President Donald Trump has been kicked off of most mainstream social media platforms following his supporters’ siege on the U.S. Capitol. But it remains to be seen how fast or where - if anywhere - on the internet he will be able to reach his followers.
The far right-friendly Parler had been the leading candidate, at least until Google and Apple removed it from their app stores and Amazon booted it off its web hosting service just after midnight Pacific time early Monday. Parler’s CEO said that could knock it offline for a week, though that might prove optimistic.
And even if it finds a friendlier web-hosting service, without a smartphone app, it's hard to imagine Parler gaining mainstream success. The 2-year-old magnet for the far right claims more than 12 million users, though mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower puts the number at 10 million worldwide, with 8 million in the U.S. That's a fraction of the 89 million followers Trump had on Twitter.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll bring you up to speed on how social media platforms are responding to last week’s events, plus look at the road ahead for the impeachment process House Democrats announced today
With files from the Associated Press
Guests:
Ashley Gold, tech reporter for Axios; she tweets
Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University; author of “Impeachment: An American History,” (Random House Publishing Group, 2018); he tweets
Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA; he tweets