6 ms·

Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

MilnerRoute 6y ago
Non-paywalled version here. https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202011141400/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-makes-play-for-conservatives-mad-at-facebook-twitter2nd-update https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202011141400/parl...
pop3 6y ago
Am I correct in thinking this is a designated safe space? Since they ban 'non-conservative' accounts the claim to being more free speech than twitter or FB is hardly accurate. A true free speech social media platform, which this is not, would be an interesting experiment. It would end badly but the entertainment value would be quite high until it implodes. Pity that they are not actually interested in free speech. Besides, if they get a non-trivial amount of users, the stability they claim the platform has will not last.
Traster 6y ago
> It is not yet clear that Parler is set to become the online home for the political right, but its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants of Silicon Valley I think it's important in these conversations to be clear, that might be what they claim to envision, it's demonstrably not what they actually envision. For example, Devin Nunes' Cow has already been banned. It didn't take long for the free speech pretext to be dropped. It's also quite funny how neutral this article is about the business model of Parler.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bmarquez 6y ago
  To be fair, Parler views itself as a town square, certainly more free speech than Twitter, but less free than Gab and 8Kun. Having minimal standards on free expression is probably a good thing, lest they get kicked off all the app stores. When I tried Parler there were plenty of accounts that exist solely to troll Trump and his supporters, none of which were banned. Perhaps that Cow account was banned for reasons other than its speech.
  - Traster 6y ago
    Yes we could go looking for complex theories about why Devin Nunes' Cow got banned, or we could just look at the fact that Parler is courting prominent republicans like... Devin Nunes.
aaron695 6y ago
Evil as the Left might be, they do all the arts and entertainment. And I'd go as far as saying it's genetic. The Conservatives will not be able to make a sustainable platform. The divisive politics is the addiction part, but the entertainment is what feeds you. Reddit without the memes is boring. And until Libertarians can compete politically, it's all a two party system.
- bonecandy 6y ago
  "Evil as the Left may be"? What the hell is wrong with you?
- jmull 6y ago
  > Evil as the Left might be... Demonizing those you disagree with might make you feel good, and may even have short-term gains, but it’s a long-term loser: At each stage — win or lose — your side fragments and each side turns on the other, demonizing each other. Wins reach a natural maxima. Losses build on each other and accelerate the downward trend. Ultimately, the divisiveness of that approach is self-defeating. You can’t sustain a cohesive movement long enough to do anything of value.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    The Left is cannibalising itself. The Right does not seem to have that problem. The Right is conservative, it moves slowly. The Left finds something new every week to attack people on. I would say for anyone who supports the Right demonizing seems to work. Although I'm not sure how this Fox News is too Left wing push will play out. But a place without the Left might be quite nice. At some point we need to decide, it's been 100 years of human death and environmental destruction from the Left. Do we really want to still hang with them? The Right are not good people but they are the best we have. I'd love Parler to work. But I'll repeat, the arts is with the Left, I don't want to lose that. Parler just won't work.
bediger4000 6y ago
Is there any credible evidence of anti-conservative bias in FB or Twitter behavior? Can anyone point me at it?
- julienreszka 6y ago
  Are you serious? They censor the President's tweets. Isn't that showing?
  - pop3 6y ago
    You might want to look up what censor means. His lies are still there for anyone who wishes to read them, they are simply marked as the lies that they are.
  - otterley 6y ago
    His tweets get hidden because they contain false claims about the election and thinly-veiled calls for violence, not because they present a conservative viewpoint. We're talking about Trump here, not George Will.
- katzgrau 6y ago
  It depends on what you consider anti-conservative. I've had a few friends mention that any links to something regarding "Benfords Law" (some forensic tool used for flagging potential fraud) gets an immediate "disputed" label. My guess is that algorithmic checks are flagging posts and conservatives are interpreting that as censorship.
  - rodw 6y ago
    Asserting that Benford's Law can be used to identify election fraud is a disputed, or just downright misleading, claim. Academic research has shown Benford's Law is not applicable to election tallies. (Also so does common sense when you think about it.)
    - katzgrau 6y ago
katzgrau 6y ago
Of course I have conservative (and pretty reasonable) friends who have made a declaration on FB that they're moving to Parler because they're concerned about "big tech's" controls on free speech. I checked it out and I'm pretty sure a big issue will be that it's going to attract an audience and subsequent content that national brands aren't going to consider brand safe. So if they find a model, I can't imagine it's going to be advertising unless it's My Pillow guy and gold sellers. That probably isn't going to float the development of the platform. I do think there's something to be said for censorship (regardless of whether it's a private platform) and the control of misinformation as well. My point is that I don't think it's sustainable unless they find a subscription model. But given the zeal of the (far) right, it doesn't seem outlandish.
- julienreszka 6y ago
  Everybody who cares about free speech is moving there. Free speech isn't restricted to the right is it? It's a fundamental human right.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    What about Parler makes it better than FB with respect to free speech?
    - raarts 6y ago
      They don't censor conservatives because of their opinions.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        Do they censor anyone else?
      - taxicab 6y ago
        They do censor left leaning people because of their opinions. "Free speech for me, but not for thee"
    - 6y ago
julienreszka 6y ago
Transparency is important for trust, this is a good step towards it.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
"I predicted all of this, you know. All of it." Deplatforming and the cry of "businesses can choose who they do business with" were always inevitably going to lead to the creation of platforms that cater to the deplatformed, even if only because it makes business sense to provide service to the underserved. And, if the cultural and political winds blow the wrong way, it's not impossible for them to eclipse the social media giants they splintered from. The deplatformers footgunned themselves, all while patting each other on the back.
- evgen 6y ago
  Let me call the wahmbulance for all of the snowflake conservatives who think they deserve a platform... Parler, like all right-wing sites before it, is already on the fast path to becoming a nazi shithole. In a few months, when everyone who never really left FB and Twitter is back, I predict that we will add this site to the list of failed attempts by right-wing pseudo-intellectuals to try to thread the needle in the ever shrinking space between Republican talking points and National Socialist rhetoric. The problem with building a site for angry ignorant polemicists is that after a short while they will get bored with talking to themselves and while Fox News personalities can make a living selling herbal ED treatments and scam gold schemes there is not a lot of commercial upside for a place like Parler. Their userbase will peak within six months when the first Trump is indicted and will have dropped 75% by the time the first is convicted.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bitmunk 6y ago
  >The deplatformers footgunned themselves, all while patting each other on the back. What? Did anyone say that being banned from a website was a laser gun that deleted people from the internet?. This has happened before and will happen again (see Gab for a very recent example) The most probable outcome is Voat 2: Electric Boogaloo, or not even that considering that the website is stuck on it's logo for me.
MilnerRoute 6y ago
There was a long thread on Twitter by entrepreneur/activist Dave Troy (currently a TedX organizer) that looks for patterns in the first several thousand accounts. https://mobile.twitter.com/davetroy/status/1327253991936454663 https://mobile.twitter.com/davetroy/status/13272539919364546...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
artifact_44 6y ago
Missed opportunity to call it "Racebook"
- taxicab 6y ago
  Don't forget MeinSpace

Non-paywalled version here. https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202011141400/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-makes-play-for-conservatives-mad-at-facebook-twitter2nd-update https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202011141400/parl...

pop3 6y ago

Am I correct in thinking this is a designated safe space? Since they ban 'non-conservative' accounts the claim to being more free speech than twitter or FB is hardly accurate. A true free speech social media platform, which this is not, would be an interesting experiment. It would end badly but the entertainment value would be quite high until it implodes. Pity that they are not actually interested in free speech. Besides, if they get a non-trivial amount of users, the stability they claim the platform has will not last.

Traster 6y ago

> It is not yet clear that Parler is set to become the online home for the political right, but its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants of Silicon Valley I think it's important in these conversations to be clear, that might be what they claim to envision, it's demonstrably not what they actually envision. For example, Devin Nunes' Cow has already been banned. It didn't take long for the free speech pretext to be dropped. It's also quite funny how neutral this article is about the business model of Parler.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bmarquez 6y ago
To be fair, Parler views itself as a town square, certainly more free speech than Twitter, but less free than Gab and 8Kun. Having minimal standards on free expression is probably a good thing, lest they get kicked off all the app stores. When I tried Parler there were plenty of accounts that exist solely to troll Trump and his supporters, none of which were banned. Perhaps that Cow account was banned for reasons other than its speech.
- Traster 6y ago
  Yes we could go looking for complex theories about why Devin Nunes' Cow got banned, or we could just look at the fact that Parler is courting prominent republicans like... Devin Nunes.

aaron695 6y ago

Evil as the Left might be, they do all the arts and entertainment. And I'd go as far as saying it's genetic. The Conservatives will not be able to make a sustainable platform. The divisive politics is the addiction part, but the entertainment is what feeds you. Reddit without the memes is boring. And until Libertarians can compete politically, it's all a two party system.

bonecandy 6y ago
"Evil as the Left may be"? What the hell is wrong with you?
jmull 6y ago
> Evil as the Left might be... Demonizing those you disagree with might make you feel good, and may even have short-term gains, but it’s a long-term loser: At each stage — win or lose — your side fragments and each side turns on the other, demonizing each other. Wins reach a natural maxima. Losses build on each other and accelerate the downward trend. Ultimately, the divisiveness of that approach is self-defeating. You can’t sustain a cohesive movement long enough to do anything of value.
- aaron695 6y ago
  The Left is cannibalising itself. The Right does not seem to have that problem. The Right is conservative, it moves slowly. The Left finds something new every week to attack people on. I would say for anyone who supports the Right demonizing seems to work. Although I'm not sure how this Fox News is too Left wing push will play out. But a place without the Left might be quite nice. At some point we need to decide, it's been 100 years of human death and environmental destruction from the Left. Do we really want to still hang with them? The Right are not good people but they are the best we have. I'd love Parler to work. But I'll repeat, the arts is with the Left, I don't want to lose that. Parler just won't work.

bediger4000 6y ago

Is there any credible evidence of anti-conservative bias in FB or Twitter behavior? Can anyone point me at it?

julienreszka 6y ago
Are you serious? They censor the President's tweets. Isn't that showing?
- pop3 6y ago
  You might want to look up what censor means. His lies are still there for anyone who wishes to read them, they are simply marked as the lies that they are.
- otterley 6y ago
  His tweets get hidden because they contain false claims about the election and thinly-veiled calls for violence, not because they present a conservative viewpoint. We're talking about Trump here, not George Will.
katzgrau 6y ago
It depends on what you consider anti-conservative. I've had a few friends mention that any links to something regarding "Benfords Law" (some forensic tool used for flagging potential fraud) gets an immediate "disputed" label. My guess is that algorithmic checks are flagging posts and conservatives are interpreting that as censorship.
- rodw 6y ago
  Asserting that Benford's Law can be used to identify election fraud is a disputed, or just downright misleading, claim. Academic research has shown Benford's Law is not applicable to election tallies. (Also so does common sense when you think about it.)
  - katzgrau 6y ago

katzgrau 6y ago

Of course I have conservative (and pretty reasonable) friends who have made a declaration on FB that they're moving to Parler because they're concerned about "big tech's" controls on free speech. I checked it out and I'm pretty sure a big issue will be that it's going to attract an audience and subsequent content that national brands aren't going to consider brand safe. So if they find a model, I can't imagine it's going to be advertising unless it's My Pillow guy and gold sellers. That probably isn't going to float the development of the platform. I do think there's something to be said for censorship (regardless of whether it's a private platform) and the control of misinformation as well. My point is that I don't think it's sustainable unless they find a subscription model. But given the zeal of the (far) right, it doesn't seem outlandish.

julienreszka 6y ago
Everybody who cares about free speech is moving there. Free speech isn't restricted to the right is it? It's a fundamental human right.
- root_axis 6y ago
  What about Parler makes it better than FB with respect to free speech?
  - raarts 6y ago
    They don't censor conservatives because of their opinions.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Do they censor anyone else?
    - taxicab 6y ago
      They do censor left leaning people because of their opinions. "Free speech for me, but not for thee"
  - 6y ago

julienreszka 6y ago

Transparency is important for trust, this is a good step towards it.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

"I predicted all of this, you know. All of it." Deplatforming and the cry of "businesses can choose who they do business with" were always inevitably going to lead to the creation of platforms that cater to the deplatformed, even if only because it makes business sense to provide service to the underserved. And, if the cultural and political winds blow the wrong way, it's not impossible for them to eclipse the social media giants they splintered from. The deplatformers footgunned themselves, all while patting each other on the back.

evgen 6y ago
Let me call the wahmbulance for all of the snowflake conservatives who think they deserve a platform... Parler, like all right-wing sites before it, is already on the fast path to becoming a nazi shithole. In a few months, when everyone who never really left FB and Twitter is back, I predict that we will add this site to the list of failed attempts by right-wing pseudo-intellectuals to try to thread the needle in the ever shrinking space between Republican talking points and National Socialist rhetoric. The problem with building a site for angry ignorant polemicists is that after a short while they will get bored with talking to themselves and while Fox News personalities can make a living selling herbal ED treatments and scam gold schemes there is not a lot of commercial upside for a place like Parler. Their userbase will peak within six months when the first Trump is indicted and will have dropped 75% by the time the first is convicted.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bitmunk 6y ago
>The deplatformers footgunned themselves, all while patting each other on the back. What? Did anyone say that being banned from a website was a laser gun that deleted people from the internet?. This has happened before and will happen again (see Gab for a very recent example) The most probable outcome is Voat 2: Electric Boogaloo, or not even that considering that the website is stuck on it's logo for me.

MilnerRoute 6y ago

There was a long thread on Twitter by entrepreneur/activist Dave Troy (currently a TedX organizer) that looks for patterns in the first several thousand accounts. https://mobile.twitter.com/davetroy/status/1327253991936454663 https://mobile.twitter.com/davetroy/status/13272539919364546...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

artifact_44 6y ago

Missed opportunity to call it "Racebook"

taxicab 6y ago
Don't forget MeinSpace