Parler to Temporarily Shut Down, Pivot to Supplying ‘Uncancelable’ IT Services

Parler, the social networking internet site as soon as well known with right-wing buyers, is lifeless for now. But the platform intends to reside on as an IT company powering other platforms centered on totally free speech. 

On Friday, a business named Starboard, which owns conservative information web-sites, introduced it had concluded its acquisition of Parler. The primary internet site and app for Parler now show a statement(Opens in a new window) from Starboard that suggests the service’s business model was having difficulties to draw in buyers. 

“No acceptable particular person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a practical organization any more,” the company wrote. Instead, Starboard strategies on employing Parler to offer an “uncancelable ecosystem” of IT products and services for other sites and apps, a pivot(Opens in a new window) that started last year. 

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“By refocusing on the cloud and IT infrastructure house, [outgoing Parler CEO] George Farmer has accomplished an fantastic occupation at correctly major Parlement into a critically significant market wherever it has by now begun to excel,” Starboard added.

Consequently, Starboard, which was started in 2018, plans on using Parler’s digital assets to improve the company’s media and publishing enterprise. But in the meantime, Starboard pulled the plug on Parler, while it could return in some variety, pending a “strategic assessment.”

“We at Starboard see huge options throughout several sectors to continue to provide marginalized or even outright censored communities—even extending past domestic politics,” the business reported. 

Parler also launched in 2018 as a absolutely free speech alternative to Twitter and acquired a wave of indicator-ups through the 2020 US presidential election. However, Amazon, Apple, and Google briefly shut down access to the app just after it was allegedly utilised to assistance Donald Trump supporters coordinate the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.

Though Parler later on returned with information moderation in put, the application struggled to keep traction amid the arrival of Trump’s individual social networking application, Fact Social, and then Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, which is now prioritizing absolutely free speech in excess of content material moderation. Parler only had about 250,000 month-to-month energetic buyers, according(Opens in a new window) to The Wall Street Journal. 

Last 12 months, the rapper previously known as Kanye West also tried using to acquire Parler. But the offer was afterwards dissolved soon after West was observed earning quite a few antisemitic remarks.