Parler users can contact Gab, Telegram or MeWe

Parler, the largely unmodified social network popular with conservatives, regularly found fans praising Big Tech. But after the website went off the internet over the weekend, it’s clearer than ever how even edge services should rely on mainstream technology providers. Now Parler is apparently trying to rebuild – with or without Big Tech’s help.

On Monday, it was reported that Parler had registered his domain with Epik, a web hosting service that previously housed Gab, the far-right forum used by the shooter of the Pittsburgh synagogue. At the moment, it is unclear where the attempt stands: Epik said earlier that he had no relationship with Parler, although at least one leader appears at the company. open to work with the platform.

Parler’s shutdown comes in the wake of the January 6 riot, during which a crowd of people protesting against the outcome of the 2020 presidential election broke into the US capital. Prior to the uprising, posts about Parler encouraged violence in Washington while presidential election Joe Biden was taking place on Capitol Hill, and thereafter the platform continued to offer violent content, including threats against Vice President Mike Pence.

Several major technology companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple, severed ties with Parler in the days after the event. This effectively brought the platform offline, about the same time that Facebook suspended indefinitely and permanently banned Twitter President Trump.

“Civil society and others long before last week expressed concern about Parler for the kinds of extremism, of racism, anti-Semitism, that flourished on that site,” said Isedua Oribhabor, a U.S. policy analyst at digital rights group Access Now said. who described the platform as “a place that was attractive to extremists because of their sluggish or non-existent form of content moderation.”

In the Parler strike, several tech companies said they were trying to reduce the risk of violence and force the platform to adopt more aggressive moderation of calls to violence. The collapse of Parler also showed the great power of the technology industry to control what appears on the internet and in app stores. While Parler is now looking for ways to get online again, he is facing an uphill battle to rebuild his former self without the help of Big Tech. This or that can become something else and be more strictly moderated.

Coming back online, Parler may change the tone of content moderation

In the immediate aftermath of the violence at the Capitol, politicians, activist groups, and employees of companies that worked with Parler called for action against the platform for its role in encouraging the uprising.

Google was the first to launch Parler on January 8 from its Play Store. Apple gave Parler 24 hours to implement stricter moderation policies, but after it came up short, Apple removed Parler from its App Store on January 9th. Amazon has suspended Parler from its web. host service on January 10 following pressure from employees at the company as well as at least one legislator, Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA). Amazon said in a letter from Recode to Parler that violent content on the platform – and the lack of moderation – means that Parler is violating Amazon’s Terms of Service violation.

There is an indication that Parler may be trying to change his approach to moderation to get online again, although it is not clear how willing Amazon would be to work with the platform again.

When Apple approached Parler and threatened to ban the app, Parler volunteered to create a “task force” for content measures for the time being, although Apple said the effort was not enough and did not meet the requirements. With the threat to be launched, Parler told Amazon that he intends to moderate the content with volunteers more aggressively, which Amazon said Parler “will not work in light of the rapidly growing number of violent posts.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Parler also removed some of the content after being contacted by both Amazon and Apple.

A Google spokesman told Recode that Parler was suspended until he addressed his moderation issues, and Apple made a similar statement.

While Parler’s leadership has historically opposed the lack of moderation – and is critical of companies such as Facebook and Twitter for their moderation – Parler CEO John Matze issued a statement on Sunday stating that apparently returned from this point of view, which he had openly expressed only a few days before.

“Parler is not a surveillance app, so we can not just write a few algorithms that will quickly detect 100% of the offensive content, especially in periods of rapid growth and seemingly coordinated malicious attacks that accompany it,” Matze said, adding that the platform was improving and would welcome ‘feedback’.

Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that users of Parler were intensely involved in the planning and execution of the Capitol riot. After a security researcher archived almost all of Parler’s posts – including GPS coordinates of users’ video locations – before Amazon downloaded them from its servers, a Gizmodo analysis found that several January 6 Parler users were deep in the US Capitol dared. users encourage and celebrate the raid on the Capitol, some appearing to be the literal center of events.

Parler can return without the help of Big Tech, but it may take time

When Reddit banned a pro-Trump subreddit called the_donald last June, amid an expansion of its hate speech policy, forum members turned to the Discord messaging platform before being banned from that platform as well. When the extreme right-wing conspiracy theory website 8chan was laid down by its service providers after the mass shooting in El Paso in 2019, it finally reformed as 8kun. And when Gab, a right-wing social network used by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, was kicked out of GoDaddy, Epik brought the site online again.

Parler can follow in the footsteps of these additional services to get online again, which can take a complicated effort. With many platforms reluctant to partner with Parler, the Wall Street Journal reported that Oracle will not provide Parler cloud services and that Microsoft has no hosting contract with Parler. Parler’s CEO said the company is now considering other cloud providers, although that is not clear. what companies it could be. Some experts question Parler’s ability to bounce back after launching from Amazon Web Services, saying it would be incredibly difficult and could take a while. “Parler will have to build his own infrastructure,” according to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of ZDNet.

At the same time, Dan Bongino, a right-wing conservative commentator who invested in the website, recently told Fox he was willing to go bankrupt to help Parler return.

And of course, the site can succeed in hosting Epik. Epik’s SVP, Robert Davis, hinted in a statement that his company would be willing to work with Parler if it develops a moderation policy that can reduce violence. Davis too tell New York Times, technology reporter Jack Nicas, that Parler had already registered his domain with Epik without Epik’s knowledge. Once an agreement has been worked out, Davis added, it could take about ten days before a preliminary version of Parler is back online and as much as three months before a full version of the site is available again. Epik did not respond to a request for comment.

Parler may be gone, but its users are not

So it will probably be a while before Parler is back in full force. In the meantime, prospective Parler users are likely to go to other programs, says Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism.

“Before Parler went dark while watching the platform, we saw discussions about where people were going to migrate to – Telegram or Gab, etc.,” Segal told Recode. “They are always preparing for where they are going next, in the expectation that their platform of choice will go down.”

There are various platforms and services that users turn to. Telegram, a messaging platform that claims to have half a billion users and is increasingly known for offering extreme right-wing channels, has seen an increase in downloads. Gab, a largely right-wing social network, also reported an increase in traffic. Then there is the lesser known website MeWe, a Facebook-like platform that recently tripled the number of downloads on the site, according to data obtained by Axios.

“People who do not want to return to Facebook, who are angry with Twitter, are going to look for the alternative spaces,” Diara Townes, an investigative researcher and community involvement, led to the misinformation and disinformation. research firm First Draft. “They will have to navigate new user experiences through these platforms, but they will seek these spaces.”

“And the more they are pushed to the side, the fresher these spaces will become,” Townes added.

So even if Parler does not come back, the users will not leave. We already know that white supremacist and conspiracy theory communities taken offline have returned to the web earlier, and all indications are that Parler’s eventual resurrection.

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