After the permanent suspension of the US president’s accounts on traditional social networks, it remained to be seen how quickly and where – if there was a platform capable of taking the risk – both Trump and his millions of followers would find shelter. They found it in alternative networks such as Parler, Gab and Telegram, which have once again been on everyone’s lips after receiving with open arms the earthquake of users who came singing a hymn on freedom of expression, with Parler being the favorite digital scene. But a few days later, Google, Apple and Amazon ended what some called a “digital revolution” in a matter of minutes: they removed Parler’s application from their app store and suspended his web hosting service. Now the platform is engaged in a battle unable to win, as issues such as censorship and the power of the tech giants come to the fore.
David vs. Goliath
Parler’s is a fight on different fronts. It is a battle headed by a tiny platform, if its number of users –10 million according to Sensor Tower – is compared to the power of the GAFA (name by which the group of mega companies is known: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Manzana). It is a David and Goliath-style scenario, but with a different ending in which, according to experts, there is no wave and Goliath wins. First, he has decided to sue Amazon, who provided him with the cloud storage service. In the lawsuit, the platform accuses Jeff Bezos’ company of “antitrust violation, breach of contract and interference in the company’s business relationships with users” and has requested a federal court for a temporary restraining order against Amazon as it states that “you violated your contract by not providing you with a 30-day notice of termination.”
But Natalia Martos, an expert in new technology law and founder of Legal Army, sees it differently. “The lawsuit seems more like an act of repairing Parler’s reputation after having violated the conditions of his contract with Amazon by supporting Trump’s followers and offering them a space to continue expressing their opinions contrary to the rule of law.” Although the Amazon service was cut off prematurely, what matters to the expert is “the eventual violation of rights that could be committed in Parler” and to which Amazon could have joined had it not closed its service of hosting (storage). More than a David and Goliath, Martos sees it as the whim of a child against an adult. “It is a smokescreen that aims to distract the judiciary and public opinion from Parler’s possible complicity with groups that violate the fundamental rights of people. I understand that this demand will not prosper and that, therefore, it will not be able to set any precedent, ”confirms Martos.
But that’s just one front in the battle. Parler CEO John Mazte will also face the removal of his app from the Apple (IOs) and Google (Android) app stores. Mazte admitted the possibility that his company’s services would be unavailable for a week, but assured that he would restore them “from scratch.” And that will make you face the giants. And that he will win that contest. But for this you will quickly need a new server company where you can host your entire infrastructure. Few trust that it can achieve it. “It will be very difficult for a social network to survive without that download hub via Apple and Google and without Amazon’s hosting services, as they had planned. A large investment should be made and they would not have the guarantee of success, ”predicts David Álvarez, digital analyst and social media consultant.
But just as few believed that a group of protesters was capable of invading and storming the United States Capitol in broad daylight at the instigation of its own president, while congressmen were holding a session, so it may be that Parler gets what he wants. has proposed. “Perhaps its success is to generate and manage large digital spaces for the coexistence and organization of all the diverse groups of the extreme right, such as Alt-Right, Proud Boys or QAnon and they would not have a direct relationship with the rest of the digital communities that we coexist on Twitter or Facebook ”reflects Álvarez, but without being convinced.
The big ones also lose
In 2020 and in the few days that add up to 2021, the technological giants have acted in coordination, demonstrating the imminent power they wield, especially the GAFA. So much so, as to silence the president of the United States and all the platforms that his followers find to convey his message, not without violence, racism, fake news, hatred and division. Its power and control of the digital space worries experts and has ignited all the alerts, especially from the European and American authorities, who see a monster without a leash in the GAFA oligopoly.
“I see with great concern the role that the technological giants are currently playing, not only because of that oligopoly, but because of all the political and social consequences that their own operation generates. They are not businesses implanted worldwide that generate great benefits, they are much more than that and the measures they take to solve the problems that are generated in their platforms have not been effective so far, ”says Álvarez. But this time, the economy has not been on his side. Following the Capitol scandal and Trump’s blocking of traditional social media, GAFA and Twitter have lost value. Shares of Facebook fell 4.01% (to $ 256.84) and those of Jack Dorsey’s company 11% (to $ 45.8).
Along the same lines, Pavel Sidorenko, professor and researcher at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Francisco de Vitoria University, highlights the work that European work has done in relation to the GAFA. “The EU has been advancing rules and laws against this concentration of powers by technology companies, but more political will is needed to establish rules of the game that distribute responsibilities and opportunities among more technology players.” Álvarez agrees. “Either the States and the technology companies get to work in a coordinated and cooperative way or we will continue in the current dynamics: loose measures of the technological ones and state regulations based on irrelevant fines for them,” explains Álvarez.
Although the blocking of Trump’s accounts has been a very strong blow for the president and has shown the world that before the GAFA, even the leader of a world power can be silenced, not everything has been bad for the Republican. Sidorenko points out that the speed with which technology companies acted is taking its toll on them and is benefiting Trump. “In the heat of events and in the face of the spiral of violence that was brewing in the United States, I think that the technology companies agreed that they had to act, but today they see that perhaps they have done it in an excessive way.” Sidorenko believes that even the permanent suspension of Trump’s accounts was somewhat extreme and that the networks had to “silence the president’s profiles, without deleting all his activity.” “I think that the severity and forcefulness with which they proceeded deepened the hatred of the most radical group and alerted the undecided. In other words, Trump has become a victim and his followers have become more fanatical, ”the professor details.
But where there was fire, ashes remain. “The fact that Parler ceases to exist does not prevent the emergence of a new platform that brings together the radical collective, which allows not only to recycle the discourse and enhance the constructed ideal (it is fundamental for them), but also to attract curious and undecided people, which feeds more the monster, ”explains Sidorenko and suggests that the new Parler will work in the shadows,“ thus resulting in a more dangerous scenario ”.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/parler-vs-big-tech-the-impossible-battle/
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