Parler announces relaunch with Mark Meckler as interim CEO

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 obtained on Monday but did not disclose where its relaunched site is being hosted.

‘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.’ 

The statement also included a quote from Parler’s 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.’ 

Apple, Google and Amazon 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. 

Amazon kicked Parler off of its web-hosting service on January 11, effectively wiping it off the internet. 

Parler sued Amazon in federal court to get back online two days later, 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. 

In Monday’s announcement Parler said the app would only be available to existing users in the first week of the relaunch. New users will be available to sign up beginning next week. 

The Verge confirmed that old accounts have been restored 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.  

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.  

Matze, 27, has repeatedly condemned his firing in recent weeks, accusing Mercer, the top stakeholder, of betraying him.  

Speaking to Axios on HBO last week, Matze claimed that he was ousted after trying to ban QAnon conspiracy theories and crackdown on white supremacists using the app.   

‘I feel like it was a stab in the back by somebody that I thought I knew. And so for me, you know, I would never do business with her again,’ Matze said of Mercer. 

‘I thought I knew her. She invited my family on trips with them and everything. I thought that she was, generally speaking, I thought she was being real. And then she just abruptly has her people fire me and doesn’t even talk to me about it.’ 

Parler experienced a surge in users after Twitter banned Donald Trump amid pressure to curb incendiary speech following the Capitol riots, which also saw the then-president barred from Facebook and Instagram.

Matze has previously said Trump contemplated joining Parler under a pseudonym.

He told Axios on HBO that any potential deal with Trump was a lose-lose scenario. 

‘I didn’t like the idea of working with Trump because he might have bullied people inside the company to do what he wanted. But I was worried that if we didn’t sign the deal, he might have been vengeful and told his followers to leave Parler,’ Matze said. 

It has since emerged that Trump was reportedly in talks to acquire a 40 percent stake in Parler in exchange for him agreeing to post on the social media app first. 

Matze and two other Parler advisers met at Mar-a-Lago in June to discuss the deal.

He did not mention that meeting during his Axios interview despite talking about the deal.  

It comes as House Democrats asked that Parler hand over a list of investors and creditors in the wake of news that Trump was offered a stake. 

‘These negotiations reportedly occurred while President Trump was still in office,’ House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney wrote in a letter to Parler chief operating officer Jeffrey Wernick. 

Maloney specifically asked for stakeholders with ‘direct or indirect ownership interests’ and any entity that Parler owes $10,000 or more to. 

In the wake of his Matze’s firing and the bitter fall out, Parler investor Dan Bongino publicly slammed the ousted CEO as a liar.

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Bongino slammed Matze’s comments about his firing as ‘inaccurate and misleading’.  

Bongino, a conservative podcast host and commentator, said that Matze had ‘difficulty reconciling guidelines enforcement on the one hand, and free expression on the other.’

‘We intend to demonstrate that there is no conflict between these, because the free exchange of ideas requires the exclusion of (threats of) violence.’

In a separate Facebook livestream, Bongino said: ‘I’m really p***ed off right now… The relationship with Parler and the CEO did not work out because the CEO’s vision was not ours. Everybody clear on that? Our vision was crystal clear.’  

‘This site was going to be a free speech platform or it was going to be nothing,’ Bongino said. ‘The vision of the company as a free speech platform was mine and the two other owners, and we were resolutely committed to that.’

‘We could have been up in a week, if we had just bent the knee and followed all the ridiculous Apple edicts to become a heavy-moderation site to the left of Twitter. 

‘We don’t want garbage on our site either and we took the proper steps to do that, but we were a free speech site.’  

Bongino also hinted that ‘terrible decisions’ were made under Matze’s leadership that led to the site being taken offline, without offering further details.

‘We needed to get up and fight back, some terrible decisions were made in the past, that led us to getting put down by Amazon and others,’ he said.