Parler users can use Gab, Telegram or MeWe

Parler, the unmoderated social network and popular with conservatives, used to find fans satirizing Big Tech. But after the site was taken off the Internet over the weekend, it is more apparent than ever how even marginal services must depend on major technology providers. Now Parler is apparently trying to rebuild – with or without Big Tech’s help.

On Monday, it was reported that Parler had registered his domain with Epik, a web hosting service that previously housed Gab, the far-right forum used by the Pittsburgh synagogue sniper. At the moment, it is unclear where this effort lies: Epik had previously said that he had no relationship with Parler, although at least one leader of the company appears Open to work with the platform.

Parler’s strike came as a result of the January 6 riot, during which a crowd of people who opposed the results of the 2020 presidential election invaded the U.S. Capitol. Before the uprising, the Parler posts encouraged violence in Washington when President-elect Joe Biden’s victory ended on Capitol Hill, and after that, the platform continued to host violent content, including threats against Vice President Mike Pence.

Several major technology companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple, broke off relationships with Parler in the days following the event. This effectively took the platform offline, at about the same time that Facebook suspended indefinitely and Twitter permanently banned President Trump.

“Civil society and others raised concerns about Parler long before last week for the types of extremism, racism, anti-Semitism that flourished on that site,” said Isedua Oribhabor, US policy analyst at the digital rights group Access Now , who described the platform as “a place that has been attractive to extremists because of its loose or non-existent form of content moderation”.

In closing Parler, several technology companies said they were trying to reduce the risk of violence and force the platform to adopt a more aggressive moderation of calls for violence. Parler’s collapse also demonstrated the technology industry’s immense power to control what appears on the web and in app stores. Now, as Parler looks for ways to get back online, he faces an uphill battle to rebuild his old self without Big Tech’s help. That or it could become something different and more strictly moderate.

To get back online, Parler may change his tone about moderating content

Immediately after the violence on Capitol Hill, politicians, activist groups, and employees of companies working with Parler began calling for action to be taken against the platform for its role in encouraging insurrection.

Google was the first to launch Parler from its Play Store on January 8. Apple gave Parler 24 hours to implement stricter moderation policies, but after it failed, Apple removed Parler from its App Store on January 9. Amazon suspended Parler from its web hosting service on January 10, after pressure from company employees and at least one member of parliament, Mr Ro Khanna (D-CA). Amazon told Parler in a letter obtained by Recode that the violent content on the platform – and its lack of moderation – meant that Parler was violating the terms of Amazon’s service agreement.

There is some evidence that Parler may try to change his moderation approach to going back online, although it is unclear how much Amazon would be willing to work with the platform again.

When Apple contacted Parler threatening to ban the application, Parler offered to create a content moderation “task force” for the time being, although Apple said the effort was not enough and did not meet his requirements. With the threat of being kicked, Parler told Amazon that he planned to more aggressively moderate his content with volunteers, which Amazon said to Parler “would not work due to the rapid growth in the number of violent posts”. Parler also withdrew some of the content after being contacted by Amazon and Apple, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A Google spokesman told Recode that Parler was suspended “until” he resolved his moderation problems, and Apple made a similar statement.

While Parler’s leadership has historically been challenging about his lack of moderation – and criticism of companies like Facebook and Twitter for his moderation – Parler’s CEO, John Matze, released a statement on Sunday that apparently set back of this stance, which he had openly expressed a few days earlier.

“Parler is not a surveillance app, so we can’t just write some algorithms that will quickly find 100% of questionable content, especially during periods of rapid growth and apparently coordinated malicious attacks that accompany that growth,” said Matze, adding that the platform was working to improve and would receive feedback.

Meanwhile, there is mounting evidence that Parler users were closely involved in planning and executing the Capitol rebellion. After a security researcher archived almost all of Parler’s posts – including GPS coordinates of users’ video locations – before Amazon booted him from their servers, a Gizmodo review found that several Parler users ventured into the Capitol United States on January 6. users encourage and celebrate the attack on the Capitol, some seemed to be literally at the center of events.

Parler can return without Big Tech’s help, but it can take time

When Reddit banned a pro-Trump subreddit called the_donald last June, amid an expansion of its hate speech policies, forum members turned to the Discord messaging platform, before being banned from that platform as well. When the far-right conspiracy theory website 8chan was abandoned by its service providers after the mass shooting of El Paso in 2019, it ended up being refurbished as 8kun. And when Gab, a right-wing social network used by the Pittsburgh synagogue sniper, was launched on GoDaddy, Epik put the site back online.

Parler can follow in the footsteps of these marginal services to get back online, a complicated effort that can take some time. With many platforms reluctant to work with Parler – the Wall Street Journal reported that Oracle will not provide cloud services to Parler and that Microsoft has no hosting contract with Parler – Parler’s CEO said the company is now considering other ISPs. cloud, although it is unclear what companies these can be. Some experts doubt Parler’s ability to recover after starting Amazon Web Services and say it will be incredibly difficult and can take a while. “Parler will need to build his own infrastructure,” according to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of ZDNet.

At the same time, Dan Bongino, a conservative right-wing commentator who invested in the site, recently said at Fox that he was willing to go bankrupt to help Parler return.

And, of course, the site can succeed in getting Epik to host it. Epik’s senior vice president, Robert Davis, hinted in a statement that his company would be willing to work with Parler if it developed moderation policies that could reduce violence. Davis too said Jack Nicas, a technology reporter for the New York Times, said Parler had already registered his domain with Epik without Epik’s knowledge. If a deal is reached, Davis added, it could take about 10 days for a preliminary version of Parler to go back on air and up to three months for a full version of the site to go back up. Epik did not respond to Recode’s request for comment.

Parler may have disappeared, but his users

So it will probably be a while before Parler returns in full force. In the meantime, potential Parler users are likely to go to other applications, says Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League Extremism Center.

“Before Parler went dark, while we monitored the platform, we saw discussions about where people were going to migrate – Telegram or Gab, etc.,” Segal told Recode. “They are always preparing for where they will go next, anticipating that their platform of choice will fall.”

There are several platforms and services that these users are turning to. Telegram, a messaging platform that claims to have half a billion users and is increasingly known for hosting some far-right channels, has seen an increase in downloads. Gab, a far-right social network, also reported an increase in traffic. Then there is the lesser-known site MeWe, a platform similar to Facebook that recently tripled the number of downloads from the site, according to data obtained by Axios.

“People who don’t want to go back to Facebook, who are upset with Twitter, they will look for these alternative spaces,” noted Diara Townes, an investigative researcher and community engagement leader in the misinformation and misinformation research firm First Draft. “They will have to browse for new user experiences through these platforms, but they will look for those spaces.”

“And the more they are pushed aside, the more marginal these spaces become,” added Townes.

So even if Parler doesn’t come back, his users won’t leave. We already know that the white supremacy and conspiracy theory communities that are taken down have returned to the web in the past, and all signs point to Parler’s eventual resurrection.

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