Parler was founded in 2018. In litigation it brought in January 2021, its own complaint described it as “a conservative microblogging alternative and competitor to Twitter.” Its December 2020 community guidelines stated a deliberately permissive moderation posture: “We prefer that removing community members or member-provided content be kept to the absolute minimum.” At the time it filed suit, Parler told the court it had 15 million end-user accounts and a million app downloads per day.
The January 2021 suspension
Parler had contracted with Amazon Web Services for cloud hosting in June 2018. AWS said it had received reports that Parler was failing to moderate posts encouraging and inciting violence, in violation of the hosting agreement and AWS’s Acceptable Use Policy, and that Parler had not responded adequately.
After the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and the banning of President Trump from Twitter and Facebook on January 8, Parler said it saw a large influx of users and a 355 percent increase in app installations. Parler attributed to that surge its failure to clear what it acknowledged in its own brief was a “backlog of 26,000 instances of content that potentially encouraged violence.”
AWS notified Parler on January 9 that it would suspend all services, and did so overnight between January 10 and 11; the platform went dark. Parler sued the same morning, alleging conspiracy in restraint of trade under the Sherman Act, breach of contract, and tortious interference. On January 21, 2021 the court denied a preliminary injunction, finding Parler had not shown a likelihood of success on any of the three claims, that the balance of equities favored it, or that the public interest supported an injunction. Notably, the court recorded that Parler “has not denied that these posts are abusive or that they violate the Acceptable Use Policy.”
Sale and relaunch
Starboard, formerly Olympic Media, acquired Parler on April 14, 2023 on undisclosed terms and took the service offline pending a revamp. The site operates again today under Sovren Technologies, Inc., and no longer presents itself in partisan terms: it now describes itself as “social media that respects you,” aimed at “creators, brands, and communities who want real reach, real connection, and real ownership.”
Sources
- 01.
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Order Denying Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Parler LLC v. Amazon Web Services, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00031-BJR (W.D. Wash. Jan. 21, 2021). (2021). Source for Parler's 2018 founding and its self-description in its own complaint as "a conservative microblogging alternative and competitor to Twitter"; the quoted December 2020 community guidelines ("We prefer that removing community members or member-provided content be kept to the absolute minimum"); the claim of 15 million end-user accounts and a million daily app downloads; the June 2018 AWS Customer Services Agreement; AWS's January 9, 2021 suspension notice and the suspension itself overnight on January 10-11; Parler's acknowledged "backlog of 26,000 instances of content that potentially encouraged violence"; and the court's denial of the injunction on all three claims.
- 02.
Malik, A. (2023). Parler shut down temporarily after being acquired by digital media company Starboard. TechCrunch. Source for the April 14, 2023 acquisition by Starboard (formerly Olympic Media) on undisclosed terms, the temporary shutdown of the service pending a revamp, and CEO Ryan Coyne's quoted statement about Parler's user base and strategic assets.
- 03.
Sovren Technologies, Inc.. Parler. Source for the platform's current operation and self-description — "Social media that respects you. Built for creators, brands, and communities who want real reach, real connection, and real ownership" — and for its current operator, stated in the site footer as "Parler is part of Sovren Technologies, Inc."