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| DATE | 2021-01-12 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Obsucles to Free Speech Platforms continue to
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Parler Faces Obstacles to Getting Back Online
Companies cut off from popular digital-service providers can struggle to
find workarounds
Parler could turn to smaller cloud providers or build its own network
infrastructure, though both options would likely pose technical and
financial challenges.
Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Image
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Updated Jan. 12, 2021 1:12 pm ET
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Parler, the social network popular among conservatives and other
right-leaning users that was plunged into internet limbo this week,
faces a technically complex and costly path to getting back online.
Amazon.com Inc. booted the company from its cloud-computing service
Sunday night, knocking Parler offline. To stay alive, the self-professed
free-speech social platform must find a new vendor willing to host its
data after some of the app’s users stoked last week’s deadly attack on
the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters seeking to stop
certification of the election results. Alternatively, Parler could build
its own network infrastructure, although that approach could lead to
further delays resuming its service.
Potential cloud operators other than Amazon include Microsoft Corp. and
Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The search-giant declined to comment. Last week
it pulled Parler from its app store, saying some users’ content incited
violence—the same argument Amazon made in withdrawing its service.
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Parler, a Platform Favored by Trump Fans, Struggles to Survive
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Parler was still using Microsoft email services as of Monday. Microsoft
said it has had no contact with Parler about hosting its data and
wouldn’t comment on customers using its email service.
Parler also wouldn’t run on Oracle Corp.’s growing cloud business, a
person familiar with the matter said.
Tech companies are increasingly making decisions over the content they
host and to whom they provide their services, sometimes in response to
government requests or pressure from employees or others. Such moves
have sometimes triggered their own backlash.
Parler could turn to smaller, lower-profile cloud providers, though some
in the tech industry say those services could struggle to support the
app since its user numbers have surged after Facebook Inc. and Twitter
Inc. blocked President Trump on those platforms. One such smaller
vendor, New York-based DigitalOcean LLC, has signaled it wouldn’t
welcome Parler, saying the history of content on the app violated the
cloud provider’s terms of service.
Social-media companies, like others, generally rely on a network of tech
suppliers to deliver their online services. Those services range from
data storage to more basic functions, such as connecting to the internet
or registering domain names. Companies cut off from those services have
options to remain online, though that can involve working with overseas
vendors or accepting degraded functionality, industry professionals say.
Parler’s chief executive, John Matze, said the platform could be offline
for a week as it rebuilds its service. Amazon, in its letter notifying
Parler it would suspend service, said it was preserving the social-media
company’s data and would assist in migrating it elsewhere. On Monday
Parler sued Amazon over the move, alleging anticompetitive motives and
political animus, claims that the tech giant called meritless.
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Cloud experts say the odds are against Parler restoring its full service
in such a short time.
“It isn’t happening any time soon,” said Corey Quinn of the Duckbill
Group, a company that helps customers manage their Amazon cloud
services. Shifting everything involved in running a system like Parler
could take at least six months, he said. “This is not setting up a blog
post and putting that up on the web.”
Mr. Matze said the company planned to move to a new cloud-service
provider and had multiple options he didn’t name.
Parler isn’t the first company to be forced to find ways to operate
after tech companies shunned it. The app could follow a path similar to
Gab more than two years ago when that social-media platform was dropped
by its cloud provider, Joyent, after a gunman murdered 11 people at a
Pittsburgh synagogue. The alleged shooter used Gab to post anti-Semitic
and Holocaust-denying messages and said on the platform, “Screw your
optics, I’m going in” shortly before the attack.
Gab, which also had billed itself as a venue for free expression,
eventually resurfaced using a technology setup that was reminiscent of
those in the early 2000s. Instead of the cloud, Gab hosted its service
on racks of servers in a room rented from an undisclosed data center.
Gab also uses some internet service providers to stay online. The
company’s domain name is registered by Epik Inc., and its online content
is protected from attack and sped up over the internet by Cloudflare
Inc. On Sunday, Parler moved its domain name registration to Epik, the
domain registration company’s chief executive, Rob Monster, told The
Wall Street Journal.
Epik drew criticism in 2019 for providing internet services to 8chan,
the forum used by suspects in three mass shootings, including one that
killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Epik later
dropped 8chan as a customer. Cloudflare didn’t respond to requests for
comment.
“Over the past four years we have been banned from multiple cloud
hosting providers and were told that if we didn’t like it we should
‘build our own.’ So, that’s exactly what we did,” Gab CEO Andrew Torba
said in a blog post last September. The process took a year, he said.
Following in Gab’s footsteps represents a more technically complex
alternative than finding another cloud vendor but one that could make
sense for Parler, said Fredrick Brennan, the founder and former
administrator of 8chan, which several service providers have dropped
over its links to mass shootings. Mr. Brennan has since stopped working
for 8chan and is now a vocal critic of the website, now rebranded as 8kun.
“If I was them, I would figure out where Gab was hosted,” he said of Parler.
Mr. Torba declined to say where Gab now houses its servers or how much
its data-center migration cost. “I’m far too smart to answer those
questions,” he said.
—Jeff Horwitz contributed to this article.
Write to Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan-at-wsj.com and Aaron Tilley at
aaron.tilley-at-wsj.com
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