> In August, 2018, they created a social media platform similar to Twitter but which promised far greater privacy protections, including a refusal to aggregate

> In August, 2018, they created a social media platform similar to Twitter but which promised far greater privacy protections, including a refusal to aggregate user data in order to monetize them to advertisers or algorithmically evaluate their interests in order to promote content or products to them. Sure, Parler isn't going to serve you a custom feed with that data, but what are they doing with it? They collect an insane amount of PII to create an account, when compared with alternatives Reddit and Twitter. On another note, this whole article is written in bad faith: - The AppStore screen shot shows Parler at the top of the social media list on Jan 8th, when it was trending because the impending ban, but the image is intended to show Parler as a more popular app. Bad Faith. - The claim that there was a united attack is unsubstantiated, and, in order with Occam's Razor, it is far more believable that these companies banned their support of Parler as a response to violations of ToS from those companies than any sort of conspiracy. - In referencing the Congressional report on anti-competitive practices, the article seeks to conflate the actions taken against Parler with anti-competitive behavior. This doesn't come close to being anti-competitive. ToS were violated, and private companies have to right to not host whatever they want, and the right to moderate it however they want. - The article seeks to conflate the actions of some mega corporations with _all_ liberals, claiming all liberals cheered for this. That is also unsubstantiated mudslinging. - The article overall seeks to conflate freedom of speech with access to private platforms and mass audiences. This is not the reality. Parler itself may have promoted itself as a free-speech platform, but that was only true if you agreed with the common opinion on the platform, and anyone who promoted dissenting ideas there were banned. The whole article is a bad-faith farce, and should be treated as such. Ignore it. There are real points to be made about how the behavior of these companies might impact discourse, whether they have too much power, and more. However, this bad faith argument is a distraction from meaningful discourse.