![]() (It also takes a laissez-faire approach to content moderation.) And while its 8 million users are dwarfed by Facebook’s 2.6 billion, MeWe is one of the few successful alternative networks in that it’s continued to grow since its founding in 2016.Īlso read: Understanding Right-Wing Resurgence in the US and India (After being dubbed a “Facebook killer,” the site was overwhelmed with new users and crashed frequently it could never scale up and instead became a community for digital artists.) MeWe, another Facebook rival, offers the industry’s first Privacy Bill of Rights. Ello, for example, was founded in 2014 as an ad-free network that promised never to sell user data to advertisers. Some of the platforms to emerge as alternatives to the major social networks have taken a hard line on data privacy. And, if the past is any indicator, it’s unlikely that Parler will become anything more than a fringe platform in the near future. Parler is just the latest in a long line of rival social networks that have appeared (and, often, disappeared) in the past decade as alternatives to Big Tech. Nor is it as uncensored as it claims to be. ![]() Yet while the platform is being billed as the big “free speech” alternative to Twitter, it isn’t exactly unique. Henderson, Nevada–based software engineers Jared Thomson and John Matze created the platform, according to Parler’s website, “fter being exhausted with a lack of transparency in big tech, ideological suppresssion and privacy abuse.” What led to Parler’s founding in August 2018 was, predictably, disillusionment with the likes of the Silicon Valley giants. Now, it’s the second most popular app in the App Store, and last week it was estimated to have reached more than 1.5 million daily users, snagging some high-profile newbies: Senator Ted Cruz, Representative Elise Stefanik, Representative Jim Jordan, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump. ![]() As mainstream platforms banned more far-right accounts, removed hate speech with newfound vigour, and attached warning labels to a few of President Donald Trump’s tweets, Parler became, for many, an attractive solution to Twitter’s supposed ills. In June, right-wing users started flocking to this alt-Twitter, whose main selling point is that it vows to champion free speech. Instead of retweets, there are “echoes.” And upon registering, the suggested accounts to follow include new outlets such as Breitbart, the Epoch Times, and the Daily Caller, as well as the political accounts for Rand Paul, Mark Levin, and Team Trump. But instead of tweets, users post “Parleys”. The basic idea of Parler is an awful lot like Twitter. Parler is now looking to move to a new service provider. This article has been republished on January 10, 2021, in light of Amazon S3, one of the most powerful web hosting services in the industry, cutting server access to Parler.
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