Epik, a Washington State-based internet webhosting safe haven for far-right websites, has given refuge to Parler after it was banned by several major tech companies.
With users as wide-ranging as Texas Senator Ted Cruz and neo-Nazi terror groups, Parler was recently booted from Amazon’s webhosting service, Google Play, and the Apple Store, after it was accused of being associated with the online organization preceding the violence on Capitol Hill last week.
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First reported by an independent journalist in the U.K., a simple Whois domain search shows that Parler, a social network that is something of a far-right version of Twitter, is now registered with Epik.
Epik did not respond to a request for comment.
Epik is already known as the internet savior of the far-right due to its support of other social media sites associated with the far-right.
In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a report noting that Epik, though not overtly racist in its mission statement, had begun “cornering the market on websites where hate speech is thriving.”
Gab, another social media app popular with rightwing extremists and once the choice place for terror groups like the Base and Atomwaffen Division to recruit, also uses Epik. 8chan, the toxic messaging board known for fomenting online hate speech for years, turned to the webhost after Cloudflare, a denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation firm, booted it from its services in August 2019.
After a neo-Nazi podcast network began using its service after being booted by another host in 2019, Epik CEO Rob Monster told VICE News that the company “allows lawful free speech” and that it welcomed “all views, without bias or preference.”
