(Reuters) – Parler, a popular social media service among American right-wing users that virtually disappeared after the US Chapter riot, was relaunched on Monday and said its new platform was built on “sustainable and independent technology”.
In a statement announcing the relaunch, Parler also said he had appointed Mark Meckler as interim chief executive, replacing John Matze, who was fired by the board this month.
Parler went dark after being interrupted by major service providers who accused the application of failing to control violent content related to the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of then-US President Donald Trump.
Despite the relaunch, the website was not yet open to many users, and the app was not available for download in Apple and Google-owned mobile stores owned by Alphabet, which had previously banned the app.
While several users competed with Twitter to complain that they could not access the service, a few others said they could access their existing account.
Parler, who once said it had more than 20 million users, said it would bring its current users back online in the first week and open to new users next week.
Founded in 2018, the app was designed as a “free speech” space and has largely attracted American conservatives who disagree with the content rules on other social networking sites.
Last month, Amazon.com suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline. Parler said Monday that its new technology has reduced its reliance on “so-called Big Tech” for its operations.
Parler appears to be using CloudRoute LLC as its new host and has replaced Amazon with the Ceph open source software platform, according to Here to the anonymous computer programmer “Crash override” who goes with the Twitter handle @donk_enby.
The programmer, who became famous here for cataloging almost all of Parler’s user posts since the day of the Capitol riot, wrote on Twitter that on Monday, user accounts were still on the new platform, but posts, images and videos were deleted.
Parler and CloudRoute did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Parler is led by an experienced team and is here to stay,” said Meckler, who co-founded Tea Party Patriots, a group that emerged in 2009 as part of the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement and helped the election of dozens of Republicans.
He is also backed 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; Montage by Howard Goller