The right-wing social media platform Parler was back online Monday after it was bounced a month ago by Amazon for failing to police its users.
“We’re thrilled to welcome everyone back,” Parler’s new interim chief executive, Mark Meckler, said in a statement, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Parler is being run by an experienced team and is here to stay.”
In major blows, Amazon booted Parler off its web-hosting service and Apple and Google removed it from their app stores last month amid fears of incendiary social media chatter in the wake of the lethal storming of the U.S. Capitol. The companies said Parler violated terms of service requiring policing of certain content, such as incitement to violence.
Parler is now being supported online by SkySilk, a cloud-hosting company based in the Los Angeles area.
But Parler’s return does not necessarily mean it will return to the old ways of little to no policing of content and users.
“SkySilk is well aware that Parler has received an aggressive response from those who believe their platform has been used as a safe haven for some bad actors,” said a statement Monday from company CEO Kevin Matossian posted on Twitter.
“Let me be clear, Skysilk does not advocate nor condone hate; rather, it advocates the right to private judgment and rejects the role of being the judge, jury, and executioner,” he added.
Matossian’s statement also noted that SkySilk “feels that Parler is taking the necessary steps to better monitor its content and applauds their release of new Community Guidelines.”
The new community guidelines posted Sunday on Parler’s website said that the platform was “viewpoint neutral” but that the company would “not knowingly allow it to be used as a tool for crime or unlawful acts.”
Parler added: “We will remove reported user content that a reasonable and objective observer would believe constitutes or evidences such activity. We may also remove the accounts of users who use our platform in this way.”
But it also noted: “In no case will Parler decide what [content will] be removed or filtered, or whose account will be removed, on the basis of the opinion expressed within the content at issue.”
Meckler said that this week would be devoted to restoring service to current stranded users and would allow for new members afterward.
Parler fired CEO John Matze last week, though it wasn’t clear why. Meckler has been associated with right-wing groups, including the tea party movement, the Journal noted.