in case you missed it, last night Amazon decided to kick Parler off its Web hosting service tonight at midnight Pacific (3 am Eastern), citing a rash of incendiary and violent posts that render Parler “a very real threat to public safety.” It’s not likely that any reputable Webhost will take Parler on. Combined with Apple and Google kicking Parler out of their app stores, Parler is likely on the brink of going out of business.
Parler CEO John Matze has threatened to go to court. But any lawsuit is likely to go nowhere fast. When Apple decided to throw Parler out of the App Store, it noted that Parler was allowing content that was banned under its own TOS. From Apple’s letter to Parler:
Our investigation has found that Parler is not effectively moderating and removing content that encourages illegal activity and poses a serious risk to the health and safety of users in direct violation of your own terms of service, found here: https://legal.parler.com/documents/Elaboration-on-Guidelines.pdf
I had a look at that TOS, which I downloaded for myself given the likely event that Parler will disappear from the clearnet tonight. It turns out that Apple raised an eyebrow to Parler’s apparent disregard for Section 6 of that document, “Threats of Violence, Advocacy of Imminent Lawless Action, Threats to Dox, Bribery or Criminal Solicitation.” Specifically, these sections (emphasis mine):
(R)eported parleys, comments, or messages sent using our service will be deemed a violation of these Guidelines if they contain:
6.1.1 a “serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals,” with either the intent or reckless disregard as to whether the communication will “place the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”
6.1.2 an explicit or implicit encouragement to use violence, or to commit a lawless action, such that: (a) the Parleyer intends his or her speech to result in the use of violence or lawless action, and (b) the imminent use of violence or lawless action is the likely result of the parley, comment, or message.
Looking at this, Matze must have some really bad or really frustrated lawyers. After all, as we’ve seen, Parler has allowed a smorgasbord of posts that blatantly violate these principles.
If Matze were to make good on his threat to sue Apple, chances are that Apple’s lawyers could simply introduce Parler’s TOS as Exhibit A. Google and Amazon would likely follow suit. Courts don’t look very kindly on people who disregard their own rules and procedures.
So for all of Parler’s bleating and screeting about being squeezed by Big Tech, it only has itself to blame for effectively being driven out of existence. And it’s all the more reason we shouldn’t mourn its likely passing.