Data stores on AWS are not secured by default - you have to take an extra step to do that.

Was downloading unsecured AWS data 'hacking'? Personally, I don't think so - but it's rude to go poking in someone's unsecured data. I don't do it for that reason.

Why was Parler in an unsecured AWS store? Beats me, but these are the people who got the Four Seasons hotel and the Four Seasons landscaping service somehow mixed up, so it's all of a piece.

FWIW it's pretty amazing what's unsecured on AWS so they're not alone.

[edit] OK, my bad. It wasn’t an unsecured store — it was an unsecured API, plus the super-noob mistake of naming all pages sequentially — that allowed the site-scrape. Accessing a site through an unsecured API is a little bit closer to hacking but still nothing close to the ‘breaking in’ implied in ‘hacking’. [/edit]