Parler, the social network favoured by conservatives and extremists is having a rough week, communication platform Signal is getting a lot of love recently, and a sneak peek at this year’s CES event.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Monday, January 11, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
BuzzFeed News is reporting that Amazon has notified Parler that it would be cutting off the social network from its cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services. The suspension, which went into effect on Sunday just before midnight, means that Parler will be unable to operate and will go offline unless it can find another hosting service. Parler, which was launched in 2018, has become a safe haven for people banned by popular sites including Facebook and Twitter. Amazon’s latest move comes on the heels of Apple banning Parler from its App Store on Saturday after the platform failed to introduce a moderation plan to protect public safety.
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After updating its terms of service and revealing to the world that WhatsApp has been sharing data with its Facebook mothership for the past several years, Signal has entered the limelight to soak up abandoners of the app. On a Reddit thread last week, a Signal spokesperson wrote that “We are currently having a record level of downloads for the Signal app around the world.” Both Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey recently tweeted their support of Signal as news of WhatsApp spread. Signal is an open-sourced nonprofit organization with tens of millions of downloads on both the Apple and Google Play store.
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And lastly, while it’s sporting a different look this time around thanks to a virtual platform, there’s no shortage of news and products to expect when the show kicks off this week. Business laptops will be one of the hot ticket items. You might see a few folding screens and colourful gaming rigs, but COVID-19 and the remote workforces that emerged, as a result, signalled the need for better webcams, microphones, and perhaps most importantly, better security features. Lenovo, Microsoft, Dell and MSI are just some of the brands we’ll be keeping an eye out for. Stay tuned to ITWorldCanada.com for more coverage.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening!