The website of the right-wing social rights app Parler re-emerged on Sunday with a message, just a week after Amazon suspended it from its web hosting service and Google and Apple removed it from their online stores. applications.
“Hello world, is this activated?” CEO John Matze wrote in a message dated Jan. 16, accompanied by an image of an egg timer and a banner of “technical difficulties.”
“Now seems like the right time to remind everyone, both lovers and haters, why we started this platform,” Matze continued. “We believe that privacy is paramount and freedom of speech is essential, especially on social media. Our goal has always been to provide a non-partisan public place where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both.
“We will solve any challenge we face and plan to welcome you all soon. We will not let the civil discourse perish! ‘
Although Parler’s website showed limited signs of life on Sunday, its app, however, remains completely offline.
“Hello world, is this activated?” CEO John Matze wrote in a message dated Jan. 16, accompanied by an image of an egg timer and a banner of “technical difficulties.”
“Now seems like the right time to remind everyone, both lovers and haters, why we started this platform,” Matze continued (pictured above). “We believe that privacy is paramount and freedom of speech is essential, especially on social media.”
Just over a week ago, Apple Inc. suspended Parler from its App Store shortly after Google, owned by Alphabet, banned it from Google Play, following the January 6 U.S. Capitol riots. The application is not yet available for download platforms.
Amazon.com Inc. then suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively removing the site.
In a letter announcing the move, 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 largely blamed for failing to remove places that incited violence against elected officials, including Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. The platform was also identified as a place where the people involved in the deadly assault had planned the attack.
Since then, Parler has re-registered his domain with right-wing web hosting firm Epik, a company that supports far-right sites like Gab and 8chan.
It’s still unclear who Parler’s web host is, and the company has yet to comment on that.
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 all activities that are used to create difficulties for other people based on skin color, ethnicity, origin or gender. belief system “.
Just over a week ago, Apple Inc. suspended Parler from its App Store shortly after Google, owned by Alphabet, banned it from Google Play, following the January 6 U.S. Capitol riots. The app is not yet available for both to download. platforms
Amazon.com Inc. then suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively removing the offline site unless it can find a new company to host its services.
Last week, Parler disappeared from the network with an error message saying “we can’t connect to the server” after Amazon pulled the plug
The app withdrew from the Google app store after conservative social media users flocked to the site after the Capitol attack
Epik previously released a lengthy statement on Jan. 11, which launched what he called a “knee reaction” by people at Google and Amazon to “simply degrade and end any relationship that on the surface seems problematic or controversial “.
Parler sued Amazon last week, alleging that its suspension of the company’s online hosting service violated antitrust law and breached companies ’contracts.
The platform’s complaint accused Amazon of applying to Parler a double standard of political motivation and of reducing “competition in the market for microblogging services in favor of Twitter.”
Lawyers for the e-commerce giant issued a statement days later, defending the decision and said Parler had shown a “lack of will and inability” to remove content that “threatens public safety, such as inciting and planning the rape, torture and murder of designated public officials and private citizens. ‘
On Tuesday filed by Amazon in court statements, the company notified Parler “repeatedly” that its content violated its agreement and requested withdrawal, “only to determine that Parler was unwilling and unable to do so.”
John Matze founded Parler in 2018 as a “free speech” alternative to conventional platforms. He is represented with his family
Right-wing social media users have flocked to Parler, along with other apps like Telegram and the Gab social site, citing the most aggressive police of political comments on conventional platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which has intensified since the Capitol riots. .
A court case filed Friday by Matze claimed the CEO had been forced to flee his home after receiving death threats as a result of the riots.
His lawyer, David Groesbeck, wrote in the document that Matze had to “hide with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches.”
The filing 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 were killed in the riots in DC on Jan. 6, including a Capitol police officer who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and a woman who was shot dead by law enforcement while trying to open it. he passed through a barricaded door.
President Trump himself has seen a number of his accounts suspended indefinitely by a number of social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, for his perception of inciting insurgency.