It helped power the January 6th terrorist attack. Now, Parler is back online with what is being described as ‘independent technology’.
A home familiar with far right wing terrorists and extremist sympathizers is now back online. The platform was partly credited for helping various extremists organize behind the scenes and helped them gear up for the January 6th terrorist attack. After the attack, the platform was taken offline when Amazon cut off Parler from their AWS (Amazon Web Services). The sound reasoning is that they didn’t want their services to be used to help spread further violence across the country. Parler, of course, sued, but a judge rejected the demand that Amazon restore their services immediately.
That, of course, left the site scrambling to try and find a new service that would permit terrorist activity. Parler, of course, is refusing to moderate its users which left their options very limited. They did, for a time at least, find refuge in Republican ally Russia, but due to some concerns raised about the host, the host in question risked losing the very IP address the platform found itself on. As a result, their lifespan with that arrangement might have been somewhat limited.
Now, word is coming out that Parler is more or less back online using “independent technology”. From Yahoo! News:
Parler, a social media service popular with American right-wing users that virtually vanished after the U.S. Capitol riot, re-launched on Monday and said its new platform was built on “sustainable, independent technology.”
In a statement announcing the relaunch, Parler also said it had appointed Mark Meckler as its interim Chief Executive, replacing John Matze who was fired by the board this month.
Parler went dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content related to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by followers of then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
Despite the relaunch, the website was still not opening for many users and the app was not available for download on mobile stores run by Apple and Alphabet-owned Google, which had earlier banned the app.
So, unless users work around the online app stores, they won’t be able to use the app to access the platform. This will definitely have an impact on how many can easily access the platform in the first place.
The other thing that we noted is this “independent technology”. That, of course, raises questions about how secure the site will be. After all, the live GPS coordinates were obtained prior to the site being taken offline. The question is, can Parler actually keep their network secure at this stage? They are, of course, having to use additional technology just to keep the site afloat in the first place. Perhaps time will tell if the infrastructure will remain secure or if the site will become more open to malicious third party attacks.
Of course, the timing of this is interesting. This is because after twice impeached Donald Trump was acquitted for political reasons, Trump reiterated the message that their movement is ‘only just beginning‘. This could mean a host of things ranging from a possible additional bid to run as president again to inciting even more violence to extracting even further cash from his supporters. With the technology being back online, that becomes a more plausible possibility. All this should be a concern to authorities who very likely don’t want to see a repeat of January 6th in the first place.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
