CEO Says Parler May Not Return

John Matze

Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, CEO John Matze told Reuters.

As a procession of business vendors severed ties with the two-year-old site following the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if it will return.

After this story was published, Matze added: “I am an optimist. It may take days, it may take weeks but Parler will return and when we do we will be stronger.”

Matze said that Parler was talking to more than one cloud computing service but refused to disclose names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could get back on Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon cut off the social media platform, which styles itself as a “free-speech” space and is favored by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, from its servers this weekend for failing to effectively moderate violent content.

In the interview, Matze said its relationship with Amazon appeared to deteriorate overnight and without much warning, an assessment that Amazon disputes in legal filings.

Parler asks U.S. court to order Amazon to restore service to social media app

By November, Amazon had received reports that Parler hosted threatening content in what it says breached the companies’ agreement, according to an Amazon legal filing. Amazon flagged over 100 examples to a Parler executive, such as content exhorting people to “Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets,” the filing said.

In another court filing Wednesday, Parler said that Amazon had not provided proof that the platform was used to incite and organize the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol siege. It called Amazon’s termination of its services “catastrophic.”