Parler CEO confirms that Amazon will suspend Parler's AWS account on Jan. 10 at 11:59PM PST, says Parler may be unavailable on the internet for up to a week
from apps down to infrastructure — the higher the bar for banning content/users. Amazon booting Parler off AWS > Apple/Google banning Parler from app stores > Twitter banning Trump Would be more worried if Amazon had a monopoly in cloud. https://twitter.com/... @vincefalconi : If you want to understand why the tech workers in your life have been laughing maniacally about Parler's “we can rebuild the cloud in a week” announcement, here you go. https://twitter.com/... Kate Bevan / @katebevan : This is a great thread with a terrific q&a about what being booted off AWS actually means. Basically, game over for Parler. https://twitter.com/... Kenn White / @kennwhite : Great thread by Corey on the Parler hosting problem. In short: a) they're screwed, and b) this is a fairly rare action on the part of Amazon, at least at this scale. https://twitter.com/... Dina Bass / @dinabass : A good thread for those with questions about what Parler getting kicked off AWS means in a literal sense and why it may not have a lot of other options. https://twitter.com/... @mattaknox : @ggreenwald I'm all for breaking up and/or nationalizing these tech monopolies, but what is Amazon supposed to do in response to a client that refuses to take down calls to bomb their data centers? https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : This probably isn't top of mind, but Parler is not an ideal case study for the idea that we can solve content moderation questions by creating more competition in social networks. Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that Amazon was wrong to remove Parler from AWS, and I'm not saying the content on the service isn't clearly hate speech. I'm just saying that it troubles me when a hosting service bans someone, as it did when AWS removed WikiLeaks content Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Parler users finding out that abandoning Big Tech is not that simple https://twitter.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : The flood of tech companies deplatforming not just far-right accounts that incited or celebrated seditious violence after an insurrection but services that don't moderate that content is a watershed. Serious risks ahead. Beware use of DNS infrastructure: https://radar.oreilly.com/... @wiz : The Pirate Bay is self-hosted and operates its own ISP https://twitter.com/... Soona / @soonaorlater : Great point from The Pirate Bay co-founder. TPB was up against US, European, and Russian governments and had the foresight to self-host. https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Again, there is zero chance Apple, Google and especially Amazon are booting Parler in this moment simply because of the garbage on it and lack of moderation. There must be a significant, credible, documented threat that we'll learn about in weeks to come. Count on it. @davidu : People are overthinking the precedent or slippery slope issue. It went like this: AMZN lawyer: “Jeff, we're providing service to a site that advocates murder and assassinations, and was used to coordinate the capital bldg attack. It violates our TOS.” Bezos: “Kick them, thx.” https://twitter.com/... @davidu : Look, all Parler has to do is get a datacenter, lay down miles of fiber, set up peering, buy a ton of servers, build an IaaS stack, add a PaaS layer, port their app, and they are up and online. Easy. Jason Kint / @jason_kint : The CEO of Parler appears to be delusional among other things. https://twitter.com/... Congressman Ken Buck / @repkenbuck : Amazon crushes small businesses. They cheat and steal. Now they want to join Google and Facebook in censoring. I will be introducing legislation this Congress to hold Amazon accountable for their anticompetitive behavior. #BigTechReckoning https://twitter.com/... Corey Quinn / @quinnypig : A lot of assumptions about how the servers behave are “baked in” to how Parler (and any AWS hosted application) are built. A lot of companies don't realize that those assumptions are there until they try to move. That's why migrations take months / years. Parler has 30 hours. Catalin Cimpanu / @campuscodi : In the “epic burn” category, we have: https://twitter.com/... Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi / @brokep : The pirate bay, the most censored website in the world, started by kids, run by people with problems with alcohol, drugs and money, still is up after almost 2 decades. Parlor and gab etc have all the money around but no skills or mindset. Embarrassing. @antoniogm : When even the “content moderation” people are saying “whoah....let's pump the brakes here a bit...have we thought this through?” at the news of the entire Internet stack booting this or that entity, you know we're really living in special times. @goldietaylor : Also strange the poster doesn't understand server redundancy standards. https://twitter.com/... Peter Shankman / @petershankman : So is Four Seasons Web Hosting a thing yet? 😂 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Brian Fung / @b_fung : Parler now finds itself virtually homeless on the internet as the world's biggest tech companies have moved to boot it from their platforms: https://www.cnn.com/... Elizabeth Lopatto / @mslopatto : whine all you want about the social networks but AWS is the thing to be scared of https://twitter.com/... Pete Fraser / @petefrasermusic : Dudes on Parler: this is all about free speech and the technocracy silencing the little guy! We're doing nothing wrong! All replies on Parler: yeah, let's kill those bastards! We can make a plan for how to do it here on this website! https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
BuzzFeed News
Context & Ripple Effects
Parler had already been given a 24-hour ultimatum by Apple to adopt a full moderation policy before app-store removal. Apple then suspended the service, saying its safety measures were inadequate; Amazon’s action moves enforcement from distribution to the hosting layer.
The later coverage traces the operational fallout: Parler challenged Amazon in court and eventually reported that existing users could again access the service and that signups would reopen. That sequence makes the AWS suspension a test of how quickly a platform can recover after losing core infrastructure.
First-order effects
Parler faces a potential full-service outage rather than merely losing new mobile downloads, because AWS is suspending the account that supports its internet availability.
Amazon becomes the decisive infrastructure provider in a moderation dispute already escalated by Apple’s App Store suspension.
Second-order effects
Parler’s recovery requires replacing or rebuilding hosting capabilities before it can restore access; its subsequent return for existing users shows that restoration became the immediate operating priority.
The action compounds app-store enforcement: even a service that addressed distribution separately would still need infrastructure providers willing to host it.
Third-order effects
The episode establishes a layered gatekeeping pattern in which app stores and cloud hosts can each constrain a platform, making moderation policy consequential across more than one technical dependency.
Parler’s later lawsuit against Amazon signals that disputes over infrastructure enforcement may increasingly be framed as competition disputes as well as content-policy disputes.
The trend: Online-platform governance is extending from user-facing app distribution into the cloud infrastructure on which services depend.
So there's a lot of confusion about what Parler being kicked off of Amazon Web Services (@awscloud) means. Let me do a quick thread to explain it to folks who aren't deep in the technical weeds...
Twitter & FB ban accounts. “It's not censorship, you can create your own app.” Then Google & Apple ban apps. “It's not censorship, create your own website.” Then Amazon bans web hosting. “It's not censorship, create your own...” What? Your own internet? Just so you can tweet?
Here's a manic take for someone to pursue: AWS hosts cloud services for the CIA, which supports child-killing militias in Afghanistan, but won't let Parler-ites do free speech?
Hey @nandoodles, want to tag team this and see if we can get @gitlab to stop hosting Parler's codebase? They have to have a TOS about applications used to plan terrorist insurrection. https://twitter.com/...
IMO, the move by Apple and Google to remove Parler from their stores is I think much more significant than Facebook and Twitter's bans, and the move by AWS and Twilio to deny it service is more significant again. B2B suppliers acting as regulators by default.
Parler now won't work on any device, period. Amazon S3, one of the most powerful web hosting services in the industry, is cutting server access. Moving to a new hosting provider will take time, as the application is poorly coded. Possibly past the 20th. https://www.buzzfeednews.c…
Getting booted off of AWS is virtually unheard of; when people leave intentionally the planning takes months; execution can take years. It's a lot harder than you think for a few reasons.
When you're intentionally marketing your service to the personae non gratae, you can't simply rely on commercial services. You'll have to build everything from the ground up yourself. Good luck with all that. https://twitter.com/...
Whoa @awscloud shut down @parler_app backend? guessing this is well past censorship & there is a deep concern of domestic terrorism that exceeds what happened on Wednesday at the capital (which seems to have been designed to do more damage, with pipe bombs and guns). Thoughts?
Really eye opening that of all the injustices of the past few years, the one tech bros have decided to protest is big tech companies refusing to do business with an app that encourages killing politicians who want to raise their taxes and give everyone healthcare. 🤔
A right is something that can't be taken away from you. In the modern world, speech occurs online. If FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon all cancel you, to what court and under what legal theory can you appeal? There is none. Now explain how you still have a right to free speech.
1. Since a bunch of people are asking, here's my view of the Parler-AWS situation. Yes, Parler should be removed from AWS, but not the way it was done and not because Amazon feels like it or wants political favors from incoming Democrats.
They'll also be vulnerable, in this scenario, to DDOS attacks (unless Cloudflare agrees to work with them, or they pay serious money to stave off those attacks). I haven't seen any indication that Parler is any good at handling even their own users' loads.
I know that this is a Parler gloat, but I can't help but think that the main app in the App Store becoming an encrypted group chat app might end up being net worse for the outcome Jack is hoping for https://twitter.com/...
2/ Worth adding, whoever ends up hosting it will almost certainly have poorer cybersecurity than Amazon. The app itself takes almost no measures with your privacy. This means all of Parler are going to be sitting ducks for fraud, identity theft and stolen info.
Some thoughts on this: there are alternatives to AWS that you can switch to relatively easily. But not many, and I imagine most of the decent ones will also reject Parler. https://twitter.com/...
Maybe people shouldn't use the internet to foment violent revolutions against the country they lead. I mean, if you don't think that's ban-worthy then I can't help you. https://twitter.com/...
Amazon says it will no longer host Parler because the company has no good process for dealing with violent threats. Parler users respond by threatening to blow up Amazon data centers. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
5. We need the legal obligation for these platforms to carry all legal content, and a framework that makes business models fostering violence illegal. In other words, get rid of Section 230 and impose public utility rules. Any other path leads to censorship and authoritarianism.
Don't know who needs to hear this, but we're all pondering: 1) Will this turn into misguided survelliance 2) Do tech monopolies ultimately control too much 3) Will we lose OSINT visibility to RWE channels It's OK to do that and also approve of emergency measures to stop terror.
The further down the tech stack you go — from apps down to infrastructure — the higher the bar for banning content/users. Amazon booting Parler off AWS > Apple/Google banning Parler from app stores > Twitter banning Trump Would be more worried if Amazon had a monopoly in cloud. h…
If you want to understand why the tech workers in your life have been laughing maniacally about Parler's “we can rebuild the cloud in a week” announcement, here you go. https://twitter.com/...
Great thread by Corey on the Parler hosting problem. In short: a) they're screwed, and b) this is a fairly rare action on the part of Amazon, at least at this scale. https://twitter.com/...
A good thread for those with questions about what Parler getting kicked off AWS means in a literal sense and why it may not have a lot of other options. https://twitter.com/...
@ggreenwald I'm all for breaking up and/or nationalizing these tech monopolies, but what is Amazon supposed to do in response to a client that refuses to take down calls to bomb their data centers? https://twitter.com/...
This probably isn't top of mind, but Parler is not an ideal case study for the idea that we can solve content moderation questions by creating more competition in social networks.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that Amazon was wrong to remove Parler from AWS, and I'm not saying the content on the service isn't clearly hate speech. I'm just saying that it troubles me when a hosting service bans someone, as it did when AWS removed WikiLeaks content
The flood of tech companies deplatforming not just far-right accounts that incited or celebrated seditious violence after an insurrection but services that don't moderate that content is a watershed. Serious risks ahead. Beware use of DNS infrastructure: https://radar.oreilly.com…
Great point from The Pirate Bay co-founder. TPB was up against US, European, and Russian governments and had the foresight to self-host. https://twitter.com/...
Again, there is zero chance Apple, Google and especially Amazon are booting Parler in this moment simply because of the garbage on it and lack of moderation. There must be a significant, credible, documented threat that we'll learn about in weeks to come. Count on it.
People are overthinking the precedent or slippery slope issue. It went like this: AMZN lawyer: “Jeff, we're providing service to a site that advocates murder and assassinations, and was used to coordinate the capital bldg attack. It violates our TOS.” Bezos: “Kick them, thx.” htt…
Look, all Parler has to do is get a datacenter, lay down miles of fiber, set up peering, buy a ton of servers, build an IaaS stack, add a PaaS layer, port their app, and they are up and online. Easy.
Amazon crushes small businesses. They cheat and steal. Now they want to join Google and Facebook in censoring. I will be introducing legislation this Congress to hold Amazon accountable for their anticompetitive behavior. #BigTechReckoning https://twitter.com/...
A lot of assumptions about how the servers behave are “baked in” to how Parler (and any AWS hosted application) are built. A lot of companies don't realize that those assumptions are there until they try to move. That's why migrations take months / years. Parler has 30 hours.
The pirate bay, the most censored website in the world, started by kids, run by people with problems with alcohol, drugs and money, still is up after almost 2 decades. Parlor and gab etc have all the money around but no skills or mindset. Embarrassing.
When even the “content moderation” people are saying “whoah....let's pump the brakes here a bit...have we thought this through?” at the news of the entire Internet stack booting this or that entity, you know we're really living in special times.
Parler now finds itself virtually homeless on the internet as the world's biggest tech companies have moved to boot it from their platforms: https://www.cnn.com/...
Dudes on Parler: this is all about free speech and the technocracy silencing the little guy! We're doing nothing wrong! All replies on Parler: yeah, let's kill those bastards! We can make a plan for how to do it here on this website! https://twitter.com/...
Yes! Parler IS getting booted from Amazon Web Service #AWS. Guess insurrection and violent mobs don't play too well with Corporate Tech. https://twitter.com/...
NEWS Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service. This comes after Apple and Google have removed the app from their app stores. @JohnPaczkowski reports https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...