Social Media Company Parler Returns With A Russian Tech Firm Providing Cyber Services

Reuters is report­ing that Par­ler, known to be a social media com­pa­ny exten­sive­ly used by the US far-right, has returned to the inter­net with assis­tance from a Russ­ian-owned tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny. Accord­ing to the report:

Par­ler, a social media web­site and app pop­u­lar with the Amer­i­can far right, has par­tial­ly returned online with the help of a Russ­ian-owned tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny. Par­ler van­ished from the inter­net when dropped by Ama­zon Inc’s host­ing arm and oth­er part­ners for poor mod­er­a­tion after its users called for vio­lence and post­ed videos glo­ri­fy­ing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capi­tol. On Mon­day, Parler’s web­site was reach­able again, though only with a mes­sage from its chief exec­u­tive say­ing he was work­ing to restore func­tion­al­i­ty. The inter­net pro­to­col address it used is owned by DDos-Guard, which is con­trolled by two Russ­ian men and pro­vides ser­vices includ­ing pro­tec­tion from dis­trib­uted denial of ser­vice attacks, infra­struc­ture expert Ronald Guil­mette told Reuters.

Read the rest here.

How­ev­er, a report by the Russ­ian state-con­trolled Sput­nik News agency says that Par­ler has denied the allegations:

The DDoS-GUARD com­pa­ny is a net­work secu­ri­ty provider. Its solu­tions and prod­ucts are aimed at pro­tect­ing web­sites against DDoS attacks, apart from oth­er things. DDoS-GUARD does not pro­vide host­ing ser­vices to Parler.com. It does not have any right to dis­close which ser­vices it pro­vides to clients, regard­less of their slant or audi­ence, as this runs counter to the com­pa­ny’s pri­va­cy pol­i­cy and the legislation.”

A sim­i­lar denial was report­ed by Forbes, which also not­ed that DDoS-Guard has a rela­tion­ship with the Russ­ian Min­istry of Defense:

If one con­sid­ers Par­ler to be a dan­ger, a place where the more extreme mem­bers of the far right are allowed to incite vio­lence, then DDoS-Guard could be seen as its body­guard, stop­ping peo­ple who want to take it down by force and there­fore an enabler. That it’s Russ­ian will gall those who fear that the Krem­lin and busi­ness­es under its influ­ence are work­ing to foment dis­cord in the U.S. Accord­ing to TAd­vis­er, one of DDoS-Guard’s cus­tomers is the Russ­ian Min­istry of Defense. It also pro­vid­ed ser­vices to 8kun, a far-right web­site also asso­ci­at­ed with the orga­niz­ing of the Capi­tol Hill riots, until it cut ties ear­li­er this month.