Parler, a fledgling social media app that bills itself as an unbiased alternative to Twitter and Facebook, has seen a dramatic spike in us...
Parler, a fledgling social media app that bills itself as an unbiased alternative to Twitter and Facebook, has seen a dramatic spike in users thanks to supporters of President Donald Trump who have been signing up in droves to escape what some perceive as censorship on the other, more established platforms.
This sudden groundswell of interest in Parler, which has been on the periphery of the social media landscape since it was founded in 2018, was sparked by the Trump campaign's announcement last week that it might switch its efforts from Twitter and Facebook to Parler.
Conservatives have flocked to Parler, citing the more aggressive policing of controversial political comments on the more mainstream platforms.
New kid on the block: Parler is a social media app that has been around since 2018. It has now become a hub for conservatives and Trump supporters
The news has prompted some high-profile GOP lawmakers and prominent right-wing personalities, including Rep Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio and an ardent support of Donald Trump, Rep Elise Stefanik, from New York, and former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, to join Parler, reported CNBC.
Sen Ted Cruz, of Texas, signed up to the platform in early June, while Rep Devin Nunes, of California, has been on Parler since February, though both had been beaten to the punch by Sen Rand Paul, from Kentucky, who has been using the app since 2018.
'It's about time y'all joined me on @parler_app,' Paul, a libertarian, tweeted on Wednesday. 'What's taking the rest of you so long?!'
Parler's growing roster of influential conservative members also includes both of Trump's grown sons, Don Jr and Eric Trump, the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale, and political commentator Candace Owens.
President Trump himself, who boasts 82.5million followers on Twitter and uses it on a nearly daily basis, has yet to decamp to Parler, despite repeatedly attacking Jack Dorsey's social media juggernaut for flagging some of his recent tweets for advocating violence, or promoting deceptive claims.
Early adopter: Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian, has been on Parler since 2018
Brand Parscale, manager of President Trump's re-election campaign has joined Parler while staying active on Twitter
Virtually all of the Republicans who have joined Parler still maintain active Twitter accounts boasting hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers.
Two days after The Wall Street Journal reported on Parler's emergence as a possible locus of the Trump campaign's social media activity, the platform became the number one iPhone app in the news category, where it has remained as of Monday afternoon, ahead of both Twitter and Reddit.
Parler CEO John Matze, 27, said that the number of users has jumped from 1 million to nearly 2 million in a week, which is still a far cry from Facebook's 2.6 billion active users and Twitter's 330 million users.
Parler bills itself as a 'free speech social network.' A description on its homepage reads: 'Parler is an unbiased social media focused on real user experiences and engagement. Our content is moderated based off the FCC and the Supreme court of the United States which enables free expression without violence and a lack of censorship. Parler never shares your personal data.'
Rep Devin Nunes joined Parlel last month, after attempting to sue Twitter over parody accounts
Rep Jim Jordan, of Ohio, an ardent supporter of the president, touted Parler as a censorship-free social media app
For all its talk of free speech, the app has strict guidelines that ban posts that support terrorism, violent language, false rumors or pornography, to name a few of the off-limits topics.
But unlike Twitter, Parler does not have anyone on its 30-person staff fact-checking posts and adding labels warning users about potentially false or harmful claims.
In late May, after Twitter labeled two of Trump's tweets suggesting that mail-in ballots could lead to voter fraud as 'misleading,' the president threatened to impose new regulation on social media companies or even to 'close them down' for silencing 'conservative voices.'
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously refused to take action against misleading or outright false Trump posts, saying that people deserved to hear unfiltered statements from political leaders.
CEO John Matze founded Parler in 2018; he is now seeking to expand its appeal beyond its pro-Trump base and attract liberals
But faced with a growing ad boycott, which now includes Coca Cola, Verizon, Patagonia, The North Face and REI, Facebook on Friday announced it will flag all 'newsworthy' posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from Trump.
'The policies we're implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they're showing up across our community,' Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page announcing the changes.
Parler's Matze, a resident of Las Vegas with a degree in computer science who describes himself as libertarian, said it is not his platform's job to fact-check claims made by its users. Instead, other users can weigh in and correct falsehoods in the comments.
''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 told Fox News. 'That’s how society works, right? If you make a claim, people are going to come and fact check you organically.'
Trump in May threatened to impose new regulation on social media companies like Twitter and Facebook or even to 'close them down' for silencing 'conservative voices'
Matze previously said in an interview with Reuters that he founded the platform in 2018 as a bipartisan platform but has doubled down on marketing to right-wing members as they took to the site.
Now, he is offering a $20,000 'progressive bounty' in a desperate bid to draw influential liberals to Parler in order to foster healthy political debate.
His goal, as articulated in a series of interviews Matze has done with business publications and websites in recent days, is to transform Parler from a right-wing hub into a 'town square' where people of different persuasions could freely exchange their opinions without fearing censorship or bias.
'The whole company was never intended to be a pro-Trump thing,' Matze told CNBC. 'A lot of the audience is pro-Trump. I don't care. I'm not judging them either way.'
No comments