Apple CEO Tim Cook has reportedly offered social media platform Parler a lifeline, after the micro-blogging network was ‘cancelled’ in a pincer move by big tech.
The extraordinary offer comes with, what is likely to be, an unpopular caveat: Parler must partner with Apple in order to clean-up the website’s content. In doing so the ‘free speech’ platform could be strong armed into adhering to standards outlined by Apple — a move which is unlikely to bode well with the Parler faithful.
According to CEO John Matze, Parler amassed almost twenty-million users prior to the takedown — with the site taking pride of place at the top of Apple’s download chart.
A report in The Guardian stated that the platform was used by at least 14 Conservative MPs — including cabinet minister Michael Gove.
Despite Parler’s growing popularity, a hex was placed on the platform by tech giants Google, Apple and Amazon Web Services.
Critics of the site claimed that Parler was a hotbed of racism and xenophobia and that it was instrumental in the organisation of the Senate siege on January 6th. However, advocates argue that the app was a much needed deregulated platform and a bastion for free speech. The truth is, in-fact, rather more nuanced, abstract and juvenile than either camp would care to admit.
The home of many banned Twitter users, Parler was a popular platform with the same ‘deplorable’ demographic that brought Trump to power in 2016. Unlike its closest competitor Twitter, the microblogging site wasn’t weighed down by infighting. Instead, it presented a platform for political and ideological solidarity; where a love of political incorrectness was closely aligned with a love of conservatism, nationalism and, of course, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Communism was the great Satan on Parler — a shared enemy which the site’s faithful believed would be inevitably ushered in by the incoming Biden / Harris administration.
Ideological solidarity was partially why Parler’s ‘patriots’ suffered the QAnon conspiracy movement — as the site’s users were far more focused on commonality, rather than division, derision or exercising vitriol.
Ideological goals were voiced in a shared language, using shared key phrases to celebrate the umbilical between ‘we the people’. Posts, or ‘parlays’, were typically linked to articles by a rogues gallery of rightwing sources, including The Gateway Pundit, Brietbart and The Epoch Times.
Google was the first to remove Parler — maiming the platform by removing the social media app from its Play Store. The move was quickly followed with an even more significant blow, with Apple pulling the app from their App Store. Message boards across the internet lit-up, advising users to configure their settings so that Apple couldn’t remove the app remotely from their devices. This measure ultimately proved futile as less than 24 hours later Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest web hosting platform, performed a final coup de grâce — giving Parler a single day to find an alternative hosting solution before removing the platform from their servers.
Matze, who first found out about the move via a BuzzFeed article, told Fox News that at first, he thought Parler would find a new vendor. However, each avenue the company explored proved to be fruitless — with every vendor telling Matze: “Sorry, somebody said something. We can’t host you. Goodbye.”
Matze, who continues to seek a vender to support Parler, has since gone into hiding with his family — having received a series of death threats.
Addressing such big tech takedowns, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that it’s more likely: “Companies came to their own conclusions or were emboldened by the actions of others.” This tweet was no doubt designed to refute concerns that such attacks were coordinated or were politically motivated — and that Twitter’s recent removal of Donald Trump had simply had a crescendo effect across the industry.
However, Dorsey’s tweet could have far more worrying implications — suggesting that the politics and policies of the big tech firms are so uniform that such calculated direction is no longer necessary.
Apple CEO Tim Cook defended their suspension of the Parler App, telling the press that: “We don’t consider that [Parler] free speech.” And that certain posts represented “Incitement to violence.”
Apple’s offer to ‘ally’ with Parler is, of course, ill-conceived and possibly disingenuous— as any such merger would fail to accommodate Parler’s unique selling point as a ‘free speech’ platform.
A far more canny move may be for Parler to exercise patience in order to maintain their brand. With Elon Musk on the verge of launching his own internet satellite system, and a great deal of talk about Trump branching out into media — it may only be a matter of time before the platform, and its ‘patriots’ find a new home.
Lewis Craggs 