Parler

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Parler

"Parler" https://parler.com/ [url text] Type Microblogging and Social Media Network Launch Date 2018 Status Active Product Line product Platform iOS, Android, Web Website Parler App [1]

Introduction

Parler is an American alt-right social media platform founded in 2018. Although it labels itself as an 'un-biased' social media platform, it's audience mainly consists of conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and those on the far right. Posts on Parler are referred to as “Parleys,” which cannot be searched for using the text content of the post. Thus, users apply hashtags to posts that they wish to disseminate into different groups.

Parler has recently been a hot topic of discussion for several news outlets, as reports have come out with evidence that it harbored several coordinators of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol. Media personalities, such as Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Laura Loomer are active on the site, as well as conservative politicians such as Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Devin Nunes.

History

Parler was founded by John Matze Jr., and Jared Thomson, both University of Denver computer science alumni, and former college roommates, alongside Rebekah Mercer in August 2018. The company is headquartered in Handerson, Nevada. In 2018, it launched on both Android and Apple devices, as well as was the most download app of the year. Parler was developed as a response to the increased moderation of accounts on more widely used social media platforms. The mission of the app, as told by its leaders, is to offer an uncensored, and free-speech alternative to current tech giants, mainly Twitter and Facebook. The name of the platform comes from the French word parlay, meaning ‘to speak’ , but has since been changed to be pronounced as ‘parlor’.

User base

Audience

A significant portion of Parler’s user base consists of far-right extremists, conspiracy theorists, and high-profile conservative Republican commentators, media personalities, and politicians. Many of these higher-profile users came onto the Parler platform after losing their accounts on larger social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, due to violations to the platforms’ terms of service.

Platform growth

Over time, Parler has had three major jumps in growth, the first being in June 2019, then June 2020, and lastly in November 2020. In June 2019, there was a growth of 200,00 users from Saudi Arabia(Reuters). This was suspected to be in response to the suspension of six Twitter accounts from Saudi Arabia, one of which being a large news outlet. This large spike in Parler’s user base consisted on several Saudi nationalist accounts, as well as ordinary individuals from Saudi Arabia.

In June 2020, Parler’s downloads also rose exponentially, from 1,700 downloads at the beginning of the month, to 143,00 towards the end. During June and July of 2020, Parler rose to the top of the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

The third growth spot Parler had was in November of 2020, in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. This was the most drastic increase in users of the three- registering up to 7029 new users by the minute. Just in the week leading up to Election Day, the app was downloaded around one million times. Around this time, many mainstream news outlets began to give heavy coverage to the platform. This was due to conspiracy theories such as QAnon, child trafficking, and the Stop the Steal conspiracy. Additionally, growth can be attributed to the nature of the app as an “echo-chamber,” where misinformation spreads profusely.

Content

Posts

Because of the way that Parler brands itself as an un-biased, un-censored, free-speech platform, with extremely low moderation, any and all kinds of information, including misinformation is widespread on the app. Parler is notorious for its homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and anti-semetic content, as well as holds responsibility in spreading the QAnon conspiracy theory. Additionally, before updating its guidelines towards the end of 2020, Parler harbored large amounts of pornographic and obscene content.

QAnon

One of the most well-known conspiracy theories is Q-Anon . There is a large amount of Americans, including members of congress: Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Bboebert, who believe in this theory, which, in summary, claims that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, including several Democratic leaders, run a global child sex-trafficking ring to extract an immortality chemical called adrenochrome. The theory says that Donald Trump was recruited by the U.S. military to destroy this ring. Because of the nature of Parler, new layers of misinformation are constantly being added to the theory through the app. Additionally, when Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter banned content promoting QAnon on their platforms in October 2020, many supporters migrated to Parler, making it a hub for the conspiracy theory.

In November 2020, several posts were made by a verified account under the name Ron Watkins, the son of 8chan owner Jim Watkins, claiming that his father was the alleged Q(whom supporters believe to be a government insider with access to information on the cabal). It was eventually revealed that co-founder of Anonymous had changed the name of an already-verified account to Watkins’, revealing the lack in security of Parler.

Insurrection

A post by conservative political commentator Dan Bongino, referring to the the Capitol riots.

Several of those who took part in the insurrection on the Capitol in January of 2021 had used Parler as their central coordination platform for their plans. Around 2,000 posts on Parler, supporting the riots were marked with the hashtag #stormthecapitol. On top of planning, users took to Parler to share videos of themselves entering the White House. This was the tipping point for Amazon Web Services to eliminate the Parler's web hosting, due to a failure to "effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others."

Removal of Parler from app stores

Following the insurrection at the Capitol, several larger platforms, such as Google, Amazon, and Apple condemned the violence, with Amazon removing web hosting for Parler, and Apple and Google removing it from their App Stores, citing it as dangerous due to the lack of moderation, thereby encouraging threats of violence. Leaders at Parler claimed this to be an "attack on free speech" and an attempt to "kill competition in the marketplace."

From The New York Times