Parler, the “free speech” Twitter wannabe, explained - Vox
Parler, the “free speech” Twitter wannabe, explained
Conservatives are flocking to a site where they can post things that Facebook and Twitter don’t allow.
In recent weeks, you may have been hearing more about a site called Parler, which conservatives are touting as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook. From
Ivanka Trump to the
governor of Nebraska, right-wing influencers are asking those frustrated with alleged Big Tech censorship to join them on Parler, a two-year-old app and website that promises free speech online. It’s social media — minus the curation algorithms and content moderation.
Parler, which has been around since 2018, looks at first glance a lot like Twitter and Facebook. Open the app, there are profiles pushing doubt about the 2020 election’s results and declarations that the mainstream tech platforms are targeting free speech. With just a few clicks, it’s easy to find even more extreme right-wing voices and hate speech. Overall, the site appears like an amalgamation of some of the most odious factions of social media, centralized on one platform that’s attracted millions of users.
In the final days of the 2020 election, Parler’s popularity exploded. Searches for “Parler” have
surged since late October, and the app
saw a spike in downloads after Joe Biden won the White House. Currently, Parler is No. 4 in the news category on
the Apple App Store. (At one point in November, the app actually
reached the top slot in the App Store, though it’s since fallen significantly in the rankings.) The Washington Post reports that the site now has
more than 10 million users, and the company’s COO has said that the user base is continuing to grow
by the millions.
These numbers are still small compared to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which collectively boast billions of users. But Parler is becoming a topic of conversation on those platforms, too. Between November 10 and 16, Parler reached its highest number of mentions ever on Twitter (1.5 million) according to data collected by
Zignal Labs. In the past month,
posts mentioning
Parler have racked up hundreds of thousands of “Likes” on Facebook.
As it’s grown, Parler has become a way station for hate speech and misinformation that Twitter and Facebook wouldn’t allow. The site is also where many Trump supporters are spreading the false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. The burgeoning influence of Parler is part of a broader trend of fringe outlets like One America News and Newsmax hoping to reel in an audience of Trump loyalists, especially after he leaves office.
This flurry of post-election attention is not the first time Parler has made the news. Over the summer, Parler started to see new users after Twitter put warning labels on several tweets from President Trump, prompting prominent conservatives
to coax their followers into joining the app. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz even posted a video announcing his decision to move to Parler.
But despite the recent attention, some say the rise of Parler fits into the larger history of American conservatives and their relationship with the media.
“This follows a pattern of what the right wing has done [since] the rise of talk radio in the ’80s, and then through live cable TV, and then the rise of social media,”
Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair of the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Right-Wing Studies, told Recode. “In each case, what you found is that the right wing gives up on participating in mainstream media and creates an alternative universe.”
Parler is just the latest iteration of this phenomenon, Rosenthal explained.
If Parler is looking to become a real competitor to the social media giants it criticizes, the company still has a very long way to go. While Parler is intent on not moderating much of its content, pressures to do so could grow as its users try to bend the few rules the site does have.
Parler looks and works like Twitter, but there are important differences
When you first sign up for Parler, the site asks for standard information like a phone number and an email address. Parler also provides a list of suggested follows — mostly conservative influencers — and recommended hashtags during the signup process. Once you reach the homepage, the site prompts you to post something (“What’s new?”) and provides an updated inventory of posts and threads from accounts you follow. Some of these accounts are verified, and some use hashtags (which you can search separately).
There’s also a private messaging feature that’s similar to direct messages on Twitter and a “Discover” tab, where Parler features “all of the latest news” from accounts that users don’t already follow. In the “Verification” tab, users are prompted to provide images of a government identification card as well as a selfie in order to earn “Citizen” status on the app.
Parler eschews content curation, and posts from people you follow appear chronologically — not algorithmically sorted as posts appear on Facebook and Twitter. “We do not curate your feed; we do not pretend to be qualified to do so,” state the company’s
guidelines. While there are
some limitations, like certain illegal activity,
Parler’s community guidelines promise users that the platform will be “viewpoint-neutral” and that “removing community members or member-provided content [will] be kept to the absolute minimum.”
Parler emphasizes that it doesn’t have a particular ideological affiliation, but much of the content on the platform is conservative, and the site also
has conservative backers. The site also immediately steers new users to conservative voices and content. When Recode started a new account on the site, we were prompted to follow a slew of prominent right-wing personalities and brands, including PragerU, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Dinesh D’Souza.
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