(Reuters) – Parler, a social media service popular with American right-wing users that virtually disappeared after the US Capitol riot, relaunched on Monday and said its new platform was built on “independent technology and sustainable “.
In a statement announcing the relaunch, Parler also said he had appointed Mark Meckler as his interim chief executive, replacing John Matze, who was dismissed by the board this month.
Parler went out of business after being hacked by major service providers who accused the app of not policing violent content related to the January 6 deadly US Capitol attack by followers of then-US President Donald Trump.
Despite the relaunch, the site was still not opening for many users and the app was not available for download in mobile stores managed by Apple and Google, owned by Alphabet, which had previously banned the app.
While several users competed with Twitter to complain that they were unable to access the service, some others said they could access their existing account.
Parler, who said he already had more than 20 million users, said he would bring his current users back online in the first week and be open to new users next week.
Founded in 2018, the app called itself a space “geared to freedom of expression” and has largely attracted US conservatives who disagree with the rules about content on other social media sites.
Last month, Amazon.com suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline. Parler on Monday said his new technology had cut its reliance on “so-called Big Tech” for its operations.
Parler appears to be using CloudRoute LLC as his new host and has replaced Amazon with the open source software platform Ceph, according to on here to an anonymous computer programmer “Crash override” who uses the Twitter identifier @donk_enby.
The programmer, who has been famous here for cataloging almost all user posts in Parler since the day of the Capitol riot, tweeted on Monday that user accounts were still there on the new platform, but posts, images and videos were deleted. .
Parler and CloudRoute did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Parler is run by an experienced team and is here to stay,” said Meckler, who co-founded the Tea Party Patriots, a group that emerged in 2009 within the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement and helped elect dozens of Republicans.
It is also supported by hedge fund investor Robert Mercer, his daughter Rebekah Mercer and conservative commentator Dan Bongino.
Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru and Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Howard Goller edition