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Apple Removes the Free Speech Social Media App, Parler, from App Store

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The Capitol Hill Siege is one of the most unfortunate incidents. On Wednesday the Donald Trump Supporters came forward to protest against US President Joe Biden’s win. And, the social media company Parler has been accused of having a hand in igniting the riots. The accusation has resulted in the removal of this self-proclaimed ‘Twitter without rules’ app from Apple Store and the Google Play Store.

The Parler App

The Parler app is a community social media app, launched in August 2018 and headquarters in Henderson, Nevada. The app advertises itself as a free-speech app, and most of its users are right-wing extremists. The app has got a huge Donald Trump supporter community who, most of the time, are involved in posting content related to far-right, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theories. Since the company calls its app the platform for free speech, there is no filtration or moderation service for the posts on the platform.

Parler
Image Source: bbc.com

The app has become a home for the conservatives and the ones who have been banned from the mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for their hate speech or hateful posts. This app has also been the topic of criticism for being the cover for its right-extremist user-base. Noticeably, Donald Trump got banned from Facebook and Twitter recently, but on the other hand, the Parler app did not ban Trump from its platform. This act of Parler has attracted all the attention to itself.

The Removal from App Store

As mentioned before, the company does not include any moderation for the posts on the app, and it has been accused of being far-right itself. After the riots, the app is also being accused of supporting the protestors. According to Apple, it has warned Parler many times to update its policy and make some solid changes to it. And, when the riots took place on Wednesday, the California-based technology company Cupertino came forward and gave Parler 24 hours to represent new moderation and post-filter plan to Apple, so that to remain available on the Apple Store.

In return, Parler had told Apple that it is working on the moderation service for the last many weeks. But according to Apple, the company has shown no signs of improvement. Apple said in an email sent to Parler, “We have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action. It was not removing content that encourages illegal activity and poses a serious risk to the health and safety of users.” Apple further wrote, “We want to be clear that Parler is, in fact, responsible for all the user-generated content present on your service and for ensuring that this content meets App Store requirements for the safety and protection of our users.”

The Response from Parler

On the other hand, the CEO of Parler, John Matze, said in an interview that he and his company doesn’t feel responsible for the riots, “considering we’re a neutral town square that just adheres to the law.” Shortly after Apple removed the app from the App Store, Google also decided on taking down the app from the Google Play Store. Now there is news that Amazon is also looking forward to pulling its support from the app, as Parler is using the AWS services, but again, was found to be violating the AWS Acceptable Use Policy.

The reaction of the Users of Parler

The action led to the criticism of Apple by the conservatives and users of the Parler app. One of the Parler app investors, Dan Bongino, who was also banned from Twitter some time ago, wrote on the site, “The tech tyrants at Apple have pulled the app from their App Store. Apple is no different than the Chinese communist party in its preference for totalitarian thought control. I’m proud of the remaining liberty-loving people of this great country. And I’m embarrassed, and horrified by the tech totalitarians who’ve taken control of it.”

It is really strange to see that Parler has been on the top of all the News apps on the Apple Store and among the top 13 apps on the top charts of non-gaming apps on the Apple store, despite all the complaints against the app. For now, though it is no more available on Apple Store and Google Play Store, people who have the app on their phones will still be able to use the app.

Sean Rad : The Founding Memeber and Former CEO of Tinder

Founder, Social media, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Digitalization has made every activity so convenient for us that we can literally do anything with a swipe of our fingers. Moreover, the younger generation prefers doing everything through the internet, starting from shopping, payment, booking shows, and even, finding a perfect date unless they happen to meet under the mistletoe. Now, how great it would be to use a mobile app where you can find a perfect match only by swiping left or right? Tinder is one such mobile dating app, using which you can chat with other users and find a ‘good match’ for yourself.

The app provides the option to swipe right if you like someone’s profile and the other way around if you don’t like any. The app was launched in 2012, and in less than a couple of months, it grew to a million users. Tinder was founded by Sean Rad, along with Justin Mateen, Jonathan Badeen and many other executive members. Rad was also the former CEO of the company. One of the founding members, Whitney Wolfe, left Tinder after some time to work on another dating app, Bumble.

Early Life

Born into an Iranian family, Rad moved to Los Angeles with his parents in 1970s and settled in Beverly Hills. His parents worked in the technology industry, which might be one reason why he knew tech very well. Since his childhood, Rad was passionate about doing something big in life and making his life worthy.

Sean Rad
Image Source: businessinsider.in

When Rad was in high school, he did an internship as an entertainment manager, and that’s how he realized that he can make money even from the things he enjoyed doing. Though Rad and Mateen went to different schools, they knew each other since they were fourteen.

Higher Education and Career

Rad started pioneering in the world of technology since he was just eighteen and launched Orgoo, his first startup that was envisioned to build a webmail service. Both Rad and Mateen went to the University of Southern California, but Rad dropped out after a couple of years, to explore the entrepreneurial world and developed a platform called Adly, in the mid-2000s.

These two young entrepreneurs, along with other members, launched Tinder in 2012 and promoted the app heavily in various college campuses. They knew very well, where they could grab the most attention, and thus, gained a billion swipes per day, within a couple of years of Tinder.

Success of Tinder

A year after the release of Tinder, the app received TechCrunch’s Crunchie Award for ‘Best New Startup of 2013’. In March 2013, the company realised the application was used only in a few localities, and hence, Alexa Mateen, social media director, promoted it in other college campuses as well. And by May 2013, Tinder became one of the top twenty-five social networking apps on the basis of users. The frequency of users kept rising, which made Tinder the first online dating app as one of the top five online utilized applications.

In 2014 Webby Awards, the company was named as ‘breakout of the year’, and by October 2014, the application finally incorporated swiping motion and processed more than a billion swipes per day. It made around twelve million matches per day, which is appreciable for a company, which is only two years old. In 2015, the company launched a new feature to let the user access the profiles they rejected earlier, but chatting of two users was only possible when both of them swiped right. Apart from this, a lot of new features were added and deleted from the app in 2015. Tinder’s main complementing site was Facebook, as the user needed to connect their Facebook account with the app for profile verification.

In September 2016, Tinder came in partnership with Vina, a social networking app, and tested ‘Tinder Boost’ in Australia. In October 2016, it went live around the world, which basically, allowed your profile to be on top in your area for 30 minutes. In the same month, Tinder announced the opening of their first office in Silicon Valley, such that to enhance the quality of the employees. In November 2016, the app introduced more freedom on the grounds of choosing gender, breaking the typical mindset of society. This feature raised the number of users by a hefty amount, and by 2018, Tinder had over 3.7 million paid subscribers. The company is now deciding to launch a lighter version of the app, called Tinder Lite, which will take relatively less storage space and consume lesser data.

Majority of the Tinder, today, is under the acquisition of IAC and its subsidiary, Match Group. Till 2018, Rad changed positions quite a number of times, stepping down from the position of CEO and getting back in the helm again. But, in August 2018 a lawsuit was filed against IAC by a group of Tinder employees including Rad. They are suing IAC of alleged stock information and seeking at least $2billion in damages.

Facebook Cuts Off Huawei From Pre-Installing its Apps On Phones

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Huawei Facebook
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The U.S. has been trying hard to pull out most of the Chinese firms operating in the country, giving the reason of national security threat due to the data breaches, Huawei being the primary target. Recently, the U.S. authority has released a blacklisting of the Chinese tech firms, responding to which, Facebook has announced that it will stop pre-installation of its popular social networking apps on Huawei smartphones and other devices.

This way, Facebook will become the first U.S. company to cut-off Huawei from using its app. Last month, Google had also announced that it would cut ties to Huawei, to make it harder for the company to get access to the U.S. apps. As soon as Google bans Huawei from using its app, firstly Huawei will be isolated from using Google Play Store, which is the single place where all the Android apps can be obtained. So for the company, it can be quite difficult to sustain in other countries as well.

Facebook’s decision has come right after the release of Washington blacklisting, and as a response of President Donald Trump’s orders of barring Huawei from US technology exports.

“We are reviewing the Commerce Department’s final rule and the more recently issued temporary general license and taking steps to ensure compliance.” said a spokesperson from Facebook.

Since Facebook is already banned in China, the barring of Facebook app for Huawei won’t affect much the Facebook’s user base.

On the matter, Huawei has come out with the decision to build its own operating system to run on its smartphone and other cellular devices. And if Google also pulls its support for Huawei, it will also need to build a Play Store kind of marketplace for its users to access the various apps at a single place.

Washington has imposed the U.S. sanction starting from May 15 and has provided the U.S. companies with a stretch of 90 days to follow the same. Since all the U.S. technology companies need to end their partnership with Huawei, the latter would also need to look for reliable hardware suppliers. As it has been dependent on the U.S. companies, like Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, for chips and the other hardware supplies.