The Atlantic
The app that stoked the insurrection is gone, but something else is destined to replace it.
On the last day of Parler, the vibe was electric.
It was the weekend after supporters of President Donald Trump had stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the election. With just more than a 24-hour warning, the “free speech social network” and aspiring Twitter alternative was being cut off by its cloud-hosting provider, Amazon Web Services. There were all-caps claims that “antifa” was actively taking over New York City, dressed in riot gear. There was rampant speculation about whether Trump had invoked the Insurrection Act, for reasons unclear. There was discussion of how Parler’s removal from the internet might be an event proving the validity of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the beginning of a mythical “10 days of darkness,” to precede the violent denouement of a global satanic plot. The company’s CEO, John Matze, posted frenzied pro