Parler says it is now accessible for existing users and will accept new signups starting next week, announces Tea Party activist Mark Meckler as interim CEO
An Amazon suspension shut it down in January — The alternative social network Parler has reopened after a month offline.
The VergeAdi Robertson
Context & Ripple Effects
Parler's return reverses the immediate disruption triggered by Amazon's planned AWS suspension, after its then-CEO said the service might not return once providers had cut it off. The reopening restores access first, while the planned signup window and Mark Meckler's interim appointment mark a reset of operations and leadership.
The outage interrupted a network that had recently expanded rapidly while leaving moderation to users, making its return a test of whether an alternative social platform can maintain continuity when its infrastructure access is withdrawn.
First-order effects
Existing Parler users regain access immediately, while prospective users must wait until next week to create accounts.
Mark Meckler assumes interim control as Parler resumes service, replacing uncertainty about whether the network would return with a defined leadership transition.
Second-order effects
Parler's recovery makes hosting and other service-provider relationships an operational constraint rather than a back-end detail for the company and its users.
Competing social platforms can point to Parler's month offline as evidence that user growth alone does not secure a platform's availability when critical infrastructure is unavailable.
Third-order effects
If infrastructure providers continue to determine whether controversial networks can remain online, social-platform competition will be shaped by access-layer governance as much as by product features or audience growth.
The episode points toward a more fragmented social-media market in which platforms seeking looser moderation must also secure resilient alternatives to dominant service providers.
The trend: Parler's reopening is part of a broader shift in which cloud and service-provider access increasingly sets the practical boundaries of social-platform independence.
Today, Parler went back online thanks to @CloudRoute, their new hosting partner. Cloudroute is a @Microsoft Gold reselling partner. @satyanadella, will you continue to do business with a partner enabling a social network that is rife with racism and violence?
New: Just got off the phone with LA-based Kevin Matossian, who is the CEO of cloud hosting company SkySilk. He confirmed to NPR that the company is providing web hosting services to Parler.
Looks like Parler appointed former Tea Party activist Mark Meckler as interim CEO according to a press release. The company has still not said anything to us about negotiations to offer the Trump Org 40% of the company for Trump's exclusive posting. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ …
This is good news. A handful of tech billionaires should not get to decide who can use the First Amendment. We should not fear speech, we should fear censorship. https://twitter.com/...
Parler is back. After Amazon and other web-hosting services rejected the site, it wasn't clear it'd survive. But it suddenly came back online today, apparently with the help of an L.A. company named SkySilk, which is not responding to emails or calls. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Good news, Nazis! Now you can come back to the website owned by a billionaire to take your data that leaked all of your messages and video which was used to get you arrested for being part of an Insurrection! This time, it's going to be great! https://twitter.com/...
If someone in your family is on Parler, feel free to let them know that it is made possible thanks to Russia and a company in Seattle known for supporting Nazis. Ask if they're ok with that. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Looks like @SkySilkCloud is the new host for Parler. Not surprisingly, their CEO Kevin Matossian, like @Cloudflare CEO @eastdakota, is washing his hands of whatever happens on the site. This is a classic tech CEO grift to accept money without accepting responsibility. https://twi…
Parler is back, with support from Epik. Stacked moderation (i.e. bans from cloud computing / app stores that affect entire sites) doesn't typically silence sites entirely. But it has material consequences, and helps articulate what society finds abhorrent. https://www.theverge.co…
Parler seems to be back online, with what looks like a new logo and an updated community guidelines document saying the company “will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts.” https://legal.parler.com/... https://twitter.com/…
Don't expect Parler to be very forthcoming on its back-end tech, when it reemerges (supposedly this week). A month ago, Jeffrey Wernick told me they would not discuss such things — claiming it was for safety/protection of those who'd be providing the services.