Service to Parler, an unfiltered social media site favored by conservatives, was partially restored on Sunday, a week after the site went offline after Amazon refused to continue hosting the site on its servers.
Although the site’s social media features don’t appear to be functional, visitors to the site are now greeted by a message from Parler CEO John Matze.
“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 networks. Our goal has always been to provide a non-party public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both, “says the January 16 message. “We will resolve any challenge before us and we plan to welcome them back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!”
According to CNN, the site now appears to be hosted by Epik – a company that also hosts sites such as the messaging service Gab and the right-wing forum 8chan. Both sites have generated and facilitate the spread of views of white supremacy and conspiracy theories, such as QAnon.
In the past few months, right-wing conservatives have migrated to Parler after claiming that traditional social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have gone too far in censoring users. Parler called himself a “free speech social network”.
However, Parler also attracted conspiracy theorists and violent actors to the platform. Several reports detail how Parler users planned aspects of the January 6 attack on the platform.
BuzzFeed also reports that Parler users celebrated the January 6 riots in the days after Trump supporters violated the Capitol and that some were encouraging another meeting in Washington the day before Biden’s inauguration.
Matze said it is against Parler’s community guidelines “to incite or threaten violence or other activity that violates the law”. Amazon is just the latest company that has taken steps to remove the platform from the social media site.
Last weekend, both Apple and Google made the website’s mobile app unavailable for download on their platforms.
In 2019, weeks after a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead, Amazon kicked Gab – a social media app favored by far-right conservatives – after an investigation showed the shooter had posted speeches anti-Semites on the website.