The right-wing social media app website Parler suddenly resurfaced with a message on Sunday, just a week after Amazon suspended it from its web hosting service and Google and Apple removed it from their app stores.
‘Hello world, is this thing on?’ CEO John Matze wrote in a message, dated 16 January, accompanied by an image of a stopwatch and a banner of ‘technical difficulties’.
“Now it seems like the right time to remind all of you – lovers and haters – why we started this platform,” continued Matze. ‘We believe that privacy is paramount 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 for both.
‘We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to get them back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish! ‘
Although Parler’s website showed limited signs of life on Sunday, its app nevertheless remains completely offline.
‘Hello world, is this connected?’ CEO John Matze wrote in a message, dated January 16, accompanied with an image of a stopwatch and a ‘technical difficulties’ banner
‘Now it seems like the right time to remind all of you – lovers and haters – why we started this platform,’ Matze (photo above) continued. ‘We believe that privacy is fundamental and freedom of expression essential, especially on social networks’
Just over a week ago, Apple Inc suspended Parler from its App Store, shortly after Alphabet-owned Google banned it from Google Play, following the US Capitol riots on January 6. The application is not yet available for download on both platforms.
Amazon.com Inc then suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline.
In a letter announcing the change, Amazon said it ‘cannot provide services to a customer who is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others.
Parler was widely held responsible for not removing positions that incited violence against elected officials, including Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. The platform was also identified as a location where people who participated in the deadly attack planned the attack.
Since then, Parler has re-registered his domain with the right-wing website hosting company Epik, a company that supports far-right websites like Gab and 8chan.
It is unclear who Parler’s host is, but the company has yet to comment on the matter.
In a statement to CNN, Epik spokesman Robert Davis said the company does not provide Parler’s web hosting.
Davis said Epik has a zero-tolerance approach to fighting racism, “and actively denounces any activity used to create suffering for others based on skin color, ethnicity, origin or belief system.”
Just over a week ago, Apple Inc suspended Parler from its App Store, shortly after Alphabet-owned Google banned it from Google Play, following the US Capitol riots on January 6. The application is not yet available for download on both platforms
Amazon.com Inc then suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline, unless it finds a new company to host its services.
Last week, Parler disappeared from the web with an error message saying ‘we can’t connect to the server’ after Amazon shut down
The app was removed from the Google app store after conservative social media users migrated to the site after the Capitol attack
Epik previously issued a long statement on January 11, detonating what it called an ‘instinctive reaction’ from companies like Google and Amazon for ‘simply deploring and ending any relationship on the surface that seems problematic or controversial’.
Parler sued Amazon last week, claiming that its suspension of the company’s online hosting service violated antitrust law and violated company contracts.
The platform’s complaint accused Amazon of applying a politically motivated double standard to Parler and of reducing ‘competition in the microblogging services market for the benefit of Twitter’.
Lawyers for the e-commerce giant issued a statement a few days later, defending the decision and saying that Parler had demonstrated ‘reluctance and inability’ to remove content that ‘threatens public security, for example, by inciting and planning rape, torture and murder of employees appointed public and private citizens.
A lawsuit by Amazon on Tuesday said the company “repeatedly” notified Parler that its content violated the agreement and requested removal, “just to determine that Parler did not want and could not do that.”
John Matze founded Parler in 2018 as a “freedom of speech-oriented” alternative to conventional platforms. He is photographed with his family
Right-wing social media users migrated to Parler, along with other apps like Telegram and the social site Gab, citing the more aggressive policing of political comments on mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which has intensified since the Capitol rebellion.
A lawsuit by Matze on Friday alleged that the CEO was forced to flee his home after receiving death threats after the riots.
His lawyer, David Groesbeck, wrote in the document that Matze had to “hide with his family after receiving death threats and invasive breaches of personal security”.
The lawsuit was filed as part of Parler’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon and sought to seal parts of the lawsuit as a security measure.
Five people died in the riots in DC on January 6, including a Capitol police officer who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and a woman who was shot to death by police while trying to make her way through a barricaded door.
President Trump himself has seen several of his accounts suspended indefinitely by a number of social media companies – including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – for his participation in inciting the insurrection.