[ad_1]
Parler.com is coming back online after being kicked out of Amazon’s hosting service, with the controversial social network saying it no longer depends on “Big Tech” for its web infrastructure. An announcement from Parler today said its relaunched website was “built on sustainable, independent technology and does not rely on so-called ‘Big Tech’ for its operations.
Amazon halted Parler’s web hosting service on January 10, days after a Trump-instigated mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, claiming that “Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and represents a very real risk to public safety “. Parler sued Amazon in response, but a federal judge denied Parler’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have forced Amazon to restore its services.
Now Parler uses the hosting services of a company called SkySilk. Parler said his site was only available this week to users who already had accounts. New users, on the other hand, will be able to sign up next week. While existing users can now log into Speak, their old messages have been deleted from the site, TechCrunch reported.
“When Speak was taken offline in January by those who wanted to silence tens of millions of Americans, our team came together, determined to deliver on our promise to our deeply engaged community to come back stronger than ever. We are delighted to welcome everyone. Said Mark Meckler, Interim CEO of Parler. “Parler is led by an experienced team and is here to stay. We will thrive as a leading social media platform dedicated to free speech, privacy and civil dialogue.” (Meckler, who co-founded the Tea Party Patriots in 2009, replaced recently sacked CEO John Matze as Speaker.)
Amazon has said in a court filing that it halted Parler because of its “apparent reluctance and inability to remove Amazon Web Services content that threatened public safety from servers, for example by inciting and planning rape, torture and crime. assassination of persons appointed public officials and private citizens. “
In the new Talking Today posts, the official Talking account read: “We will not be canceled”, while Meckler wrote: “Talking is live and it feels good!” Here is a screenshot:
Traffic Talking on a new path
Parler’s traffic goes through a data center in Ohio managed by CloudRoute and from there to a SkySilk data center in Los Angeles, where SkySilk exchanges Internet traffic with NTT. This is confirmed by traceroutes of dozens of major cities spread across the Americas, Europe and Asia. We contacted NTT today and will update this article if we get a response.
CloudRoute and SkySilk appear to be connected in one way or another and may ultimately be part of the same company. CloudRoute CEO Andre Temnorod has denied or minimized any connection, telling The New York Times that “SkySilk is our customer and Parler is SkySilk’s customer.” However, the Whois information lists Temnorod emails and other CloudRoute email addresses as contacts for SkySilk. SkySilk CEO Kevin Matossian “confirmed to NPR that the company provides web hosting services to Parler,” according to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn.
CloudRoute is described by Scamalytics as “a potentially high risk of fraud ISP”, with around 56% of traffic coming from the ISP “suspected of being potentially fraudulent”. We contacted CloudRoute and SkySilk today and will update this article if we get a response.
CloudRoute bills itself as a Microsoft partner, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Parler.com content is hosted on Microsoft’s cloud services. Parler has been a Microsoft Office 365 user for email, and Microsoft employees are said to have debated last month whether to stop providing the service to Parler. We contacted Microsoft today and will update this article if we get a response.
Parler.com last month transferred its domain to Epik, a domain registrar that also provides services to Gab, who is known for hosting anti-Semitic content. Talking at one point last month was using the services of the Russian company DDoS-Guard, but that is apparently no longer the case.
Congress Inquiry
As reported last week, a congressional oversight committee is examining whether Parler has financial ties to Russian entities, saying the social network “allowed Russian disinformation to flourish” ahead of the 2020 US election. House on Oversight and Reform is also examining a BuzzFeed report that found Talking offered the Trump organization a 40% stake in exchange for then-President Donald Trump, making Speaking its primary social network. The negotiations “were ultimately derailed by the events of January 6,” the report said.
The Talking community policy read, “We prefer that removal of users or user-contributed content be kept to the absolute minimum” and that Talking’s policies be “view neutral.” However, the guidelines state that “Speaking will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crimes, torts, or other unlawful acts. We will remove reported user content that a reasonable and objective observer would believe. constitute or would prove such activity. We may also delete the accounts of users who use our platform in this way. “
Ars Technology reporter Jim Salter contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link