Election
2020 winners: pizza delivery, headache hats, and conservative social
network Parler. The two-year-old platform has experienced a surge in popularity this month as other social media companies cracked down on election misinformation.
Last week,
it topped the download charts on Apple and Android devices, and its user
base more than doubled to 10 million. Founder and CEO John Matze, who
is just 27-years-old, told Fox News "people are tired" of Silicon Valley
censorship.
A quick history
Parler was
launched in 2018 as the self-declared "premier free speech platform."
Its interface is similar to Twitter's, but with some key differences:
- Parler collects little user data and shirks recommendation algorithms (posts are displayed in reverse-chronological order).
- Users filter content they don't want to see, and volunteer "community jurors" enforce infrequent policy violations.
Parler was
envisioned as a libertarian platform for conservatives who felt censored
by social media platforms, and it gained high-profile users including
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, talk show host Dan Bongino, and
Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Rebekah Mercer, daughter of hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, is one of the company's early financial backers.
No labeling here
On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League said that while Parler is not an extremist platform, it's home to a growing extremist base that spreads conspiracy theories (like QAnon) and other false, racist, and antisemitic content.
And now, election misinformation. Facebook and Twitter have taken unprecedented steps to limit the spread of misinformation and label misleading posts with context. But
less content moderation on Parler = more room for inaccurate or
misleading election stories to move there, including unsubstantiated
allegations of widespread voter fraud.
Big picture: Compared
to Twitter's 187 million daily users and Facebook’s 1.8 billion across
its platforms, Parler is still a small fish. And to turn its
post-election "moment" into longer-term success, it'll need to poach big
personalities from the preeminent social platforms—that'll be tough
without an algorithmic feed showcasing top creators.
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