Apple, Amazon Move to Marginalize Parler -- Update

By Tim Higgins and Keach Hagey 

Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. halted support for Parler, dealing a major blow to a social-media service that has soared in popularity among conservatives and sharply escalating a campaign by tech giants to regulate content they see as dangerous in the wake of the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Amazon said Saturday it would no longer provide cloud-computing services to Parler, and Apple suspended the company's app from the App Store. Both companies said Parler hasn't demonstrated in recent conversations that it can adequately address threats of violence on the platform.

"We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity," Apple said in a statement. "Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people's safety."

The announcements from Amazon and Apple come a day after Alphabet Inc.'s Google suspended Parler from its Play Store app marketplace, citing violations of requirements for sufficient moderation of content for apps it distributes.

Interest in Parler has risen since November as larger social-network operators such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have become more aggressive in policing content. On Friday, Twitter banned President Trump's personal account, sparking criticism from conservatives online who felt the effort was biased against them.

Parler has positioned itself as an alternative to larger platforms. Its rules don't prohibit hate speech and false information while banning spam, threats of violence and other illegal activity.

"This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place," Chief Executive John Matze said in a Saturday post on Parler. "We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don't count us out."

Amazon, the world's largest cloud-computing company, notified Parler on Saturday that it would suspend the company's account, effective late Sunday, citing a violation of its terms of service. Amazon said in a letter to Parler it had seen a steady increase in violent content on the site and said Parler's efforts to remove them were inadequate. The notice to Parler was earlier reported by BuzzFeed.

Amazon said it would preserve Parler's data and aid the company in a migration to its own servers.

--Aaron Tilley contributed to this article.

Write to Tim Higgins at [e-mail] and Keach Hagey at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 09, 2021 23:09 ET (04:09 GMT)

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