Parler opens fake address in Germany

American social media Parler added a physical address of operations in the European Union. The address is in Köln, Germany, at the MiOM space, “a collective from Cologne with the vision of creating affordable space for creative synergies.”

Little known outside of the United States of America, Parler is a social network mostly used and promoted by American conservatives. It was notably used to coordinate the 2021 storming of the US Capitol, leading to its suspension by app stores.

This expansion towards the European Union takes place in a context of increased presence and political activism from major American social media. On January 7th, Mark Zuckerberg stated that Meta will “work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more” and dampened its hate speech restrictions. On January 9th, Elon Musk hosted a discussion on X to support Germany’s far-right party AfD.

Update 1 (Jan 15)

Following Open Terms Archive’s report, the MiOM space issued a statement:

MiOM Kreativraum e.V. has no relationship with Parler. The association has never been in contact with Parler. […] We are currently looking into possible legal measures.

Update 2 (Jan 15)

Following MiOM’s statement, Parler hid both their Texas and Köln addresses from their website. However, this removal is only visual and the data is still present on the page, enabling indexing by search engines.