Parler, the social media platform many conservatives used to communicate about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, was booted from the Apple and Google stores and deplatformed by Amazon Web Services this past weekend. So its users went searching for an alternative.

It’s why social platform Gab reportedly picked up hundreds of thousands of users in the past few days, as its founder, Andrew Torba, touted its disconnect from Big Tech. The platform — which features discussions on the likes of QAnon and Brexit — is hosted on in-house servers after being banned from multiple cloud hosting providers over the years, Torba wrote on the site in September.

Torba has several connections to Philly, first in the form of a former social media marketing startup called Kuhcoon, which he built with cofounder and Drexel University grad Charles Szymanski. Kuhcoon was linked to now-closed Center City coworking space Seed Philly back in 2013, but a former employee told Technical.ly on Tuesday that the pair never showed up after signing a lease, or worked out of the space.

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