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Conservative internet personalities are migrating to Parler, a social media app created in 2018 that bills itself as a “non-biased free speech” platform. The wave of support follows Twitter’s recent decision to permanently suspend Logan Cook,
a pro-Trump meme creator who goes by the moniker “CarpeDonktum” and was
removed from the platform on Tuesday over repeated copyright
violations.
But while Parler claims to promote
“free expression,” a closer look at its guidelines reveals a set of
rules that in many ways is just as restrictive, or even more so, than
Twitter’s own terms of service.
Parler (pronounced “par-lay,” as in the French word meaning “to speak”) was founded by John Matze, a libertarian software developer in Nevada who briefly worked at Amazon, according to LinkedIn.
It is functionally similar to Twitter, allowing people to follow other
users and access a news feed akin to Twitter Moments but overwhelmingly
populated by conservative pundits, politicians, and outlets like Zero Hedge and Epoch Times.
Posts can be upvoted or downvoted and “echoed” rather than retweeted.
Parler also features a built-in meme maker containing filters such as a
“Breaking News” chyron. Matze claims the platform has roughly 1 million users, up from an estimated 100,000 last year.
Parler’s
surges in popularity over the past two years have been mostly linked to
the moderation of conservative figures on Twitter. Several months after
its launch in August, Parler experienced a bump in users
after far-right activist Laura Loomer and pro-Trump commentator Candace
Owens were respectively banned and suspended by Twitter. Both Owens and Loomer joined Parler in 2018, along with other figures such as YouTube host Paul Joseph Watson, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. Matze has appeared
on Fox News describing Parler as a haven for people who felt censored
online. He added that only content containing “some sort of
constitutional violation” would be moderated by the platform.
But a review of Parler’s community guidelines shows the platform has more in common with Twitter than its marketing implies.
Parler’s
rules were updated sometime between 2019 and this year. As of July
2019, Parler’s community guidelines protected “offensive speech,” “hate
speech ([that] is not considered obscene by the FCC),” and “fake news,”
according to a previous version of its rules
accessible on the Internet Archive. A vague chart comparing protected
and prohibited content allows “dark humor” but discourages “fighting
words.” Satire is permitted but not impersonation.
“We
want to uphold the rights of free speech according to the U.S.
Constitution; however, we also do not want user content to be so obscene
that it undermines the core purpose of Parler as a platform for
meaningful discussion,” these guidelines state. Parler cites the Federal
Communications Commission’s definition of “obscenity,” which regulates on-air programming and has been invoked in recent complaints about mild nudity and profanity, drawing criticism from some First Amendment experts over the scope of its use.
Unlike
Gab, another conservative platform that has attracted white
supremacists in the wake of events like Charlottesville, Parler has kept
a fairly low profile.
Parler’s current community guidelines
are more specific and less permissive, and it’s unclear why the
company’s rules were changed. Whereas it once allowed “fake news,” it
now advises users to “not purposefully share rumors about other
users/people you know are false.” Parler previously discouraged fighting
words; it now clarifies that rule as “a personal assault with the
intention of inviting the other party to fisticuffs.” (Fisticuffs being a
somewhat outdated word for fistfight.) The platform prohibits nudity,
including female nipples, specifically, and any form of genitalia. Parler does note, however, that “buttock is acceptable.”
For comparison, Twitter forbids images of female breasts, with the exception of breastfeeding. Twitter allows parody or satire accounts but similarly draws the line at impersonation. Much like Twitter’s policy that resulted in the labeling of President Trump’s tweet
last month — “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump
wrote of protests in Minneapolis — Parler also discourages content that
incites violence or produces a clear and present danger.
So
far, none of these rules have been tested to the extent of Twitter’s
guidelines. And unlike Gab, another conservative platform that has attracted white supremacists in the wake of events like Charlottesville,
Parler has kept a fairly low profile. (All of this could change,
however, if Parler manages to court President Trump, for whom Matze has preemptively reserved a handle.)
But despite its free speech veneer and anti-moderation promises, Parler
is, at present, merely a haven for Twitter social media castoffs.
Parler did not immediately respond to OneZero’s questions about its community guidelines.
Parler’s Founder Explains Why He Built Trump’s New Favorite Social Media App
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 31: U.S. President Donald Trump shouts answers to reporters after Vietnamese ... [+]
Getty Images
“I hope you don’t mind that I’m eating: I haven’t eaten all day,”
says Parler founder John Matze, devouring a late lunch. His social media
app—a new favorite of President Trump’s and other GOP leaders—has been
under siege for the past few hours. “I’m sitting here like, banning
trolls.”
By trolls he means teenage leftists who’ve flooded onto Parler after the Trump campaign publicly declared
on Wednesday that it might decamp from Facebook and Twitter and refocus
its efforts through Parler. Matze knows the leftists’ ages of the
trolls, as he calls them, because some verified their accounts, coughing
up selfies and driver’s licenses or passports (a set of highly unusual
requirements for proving identity and registering for an online
account). They’re comment-raiding Parler posts—swamping them with
messages that make it unpleasant for the app’s conservative users to
post and interact with each other. “They’re trying to get people to have
a bad experience and leave,” he says. “We've got a big army of
volunteers to help take care of this. It's going to be handled within 48
hours.”
Parler—as in, a parlor room where a chat might happen—is a
two-year-old app dedicated, Matze says, to the promulgation of free
speech: “The best thing is for everyone to engage with a bad idea and
shut it down through public discourse.” Right now, Parler is hosting a
very one-sided conversation. It is almost entirely made up of Republican
leaders, officials, thinkers and publications. (Liberals account for a
“very minute share of the population,” Matze says.) The Trump campaign,
of course, is on Parler. Likewise, Trump’s son Eric, his lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani, and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale. Alongside them:
senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, the National Rife Association and The Washington Times. Listening to what they say are 1.7 million users, almost double the amount of people on the app in April.
Presumably many have arrived
in the days following Trump’s announcement. This moment in the sun for
Parler comes courtesy of the president’s on-going feud with Facebook
and, especially, Twitter over what he and other conservatives see as
censorship and unfair treatment. That tension has grown recently after
Twitter applied fact check and explanatory labels on several of Trump’s tweets; Facebook now appears poised to do something similar.
Trump has already threatened the social media industry with increased
regulation. And he may go a step further than that and move his own
digital presence—a key factor
in his 2016 victory—over to an app like Parler. It has been a home for
the right since its beginning, and it’s an ideal spot for the
president’s fiery words given Matze’s devoutly laissez faire attitude
toward speech.
"I've been talking about free speech for a while before it was cool," says John Matze, 27, the ... [+]
The Epoch Times
“There are going to be no fact checkers. You're not going to be told
what to think and what to say. A police officer isn't going to arrest
you if you say the wrong opinion,” says Matze, 27. “I think that's all
people want. That's what they like.”
Matze has been weighing these thoughts for some time, stretching back
to his time as a University of Denver undergrad, where he studied math,
German and business. He found himself leaning a lot toward the
conservative economist Thomas Sowell (“very logical”), and he also digs
the classic libertarian lodestar Ayn Rand (“very interesting”). Matze
describes himself as an arguer. “I don't have too many friends, but the
ones I do have, we just talk amongst ourselves about ideas—crazy ones,
easy ones, whatever.”
After graduating in 2014, he took shorts gigs as a software developer at number of companies, including a few months at Amazon
AMZN
. Matze was never into “big central points of authority,”
and this included bosses. So he struck out on his own in 2018, raising
some angel round money from friends to begin Parler (he won’t say
exactly how much).
At the start, the app got a number of lucky boosts. During a
networking lunch in 2018, Matze struck up a conversation with Candace
Owens, the conservative activist, who promptly began encouraging people
to join Parler. By the following June, it had about 200,00 users, a
figure that doubled almost overnight
when hundreds of thousands of Saudi Arabian dissidents deserted Twitter
for Parler, unhappy with what they saw as Twitter protecting the Saudi
government. Media outlets including Reuters, Slate and The Daily Beast reported on the exodus, helping Parler keep growing.
Parler functions like a barebones Twitter with users (such as the
Trumps and Giuliani) to follow and a feed to see their posts. True to
Matze’s hands-off stance, the feed flows chronologically—unlike
Twitter’s algorithm-based one. As for the exact rules, Matze is still
figuring out which ones should apply, setting up an uncertain landscape
that could be stampeded over if Trump carries through on his threat and
switches to Parler. For instance, when asked if there ever might be an
instance when the N-word would be appropriate, Matze has this answer:
“It depends on the context. If they just said that word alone, I don't
think we would touch it.” He thinks a couple minutes longer, then
restates his opinion. “If somebody came on there and said the N-word to
somebody, and they got very upset as a result of that, then it would get
taken down.”
Matze is also just initially considering how Parler might make money.
His plan: lure conservative influencers onto the platform, then help
match them up with advertisers, taking a cut of the what the influencers
charge the advertisers to shill their products. To encourage ads, he
hopes to be able to offer up a legion of super engaged users—ones like
himself. “I've been kind of on my own island on Parler for a while. I
don't watch TV. I don't do anything. I get everything off Parler.”
Abram Brown is a senior editor at Forbes, where he covers social media,
There’s a new social media app trying to give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money -- without the censorship.
Instead of using fact-checkers or a “third party editorial board,” Parler moderates posts based on FCC guidelines and Supreme Court rulings, Parler CEO John Matze told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on Friday.
“It’ll
feel very similar to Twitter, which I’m sure many people are accustomed
to,” Matze said. “However ... we take a really firm stance that we want
to be unbiased.” CONSERVATIVES USE TWITTER TO PUSH ALTERNATIVE PARLER APP AFTER TRUMP TWEET FLAGGED
If
someone does post something inaccurate on Parler, Matze said the app
would not fact-check it. Instead, other users would be able to comment.
“They
can make any claim they’d like, but they’re going to be met with a lot
of commenters, a lot of people who are going to disagree with them,”
Matze said. “That’s how society works, right? If you make a claim,
people are going to come and fact check you organically.”
“You don’t need an editorial board of experts to determine what’s
true and what’s not,” he added. “The First Amendment was given to us so
that we could all talk about issues, not have a single point of
authority to determine what is correct and what’s not.” WILL TRUMP SWITCH FROM TWITTER TO PARLER?
So far, Matze said Parler has gotten a lot of attention from conservatives
-- because “they seem to be the ones that are most affected by Twitter
censorship or Facebook censorship” -- but the website is for people from
all places on the political spectrum.
“We’re a town square,” Matze said. “That’s how I view us. So everyone’s welcome, any kind of discussion.”
“We
want people to actually have conversations again,” he added. “The
country’s too partisan right now. And when you go on these sites, it
feels like a battleground. And so the idea is that you’re going to get
on Parler and have discussions with people.” AG BARR ON TECH COMPANIES CENSORING VIEWPOINTS: ‘THERE’S SOMETHING VERY DISTURBING ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON’
But it’s not just conservatives who are getting on Parler, Matze said.
“You’re
going to see a lot of people on the other side of the aisle coming over
very soon,” he said. “In fact, we’re seeing them in waves now. Not to
the extent that they’re high-profile individuals, but you’re seeing a
lot of people on the left who are actually curious.”
“They will come in bigger numbers and we’re going to see some bigger
names come over, too, when they don’t want to miss out on the
conversation,” he added. “They can’t resist.”
However, the app is particularly important for conservatives to have a place where their voices can be heard, Matze said.
“Right
now, conservatives need this kind of place, right?” he said. “This is
something that they need in an election year, when they’re experiencing
censorship or some kind of bias against them, whether it’s perceived or
real … People want a place that they can feel like they’re appreciated
and their voice matters and they can speak.”
Several Republican lawmakers have already joined the app including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
COMMENTS:
Won’t take long for liberal progressives to migrate over to the new format and begin to contaminate it. It’s what they do for live. They are a cancer upon society.
Nothing free about it and these platforms are collective endeavors, designed to stifle opinion- every time.
PARLER, MINDS, & GAB = the future of social media ..... FREE SPEECH always prevails..... censorship kills!! just like communism!
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