EXCLUSIVE – Parler CEO John Matze is “confident” that his social media platform will be online again in the near future, after his team managed to launch a static website and retrieve company data over the weekend in a series of positive developments.
“I am confident that by the end of the month we will be back,” Matze told Fox News during a telephone interview on Sunday night.
Parler CEO John Matze is “confident” that his social media platform will be back online in the near future, after his team managed to launch a static website and retrieve company data over the weekend.
Parler registered his domain with host sharing site Epik last week, after Amazon Web Services’ decision to shut down Parler for not moderating “shocking content” related to the January 6 Capitol riot. The move was a small but important step that helped Matze realize that his aggressive timeline for Parler’s eventual return is realistic.
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“Every day changes a lot, but now I feel confident,” said Matze. “We are making significant progress. When you log on to Parler.com, it does not go into the void now, it hits a server and only returns information”
Parler has been off the air since Amazon Web Services cut him, but now fans of the popular social media platform can at least listen to Matze himself.
“Hey, is this thing on?” Matze wrote in the first update when the static page was launched. “Now it seems the right time to remind all of you – lovers and haters – why we started this platform. We believe that privacy is fundamental and freedom of expression is essential, especially on social media. Our goal has always been to provide a non-partisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both. We will resolve any challenges before us and plan to get you all back soon. We will not allow civil discourse to disappear! “
Matze called the possibility of posting the message a “major milestone”, even though it looks like a simple static website, as the ability to inform the public first hand is vital for a company that is under constant attack from its critics.
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“We are going to put periodic updates there,” said Matze. “We will try to do an update every day … so that people can keep up to date with the site.”
Parler is suing Amazon for his decision to sever ties, claiming the action is “motivated by political animosity” and is both a breach of contract and an antitrust violation. Amazon had nothing to do with Parler’s resurgence online, as Matze’s team raised the page independently.
However, Matze managed to recover Parler’s data from Amazon on Friday, a key step in the relaunch – and another important step in the right direction.
“Now we can rebuild Parler,” said Matze. “It is extremely important.”
Matze explained that recent headlines indicating that Parler might “never” return, which appeared last week, were the result of a lengthy interview with Reuters, when the then frustrated CEO replied, “It may never be … we don’t know yet”, when asked about a deadline for the return of the platform. Although Matze suggested that the site could be made forever, he says it was simply a pessimistic moment that the mainstream media followed.
Progress has changed Matze’s tone in the past 72 hours.
Parler’s CEO was upbeat and positive on Sunday, eager to explain that his team supported him during the chaos of the past two weeks.
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“Despite all of this, we had no employees fired,” said Matze. “None, even with them being chased and threatened, no one gave up … we have such a strong team, it just made them believe in us more.”
As a non-partisan company, Parler has become a haven for supporters of President Trump and others, who have been expelled from Facebook and Twitter or have these social networks in protest. Now that Trump has been removed from Twitter and Parler is in a severe spotlight, Matze hopes to keep Parler’s sellers anonymous going forward so that they are not attacked by liberal activists seeking to silence the social media platform.
Lucan Manfredi of Fox News contributed to this report.