Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Parler announces its relaunch with Mark Meckler named as interim CEO a month after being shut down
Parler has announced its official relaunch a month after it was shut down in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riots.
The conservative social media site delivered the news in a statement on Monday.
'Parler, the world's #1 free speech social media platform with over 20 million users, is announcing its official relaunch today, built on sustainable, independent technology and not reliant on so-called "Big Tech" for its operations,' the statement read. 'Parler's relaunch - open to Americans of all viewpoints - is available immediately.'
Parler's existing users were able to log back in to the app and the desktop site on Monday, but some reported issues with connectivity. New users will be available to sign up beginning next week, the company said.
Parler did not disclose where its relaunched site is being hosted after Amazon kicked it off of its web-hosting service on January 11, effectively wiping it off the internet.
Apple, Amazon and Google each banned Parler from their app stores days after the Capitol siege due to a failure to moderate 'egregious content' posted by users in connection with the violence.
Parler's statement on Monday included a quote from its new Interim CEO Mark Meckler, a Tea Party activist who stepped in after the previous chief executive, founder Mark Matze, was fired earlier this month.
'Parler was built to offer a social media platform that protects free speech and values privacy and civil discourse,' Meckler said.
'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. We're thrilled to welcome everyone back.
'Parler is being run by an experienced team and is hear to stay. We will thrive as the premier social media platform dedicated to free speech, privacy, and civil dialogue.'
The Verge confirmed that old accounts have been restored on Monday but said pre-shut down posts - called 'parleys' - are unavailable.
The outlet said some high-profile users, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, have already started posting on the relaunched site.
However some users said they were having trouble accessing content on the app. One user shared a screenshot with DailyMail.com which showed an error message that read: 'It seems that we are either over capacity or you are experiencing a poor network connection.'
It remains unclear who is hosting Parler's relaunched site. Parler sued Amazon in federal court last month in a bid to get back online, arguing that the tech giant had breached its contract and was abusing its market power.
A judge rejected Parler's request to have its web service immediately restored by Amazon on January 22 but did not dismiss the case altogether.
On January 19 Parler reappeared with the help of a Russian-owned web security service.
Parler's domain name is now registered with Epik Inc., a website services company based in Sammamish, Washington, according to public records made available by internet regulator Icann.
Epik is also the domain registrar for Gab, another less restrictive social networking site popular with the far-right.
New community guidelines on Parler state that the platform is 'viewpoint neutral' and will not allow for promotion of crime or unlawful acts.
Meckler was brought on to help with the relaunch by Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, one of the app's key financial backers who owns a majority stake.
The 58-year-old attorney and political activist from California rose to prominence in 2009 when he co-founded the Tea Party Patriots (TPP), a grassroots conservative organization advocating for free markets, limited government, and fiscal responsibility.
Meckler left the TPP in 2012 and went on to found Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG), a nonprofit conservative political group best known for its efforts to amend the Constitution to decrease federal spending. Meckler currently serves as president of CSG.
Meckler voiced his support for Parler in a tweet last November in which he blasted Twitter for suppressing free speech.
'Twitter sucks...I mean seriously sucks. They hate free speech. Especially conservative free speech. Come join me at Parler,' Meckler wrote in his final post on Twitter, dated November 20.
Meckler is not expected to stay on as CEO of Parler for the long term, but will hold the role until the site finds a permanent replacement for his predecessor Matze.
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Sharia-Enforcing Amazon Brownshirts Delete Book That Criticized Islam
The freedom of speech is on the ropes, and it just received another body blow. Over at Amazon, you can still get Friedrich Nietzsche’s God Is Dead. God Remains Dead. And We Have Killed Him. You can still get Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. You can get Christianity Disproved: The conclusive proof that Christianity is false. You can get God Needs To Go: Why Christian Beliefs Fail. You can get All That’s Wrong with the Bible: Contradictions, Absurdities, and More. You can get Four Disturbing Questions with One Simple Answer: Breaking the Spell of Christian Belief. And on and on and on. But you can’t get Allah is Dead: Why Islam is Not a Religion by the New English Review’s Rebecca Bynum.
Now that the winter of Leftist/Islamic censorship is upon us in a big way, Amazon has removed Bynum’s book from sale, so as not to offend those who must not be offended, and to stick to offending those who can and must be offended with impunity. This is done at least in part because those who must not be offended might kill you, while those who must be offended will not. But the book was available for ten years. The difference now is that the fascists are emboldened as never before, and have decided that now is the time for them to act.
And so we see it yet again: criticize Christianity, and you’ll be celebrated as a heroic, courageous intellectual, standing up against the forces of reaction. You’ll be feted and laden with honors, a la Dawkins today. Criticize Islam, on the other hand, and you’ll be excoriated as a “racist” (one more time, kids: Islam is not a race, and indeed, any belief system that you can ascribe to or discard is not and cannot be a race), “bigoted” “Islamophobe,” and the Southern Poverty Law Center will call you a “hate group leader” and make sure that all good, right-thinking people don’t come near you with a ten-foot pole.
Now, I don’t agree with my old friend Rebecca that Islam is not a religion, but I am not being churlish or fastidious to point that out. But in saying that I disagree, I am most decidedly not saying that I believe that she should be silenced. I believe that ideas should be evaluated on the basis of whether and to what extent they correspond to and elucidate reality. Ideas should be discussed freely and accepted or rejected on their merits.
But that is an old-fashioned idea, as retro and yesterday and hidebound as if I said that men are men and women are women, and that men should wear ties and fedoras and address other people as “sir” and “ma’am” and try to refrain from announcing that they’re actually women. The totalitarian fascists of Amazon believe that the ideas they have judged to be beyond the pale must not be heard, and since they have an effective monopoly on the book business, when they drop a book, it will indeed for the most part not be heard.
Yes, there are other bookstores here and there. But the situation has changed drastically since I was a young man and every city had several, and sometimes many, independent bookstores. Now the decision of what is acceptable for you to read is in the hands of a very small group of people, and they all think the same way. If Amazon drops you, you’re as dropped as you are when Twitter bans you. What’s that, libertarians? Just start your own social media giant? Sure. Tell it to the folks at Parler.
Now that Amazon has begun dropping Islamocritical books, expect more of this. They certainly won’t stop with Rebecca Bynum’s book, and they won’t stop with books that are critical of Islam, either. And as this endeavor starts to gather steam, who on the Left will raise a voice for the freedom of speech? Not Old Joe. Not Kamala-in-Waiting. Not Old Joe’s handlers. Not Schumer or Pelosi or AOC or Ilhan Omar. Not a soul.
The fascists are on the march. This is their hour, and the power of darkness. It has been nice knowing you all, but it’s clearly coming to an end. Soon the only way you’ll be able to hear dissidents will be via whispers and furtive handovers of shoddily printed material, by the few who have the courage to continue to dissent when the darkness that is descending has finally enveloped us completely. I hope to see you there.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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