After a short period of the website down, controversial social media platform Parlor is now partially back online thanks to a Russia-based tech firm. Interestingly, the tech company has several ties to other racist and conspiracy theory sites.
As spotted by Reuters, Parler uses an internet protocol address owned by DDoS-Guard. According to infrastructure expert Ronald Guilmette, the Russian company has a long laundry-list of history of working with racist, far-right, and conspiracy sites.
"We are not related to any politic issues and don't want to be associated in any sense with customer hosting such toxic sites like QAnon/8chan," Evgeniy Marchenko, one of DDoS-Guard's two founders, vehemently denied his company's ties with conspiracy sites, as reported by Business Insider from The Guardian.
The Russian tech company has previously provided its services for companies and internet providers like VanwaTech. The Washington-based provided sparked controversy after one of its websites, 8kun, was used by rioters to plot the Capitol siege earlier this month.
Goodbye, Amazon
Previously, Amazon Web Service (AWS) has cut its commercial ties with Parler after 'repeated' violent and threatening content on January 11. When users tried to visit the website on desktop or mobile, Parler would greet them with a message saying, "This site can't be reached: parler.com's server IP address could not be found."
"Recently, we've seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It's clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service," Amazon told Parler in a letter, as reported by NBC.
Two days later, Parler CEO John Matze told Reuters that his team has been trying to get the website back online and in touch with multiple service providers. Matze promised that the website will be live by the end of January. Although the boss declined to elaborate on which provider he's been in contact with, several proofs have indicated that Parler will be operating under DDoS-Guard.
Big Tech vs. Parlor
Besides, Amazon is not the only tech behemoth to be pit against Parler. Google and Apple have also previously removed Parler from their Android Play Store and iOS App Store services, making it harder for Parler to gain trust from any provider.
As of this writing, Parler's website is back online, but viewing and creating content, as well as managing accounts, is still impossible. John Matze greets both "lovers and haters" on the front page of his website.
"We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!" the CEO writes.
Parler was raised to popularity after Big Techs like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook started labeling content Donald Trump's account as misleading. The pinnacle of it came after the aforementioned apps and several others temporarily banned the president.
