As Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. banished users and groups supporting the violent mobs at the U.S. Capitol last week including President Donald Trump himself downloads surged for a less restrictive social media app called Parler. But in an effort to prevent further riot organizing, Googl.
For years, large tech companies claimed to be content-neutral. Now, they are realising how much power they have over public conversation including over apps they didn’t create.
As Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. banished users and groups supporting the violent mobs at the U.S. Capitol last week including President Donald Trump himself downloads surged for a less restrictive social media app called Parler. But in an effort to prevent further riot organizing, Google Inc. and Apple Inc. booted Parler from their app stores, and Amazon.com Inc. shut off its web services. “We will not cave to pressure from anti-competitive actors!” John Matze, Parler Inc.’s chief executive officer, said on his site Friday. “We WON’T cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech!”