Parler, the social media platform favored by the US far right, has dismissed its CEO John Matze.
Matze confirmed his termination in a text message to Reuters.
“On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision,” Matze said in a memo sent to Parler staff, originally reported by Fox News.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Parler, which was founded in 2018, has styled itself as a “free speech-driven” space. The platform saw rapid growth with conservative users who grew frustrated as more mainstream platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, increasingly cracked down on falsehoods and misinformation.
However the site is facing an uncertain future after being essentially forced offline after the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Its website was subsequently dropped by Amazon’s cloud-hosting division, while Google and Apple had also suspended Parler from its app stores.
The site has since partially returned online with the help of a Russian-owned technology company.
Matze, who describes himself as libertarian, founded Parler as an alternative to mainstream platforms but began courting right-leaning users as prominent supporters of Donald Trump moved there. Senator Ted Cruz has promoted the app, while rightwing figures such as Laura Loomer, who had been banned from other platforms, found a haven there.
The social network, which resembles Twitter, takes its name from the French verb meaning “to talk” but is often pronounced like the English word “parlor”. Parler says it has more than 10m users.
This month, US lawmakers asked the FBI to investigated the role of Parler in facilitating and planning the attack on the US Capitol, citing reports that it was used to detail violent threats against elected officials.