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- Parler registered his domain with Epik, a company known for hosting other far-right websites, including Gab.
- Epik said in a statement on Monday that although Parler registered his domain with the company, the companies had not been in contact.
- Parler has denied claims it has become a haven for the far right, but threats from the Capitol uprising flourished on the platform.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
After Amazon Web Services (AWS) severed ties with Parler, citing the history of the far-right extremist content-hosting social media platform that contributed to Wednesday’s riot on the U.S. Capitol , the social platform seems to have found a new home.
Parler registered his domain with Epik, a company known to host other far-right websites, including Gab, according to publicly available WHOIS information. The news was first reported by James Iles, a writer whose blog focuses on domain names.
In a statement on Monday, Epik said the company had “no contact or discussion with Speaking in any form” before the website registered its domain with them. Epik added that “to date no communication has been received by them to discuss the provision of future services.”
The statement continued to denounce social media companies for their increased moderation. “The staggering size of Twitter and Facebook alone has made real change or accountability almost impossible, as the political interests and goals of their own leaders end up creating an undeniable double standard for both maintaining the order and law enforcement, ”writes Epik vice president Robert Davis. to refer to platform decisions to ban President Donald Trump.
Read more: Inside the rapid and mysterious rise of Talk, the Twitter alternative of “ free speech, ” which created a platform for conservatives by burning the Silicon Valley script
Parler sued Amazon for disrupting its service, alleging violations of antitrust laws and saying the ban was politically motivated. Without AWS to host the platform, Parler went offline on Monday. From Tuesday, the site remains unavailable. Before AWS abandoned Speak on Sunday, the platform’s app version was removed by the Google and Apple app stores.
Parler has denied claims that its platform hosted extremist content, but an Insider investigation found that the platform appealed to the far right from its earliest days. Insider also found that violent threats related to the insurgency on Capitol Hill spread relentlessly to Speak before, during and after the deadly incident.
Talking about finding a “safe haven” with Epik, as Vice reported, comes after the story of the far-right content hosting company. Gab, a far-right alternative to Facebook, and Bitchute, a far-right alternative to YouTube, both work with Epik. The company previously hosted 8chan, now 8kun, the fringe bulletin board that was popular among violent extremists. Infowars, the website of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is also registered with Epik.
The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote in 2019 that Epik is “cornering the market on websites where hate speech thrives,” and Epik CEO Rob Monster has championed the right of neo-Nazis to assemble online, reported the HuffPost in 2018.
This article has been updated to include that Infowars is registered on Epik.
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