Parler CEO John Matze says he's been fired

NEW YORK — John Matze says he has been fired as CEO of Parler, which was among social media services used to plan the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Parler positioned itself as a social media platform free of censorship and has been favored by conservatives who view community guidelines from mainstream apps like Facebook and Twitter as biased and too restrictive.

However, it was Parler's refusal to remove posts that called for the killing, rape and torture of politicians, tech executives and others that resulted in Amazon booting the website from its web-hosting servers on Jan. 11.

Since Amazon removed Parler from its servers, the app has been mostly unusable and beset by technical difficulties. Google and Apple have also removed Parler’s app from their online stores.

Matze, in a post on the professional networking site LinkedIn, thanked Parler employees.

“This is not a goodbye. Just a so long for now," Matze wrote.