Parler said in an emailed statement that it
would be led by an interim CEO, Mark Meckler
of the Tea Party Patriots movement. It said
the service would be brought back online for
current users this week with new users being
able to sign up next week — and would not be
reliant on “Big Tech.”
The site’s homepage, however, was a single,
static page whose lead post reminded viewers
of “technical difficulties.” While it was possible
to log in via a different variation of that URL,
Parler’s iPhone app did not work, yielding a
“networking error” when an Associated Press
reporter tried it. Among new posters was Fox
News personality Sean Hannity.
Guidelines accessible on the site, dated Feb. 14,
said Parler would use technology and human
review to remove “threatening or inciting
content.” They said a “community jury” headed
by a Parler employee would hear appeals.
Parler was being hosted by a Los Angeles cloud
services company, SkySilk. Ron Guilmette,
a California-based internet researcher and
activist, said SkySilk appeared to be a small
outfit and that it was not clear to him whether
it could provide adequate security for the
site. In particular, Guilmette cited the need for
robust defense against denial-of-service attacks,
which flood a site with data traffic to make it
inaccessible. Such attacks are a threat to any
major internet site — especially if their content
is at all controversial.
SkySilk did not respond to questions about the
level of support the company is providing.
Its CEO, Kevin Matossian, said in a statement that
the company “does not advocate nor condone