- Parler’s new static page uses an Internet protocol address owned by DDoS-Guard.
- The Russian technology company has been linked to racist, far-right and conspiracy websites.
- Critics of Parler said that relying on a Russian company is a potential security risk.
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Parler, a popular social media website and app among the American far right, partially returned online on Sunday – with the help of a Russian-owned technology company.
Parler was dropped by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) website host on January 11. AWS said the platform “poses a very real risk to public security”. The site has since registered its domain with Epik and returned on Sunday as a static page containing a brief note from CEO John Matze.
The internet protocol address used is owned by DDoS-Guard, which is controlled by two Russians and provides services that include protection against cyber attacks known as distributed denial of service attacks, infrastructure expert Ronald Guilmette told Reuters.
DDoS-Guard worked with racist, far-right and conspiracy sites.
Matze and DDoS-Guard representatives did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Read More: Parler reportedly spent $ 300,000 a month on Amazon’s cloud before it was banned, and it’s a sign that it won’t be so easy for the far-right social app to go back online.
On Wednesday, January 13, Matze told Reuters the company was in talks with several service providers, but gave no further details.
Matze said he is “confident” that Parler will be fully operational by the end of January, and that the platform has managed to recover its data from Amazon.
Evgeniy Marchenko, one of the two founders and owners of DDoS-Guard, told The Guardian that the company is a global information security service and said it hosts “thousands of websites”. This includes Russian government websites and the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.
He also previously worked with controversial Washington-based internet provider VanwaTech, which hosts the 8kun website, a social media site popular with QAnon supporters and used by protesters to plan the siege of the Capitol.
“We are not related to any political issue and we do not want to be associated in any way with customers who host toxic websites like QAnon / 8chan,” Marchenko told The Guardian.
Parler’s critics said relying on a Russian company was a potential security risk, as well as an odd choice for a site popular with those who call themselves patriots.
Russian propaganda fueled political divisions in the U.S., supporting incumbent President Donald Trump and expanding false narratives about electoral fraud and protests against police brutality.
Parler, who describes himself as a “non-partisan” haven for freedom of expression, became a center for President Donald Trump’s supporters after many of his Twitter accounts were removed from the social media site, along with that of Trump. .
In the days after the January 6 siege of the Capitol, he became a haven for far-right activities and misinformation because of his relaxed stance on moderating content. Trump himself considered entering the site under the name “Person X”, Matze said earlier.
After the siege, Google and Apple quickly stopped the app from their app stores and AWS took Parler offline. Parler has since hit the tech giant with an antitrust lawsuit, challenging Amazon’s claims that it has repeatedly warned Parler about violent content.