Following Trump's ban on Facebook and Twitter, alternative social apps and private messengers top the app stores, including Signal, Telegram, MeWe, and CloutHub
A handful of unelected tech executives have tremendous influence on public discourse. Tweets: Evan Greer / @evan_greer : i know no one wants to hear this but it is a short path from Apple, Google, and Facebook dropping Parler (a shit show hellsite) to those same companies being pressured to drop apps like Signal. At a certain point we need to decide where moderation should and shouldn't happen... @webdevmason : There's little doubt that Signal is being used by the most unhinged and violent 0.001%, rioters, self-proclaimed revolutionaries. And, of course, the rest of us. There's no end to what can be justified if the actions of the craziest 0.001% drive policymaking and tool access. https://twitter.com/... Erik Hinton / @erikhinton : I dunno why conservatives are so mad about the App Store and Amazon and Google kicking off Parler. If there is enough value, the market will simply create a new Apple, Amazon and Google to support Parler. That's just basic economics. @gwensnyderphl : With Parler down, there are going to be a ton of white supremacists switching to (or back to) @Telegram, a company that has sheltered some of the worst, most explicitly pro-terror Nazi groups for years now. RT to tell @apple & @google to KICK TELEGRAM OFF their app stores, too. Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald : Tech monopolies — FB, Google, Apple, Amazon — have more concentrated wealth & power than any in history. They have used brute force 3 times in 3 months to manipulate US politics: censoring NY Post, banning Trump, destroying Parler. And liberals are overwhelmingly supportive. @albertwenger : Dropping Parler at the platform level sets a terrible precedent. https://twitter.com/... @kurteichenwald : “Parler was banned” lie must end. It wasnt. Parler was told by Amazon/Apple/Google to comply with TOS by moderating, removing violence threats. Refused. A, A & G could be liable for violence if they allow Parler to violate TOS. Parler thought it deserved to break rules. It doesnt Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald : The ACLU in NYT on why the union of Silicon Valley monopolies — Apple, Google and Amazon — to remove Parler from the internet is so problematic. While ACLU is largely just a liberal pressure group now, they still have some real civil liberties lawyers: https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : An addendum: @jilliancyork has compiled some excellent points about the “precedent” of the Trump ban here. Big social networks have banned far more vulnerable people for worse reasons for years. https://jilliancyork.com/... Danny Trinh / @dtrinh : Interview question: You are the head of Product at Parlor and wake up to explosive growth from Parler. What do you do? https://twitter.com/... Jack Nicas / @jacknicas : Parler was the nation's hottest app. Then the tech giants pulled their support. Now it's fighting for its life. Here's the full tale on how Parler became the new test case for free speech online. with @daveyalba: https://www.nytimes.com/... Tero Kuittinen / @teroterotero : “Parlor” is a fairly bad app - it's like “Clubhouse” for poor people - but now it's also flooded with confused and angry MAGA consumers https://twitter.com/...
TechCrunchSarah Perez
Context & Ripple Effects
The removals of Parler by Apple, Google, and Amazon made distribution and infrastructure access part of the same content-governance dispute that followed Facebook and Twitter's bans. The immediate chart gains for Signal, Telegram, MeWe, and CloutHub show where users looked when major platforms narrowed access.
Signal, Telegram, MeWe, and CloutHub gain immediate app-store visibility as users seek alternatives to Facebook and Twitter.
Parler loses key distribution and hosting channels, while Apple, Google, and Amazon become the immediate arbiters of whether it can reach users at scale.
Second-order effects
Alternative social and messaging services inherit the same moderation burden; related coverage describes content rules as an existential operational issue for many services, not merely a policy choice.
App-store and cloud access becomes a compliance lever: Parler's later reinstatement ties renewed distribution to moderation measures, giving Apple and Google durable influence over adjacent platforms' rules.
Third-order effects
If this access-based enforcement model persists, social-platform competition will be shaped not only by audiences and features but by the ability to satisfy infrastructure and app-store governance requirements.
The episode points to platform gatekeepers exercising power across the full access stack—social reach, app distribution, and hosting—rather than within any single service.
The trend: Content moderation is becoming an access-layer governance system, with app stores and cloud providers determining which social platforms can scale alongside the networks themselves.
i know no one wants to hear this but it is a short path from Apple, Google, and Facebook dropping Parler (a shit show hellsite) to those same companies being pressured to drop apps like Signal. At a certain point we need to decide where moderation should and shouldn't happen...
There's little doubt that Signal is being used by the most unhinged and violent 0.001%, rioters, self-proclaimed revolutionaries. And, of course, the rest of us. There's no end to what can be justified if the actions of the craziest 0.001% drive policymaking and tool access. http…
I dunno why conservatives are so mad about the App Store and Amazon and Google kicking off Parler. If there is enough value, the market will simply create a new Apple, Amazon and Google to support Parler. That's just basic economics.
With Parler down, there are going to be a ton of white supremacists switching to (or back to) @Telegram, a company that has sheltered some of the worst, most explicitly pro-terror Nazi groups for years now. RT to tell @apple & @google to KICK TELEGRAM OFF their app stores, too.
Tech monopolies — FB, Google, Apple, Amazon — have more concentrated wealth & power than any in history. They have used brute force 3 times in 3 months to manipulate US politics: censoring NY Post, banning Trump, destroying Parler. And liberals are overwhelmingly supportive.
“Parler was banned” lie must end. It wasnt. Parler was told by Amazon/Apple/Google to comply with TOS by moderating, removing violence threats. Refused. A, A & G could be liable for violence if they allow Parler to violate TOS. Parler thought it deserved to break rules. It doesnt
The ACLU in NYT on why the union of Silicon Valley monopolies — Apple, Google and Amazon — to remove Parler from the internet is so problematic. While ACLU is largely just a liberal pressure group now, they still have some real civil liberties lawyers: https://www.nytimes.com/...…
An addendum: @jilliancyork has compiled some excellent points about the “precedent” of the Trump ban here. Big social networks have banned far more vulnerable people for worse reasons for years. https://jilliancyork.com/...
Parler was the nation's hottest app. Then the tech giants pulled their support. Now it's fighting for its life. Here's the full tale on how Parler became the new test case for free speech online. with @daveyalba: https://www.nytimes.com/...
2019: Courts ruled Trump was not allowed to block critics on Twitter because it was “unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.” 2021: Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, Snapchat & Discord are given carte blanche to discriminate away.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has blasted Twitter's decision to permanently suspend President Trump's account. “The chancellor considers it problematic that the president's accounts have been permanently suspended.” https://www.cnbc.com/...
“You cannot understand the role that technology will play in a society if you don't understand the society in question”. Me, many times. In the context of German politics and society this is absolutely consistent. https://twitter.com/...
Merkel has a point when she thinks that, “governments, not private companies, should decide on any limitations to freedom of speech”, however Germany and the US are different countries. While Germany allows state broadcasters, the US doesn't. https://www.cnbc.com/...
The lady surely stands out - Germany's Merkel hits out at Twitter over ‘problematic’ Trump ban. https://www.cnbc.com/... “Private companies should not be deciding limits of free speech but the governments.”
The president desperately wishes he could tweet about this right now...one of this chief foreign leader rivals taking his side. https://twitter.com/...
What makes Merkel's comments particularly striking — apart from her well-reported acrimony with Trump — is, as @AliceFromQueens noted, Europe generally and Germany specifically have far less permissive free speech traditions than the US. Yet even Merkel finds this alarming.
Angela Merkel disagrees with deplatforming of Trump. I am sympathetic, but circumstances are exceptional: - insurrection was an armed assault on government - platforms empowered insurrection and feel pressure to limit their legal jeopardy, as more attacks are being planned. https…
“Problematic” - that's what German Chancellor Angela Merkel thinks about the moves to suspend US President Donald Trump from Twitter and Facebook. Her spokesman explains why: https://twitter.com/...
WTF I love Angela Merkel now Not really but I'm glad she can see this with a perspective outside the sphere controlled by Google and Facebook mindspaces. https://twitter.com/...
AFP: Germany's Angela Merkel believes ban on Trump's Twitter account is “problematic” because freedom of opinion should not be determined by online platform bosses
She's not infallible like some people seem to think Inciting violence doesn't fall under “freedom of opinion,” this is a precedent known for a long time in American jurisprudential doctrine under “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” An embarrassing defense from Merkel. https://t…
How many of the articles talking about Merkel's statement totally and completely ignore that at the same time Merkel says this, her government is participating in an effort to force internet companies to take down “online harms” within 24 hours? https://twitter.com/...
I've seen people claim last week was an unprecedented attack on free speech on the Internet. As @jilliancyork points out this is simply not true. Social media sites regularly suspend govt accounts all over the world. Nor can you host ISIS content anywhere https://jilliancyork.com…
Social media as a domain of conflict, via @peterwsinger “The reverberations of Trump's deplatforming as part of this larger shift will shake out over the long term... it fundamentally alters the playing field... this shift is long overdue.” https://www.defenseone.com/...
@WillOremus We're not neutral. No platform is neutral, we all have values and those values influence the decisions we make. We try and be apolitical, but that's increasingly difficult, particularly in the US where people are more and more polarized.
Facebook's Oversight Board says it is “closely following” how Facebook dealt with events in the US last week. It could recommend reversing Trump's ban (though not overrule it) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ ...
FB confirms to me that it is “able” to send the status of Trump's account (indefinitely blocked from posting but not fully suspended with profile removed) to the external Oversight Board for a binding decision on how it should permanently treat Trump's account. It hasn't done so.
Oversight Board spokesperson in response to this: “We don't comment on cases that may or may not have been referred to the Board before they're announced.” Said Facebook blocking Trump's ability to post could be reviewed by the board if Facebook referred it as a case. https://twi…
Head of Instagram says it's “increasingly difficult” for tech companies to be apolitical. Big shift in the Facebook-owned company's tone from even a few months ago. https://twitter.com/...
Agreed! Why should @OversightBoard exist if not to quickly and expeditiously take up Trump's use of the platform? It seems specifically intended for a moment this like. Failure to take up this case would prove it to be no more than a Supreme Kangaroo Content Court. https://twitte…
Sandberg says at 36:42 that Trump could appeal to the @OversightBoard himself. I don't think that's right (https://t.co/...) and I'm not saying I prolly know the board's bylaws better than Sandberg but I'm not NOT saying that. & only Fb can enliven the “expedited” process https:/…
“The whole point of the board is ... to weigh in on the platform's ‘most difficult and significant content decisions.’ Suspending the account of the leader of the free world more than fits this bill.” https://www.lawfareblog.com/ ...
Donald Trump may be a horrible, corrupt man who foments violence, but above all other things he is a poster. When a poster loses the right to post, all of us die just a little. Rest in Posting Donnie