This in my opinion is a prime example of these companies having too much power, where are we to go if we decide we no longer want to do business with them- I’m talking primarily about web services and internet service providers- we’re kinda caught- I know the American spirit in more conservative thinking entrepreneurs will create alternatives, but it’s troubling to consider that it’s even necessary
@jeffw5382
Crony Capitalism has been around for a long time. European serfs would not have called it Crony Capitalism, but the would have recognized it for what it was.