The social media purge of right-wing accounts and platforms continues in the wake of the Washington D.C. riots at the Capitol this past Wednesday.
The latest victim? Parler in the Apple App Store.
Parler, a social network that pitches itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter and Facebook, is suffering from whiplash.
Over the past several months, Parler has become one of the fastest-growing apps in the United States. Millions of President Trump’s supporters have flocked to it as Facebook and Twitter increasingly cracked down on posts that spread misinformation and incited violence, including muzzling Mr. Trump by removing his accounts this past week. By Saturday morning, Apple listed Parler as the No. 1 free app for its iPhones.
But hours later, Apple said it had removed Parler from its App Store. Google had made a similar move a day earlier. The companies both said that Parler had not sufficiently policed the conversation on its app, allowing too many posts that encouraged violence and crime.
“We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity,” Apple said in a statement late Saturday. “Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety.”
New York Times
Apple has now joined Google in removing the social media platform from their app stores. Google did so Friday, however, Apple was giving Parler 24-hours to address “content management issues”. It’s unclear at this point if Parler took any action in that regard, but needless to say if they did, it obviously wasn’t enough for satisfy Apple.