The ramifications here are significant.

We are just beginning to absorb what the deactivation of Parler from the coordinated hit by the tech giants means on the communications front going forward. After becoming delisted by Apple and Google the social platform was entirely taken down from the servers of Amazon AWS, where it resided. As of today, Parler has no services as it looks for alternatives, but now some more details emerge behind the decision.

Glenn Greenwald has been looking into details surrounding those involved in the attack on the Capitol, a relevant exploration as this was held as the cause for Big Tech targeting Parler. It was declared that those who attacked police and forced their way into the Congressional chambers and offices were inspired to violence and plotted their attack on Parler, aided by that service having lax oversight on content. Since that platform was cited as the forum where treasonous acts were planned it was used as justification to have it hauled down.

Greenwald has been looking into the details behind the arrests and found some telling details. In a thread, he wrote on some eye-opening factors, such as a Democratic House committee issuing concerns over the concentrated power in Silicon Valley, and the ACLU expressing its disapproval of the move to see Parler going dark. Greenwald details that he has been looking into the specs of those arrested for the Capitol attack.

Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler?

Zero.

The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silencing competitors on ideological grounds: just the start.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 11, 2021

Now, it has shown that some of the participants had Parler accounts, but the telling detail is that if it is shown the bulk of the planning of these attackers in fact took place on FaceBook that leads to two significant details. The first is the grounds that Parler was cited over to justify its removal. While it is probable Parler hosted some of the plotting it seems unreasonable to assume it was limited to only that platform and a select few other Trump-specific locations.

If, as Greenwald suggests, other sites like FaceBook and Twitter were also instrumental in the planning of the attack that creates a severe problem. The reason given for its removal was that Parler did not regulate this speech enough, but how would Twitter and FaceBook be excused if they do supposedly have policies in place and these plans still took place? How are these sites excused if they have TOS standards that did little to halt these plots?

There is a lot to question still, especially since there have been some Parler accounts featured that showed the planning taking place. But how was Parler singled out, and how do the social media accounts with a far larger online footprint and more likely activity escaping responsibility, to say nothing about being permitted to maintain their presence? There is more to be revealed, to be sure.

Parler, meanwhile, is attempting a lawsuit it just filed with Amazon, over the elimination of its platform from their servers. It could become one of the grounds that if other social media outlets also are shown to have fostered the planning of the attack that the punishment meted out to Parler was an overstep and might lead to it becoming reinstated.