Parler CEO John Matze expects his controversial social network to get back online soon despite Amazon booting the app from its servers.
“I’m confident that by the end of the month, we’ll be back up,” Matze told Fox News Sunday night.
“Every day it changes wildly, but I feel confident now,” he added. “We’re making significant progress.”
Matze’s outlook for Parler’s future has improved since last week, when he said in a federal court filing that his company faced the “prospect of permanent destruction” after Amazon Web Services forced it to go dark.
AWS cut off Parler’s server access last Monday over concerns about the fledgling firm’s failure to police graphic threats of violence that its users posted before and after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
But Parler got its website back online Sunday after appearing to move its domain name to Epik, a web company that has generated controversy for hosting extremist content. Parler posted a message on the site promising the app’s “lovers and haters” that it would be back soon.
Additionally, Matze told Fox that Parler was able to recover its data from Amazon on Friday, which he called a key step toward rebuilding.
“Despite all of this, we haven’t even had one employee quit,” Matze told Fox. “Not one, even with them being harassed and threatened, no one has quit… we’ve got such a strong team, this has just made them believe in us more.”
Parler has filed a federal lawsuit against Amazon Web Services accusing the tech giant of forcing the app offline because of “political animus.”
Amazon’s move — which followed Apple and Google’s decisions to halt downloads of Parler’s mobile app — led other tech giants such as Slack and Stripe to drop Parler as a client, further hampering its operations, Matze has said.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.