Conservative Website Parler Goes Offline

On 10 January, Apple suspended US social network Parler from its App Store, saying the microblogging service, which is popular with President Donald Trump's supporters, had failed to act on calls for violence related to the Capitol Hill riot.

The conservative website Parler went offline on Monday, a day after Amazon decided to suspend Parler from its web hosting service AWS.

The website will be down until it can find a new hosting partner. 

Parler was founded by computer engineer John Matze and Republican donor Rebekah Mercer and launched 2018. It worked much like a Twitter with "parleys" instead of tweets. 

It became the most-downloaded app in the Apple store a day after Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account before both Apple and Google cut off its access to their app stores.    

The app favoured by Trump supporters and conservatives has come under scrutiny following recent attacks on the US Capitol that left one policeman and four civilians dead. Reports say the protesters who besieged the Capitol on 6 January used Parler to coordinate their actions.

On 6 January, thousands of Trump supporters violently besieged the Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory.

The protesters attacked police with metal pipes and chemical irritants, damaged property, seized the inauguration stage, and occupied the rotunda inside the Capitol building.