Social media platform Parler has relaunched after more than a month offline, the company announced Monday.
The site was suspended by Amazon’s cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services on January 9, three days after the violence riot at the Capitol, and went offline the next day. The company had drawn criticism for failing to regulate posts calling for violence and was reportedly used by some Trump supporters to coordinate the “Stop the Steal” campaign.
Amazon’s move came after Apple suspended Parler from its App Store despite the Parler app surging to the top spot in free apps earlier in the day. Google also suspended Parler from its Google Play app store. Amazon claims Parler was suspended after failing to delete accounts that were making threats of violence, but Parler maintains it took the accounts down as quickly as possible. The upstart social media platform had gained users attracted to its promise of free speech.
Parler announced that it was no longer working with “big tech” and was instead “built on sustainable, independent technology.”
The company also announced a new interim CEO, Mark Meckler, who co-founded the right-wing group the Tea Party Patriots. Parler terminated its former CEO John Matze earlier this month.
“Parler was built to offer a social media platform that protects free speech and values privacy and civil discourse,” Meckler said in a statement Monday.
“When Parler was taken offline in January by those who desire to silence tens of millions of Americans, our team came together, determined to keep our promise to our highly engaged community that we would return stronger than ever,” he said. “We’re thrilled to welcome everyone back.”
Meckler added that Parler is being “run by an experienced team and is here to stay.”
Parler first launched in August 2018 and now has more than 20 million users. While user accounts have carried over, old “parleys” or posts do not appear to have transferred.