Parler expands rapidly as haven for free speech with right-wing flavour

Conservative social media site Parler shows that offering free speech to everyone is a lofty ideal.

In recent weeks Parler has been rallying support among MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters to invalidate election results in the US. Picture: AFP

Conservative social media site Parler shows that offering free speech to everyone is a lofty ideal.

Parler is a microblogging site similar to Twitter in function with a base among right-wing US conservatives, Republican politicians and supporters of US President Donald Trump, although Trump appears not to have a personal account there.

In recent weeks Parler has been rallying support among MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters to invalidate election results in the US. It carries a large number of posts of articles claiming alleged voting irregularities that don’t seem to appear much elsewhere.

Co-founder John Matze denies that Parler seeks to be an echo chamber for conservative views, although that appears to be the end result.

Matze, a software engineer and developer with an interest in conservative economics, formed Parler in 2018 with Jared Thomson, also a software engineer and programmer.

The take-up of Parler (French for ‘to speak’) has been pushed along by some seminal events.

In 2018, there was the support by black pro-Trump activist Candace Owens, who in a tweet encouraged Trump activists to join. That netted Parler 40,000 followers, with Owens claiming to be its first conservative member.

To the people complaining on Twitter about being banned on Parler. Please pay heed:   Here are the very few basic rules we need you to follow on Parler. If these are not to your liking, we apologize, but we will enforce:   - When you disagree with someone, posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED   -Your Username cannot be obscene like “CumDumpster”   -No pornography. Doesn’t matter who, what, where, when, or in what realm.   - We will not allow you to spam other people trying to speak, with unrelated comments like “Fuck you” in every comment. It’s stupid. It’s pointless, Grow up.   -You cannot threaten to kill anyone in the comment section. Sorry, never ever going to be okay. If ever in doubt, ask yourself if you would say it on the streets of New York or national television.

-- John Matze 🇺🇸 🦃 John Tuesday, June 30, 2020

There was the reported mass defection of 200,000 Twitter users to Parler in Saudi Arabia around June 2019, amid claims that Twitter was censoring tweets there.

The biggest boost has been the US election, spurred on by the rise in fact checking and the reining in of conspiracy theories, and the increased scrutiny of posts by far right and extremist groups.

Users left out sought a platform that didn’t censor what they said. Twitter and Facebook’s decision to qualify or delete posts during the campaign, especially Trump’s tweets and posts that promoted claims of voting fraud, saw Parler become a go-to-place for conservative commentary.

In June, as the election campaign ramped up, membership surged. Parler went from about 1.5 million registered users to an estimated 8 million, a 430 per cent increase.

It’s still a long way behind Facebook (1.7 billion daily users) and Twitter (186 million) but Parler is on the march.

Parler’s entanglement with conservative politics cuts deeper, with bankrolling by Republican donor Rebekah Mercer. She is the daughter of Robert Mercer, a computer scientist and former co-CEO of hedge fund firm Renaissance Technologies, and principal investor in the now-defunct data-analysis firm Cambridge Analytica.

“John and I started Parler to provide a neutral platform for free speech, as our founders intended, and also to create a social media environment that would protect data privacy,” Rebekah Mercer ‘‘parleyed’’ on Parler.

John and I started Parler to provide a neutral platform for free speech, as our founders intended, and also to create a social media environment that would protect data privacy. Benjamin Franklin warned us: "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." The ever increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords demands that someone lead the fight against data mining, and for the protection of free speech online. That someone is Parler, a beacon to all who value their liberty, free speech, and personal privacy.

-- Rebekah Mercer RebekahMercer Sunday, November 15, 2020

“The ever-increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords demands that someone lead the fight against data mining, and for the protection of free speech online.”

In June Parler announced that former secret service agent turned radio show host Dan Bongino had taken an ‘‘ownership stake’’ in Parler, and Matze had to beat off a recent claim that billionaire investor George Soros was Parler’s majority owner. Soros has been a major donor to president-elect Joe Biden’s campaign and the bete noire of Parler.

Matze did make an attempt to get more left-leaning commentators into Parler. In June he told CNBC he had offered a $US20,000 “progressive bounty” for a high-profile liberal with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join Parler.

However, when a bunch of left wingers stormed the platform to take on MAGA commentators, they were booted off. They included writer for The Atlantic and Rolling Stone Thor Benson. “First time I’ve ever been banned from something and it’s the free speech website,” he tweeted in June.

Matze forbids pornography, spam, posting of fecal matter, threats to kill others, and obscure usernames. The terms give the platform almost carte blanche to remove users.

“If ever in doubt, ask yourself if you would say it on the streets of New York or national television,” Matze says.

Users are also legally liable for their posts and agree to fund Parler in legal actions involving their content.

Parler does not purport to show a balanced coverage of events; Matze says content a user sees depends entirely on whom they follow. But the suggested stream for me to join (on the home page) such as #americafirst #MAGA #election2020 #redwave and #holdtheline leaves no doubt which side of the fence Parler occupies.

Misinformation, conspiracy theories and content such as the multitude of reports claiming to prove vote rigging in the US election can survive and thrive on the platform.

However, Parler leaves no doubt that there is a broad conservative organisational base that was non-existent when Trump took office four years ago and will survive well after he leaves office.