Commentary

Welcome To My 'Parler,' Said The Spider To The Flies


On the upside, big platforms like Twitter and Facebook demonstrated some genuine vigilance in the lead-up to and aftermath of the election, as part of an effort to stop or slow the spread of disinformation.

On the downside, this move appears to be fueling an exodus of users to even more unsavory places -- especially Parler, a right-wing social media app that promotes itself as the “free speech social network,” but whose primary benefit appears to be that it doesn’t fact-check what users say and spread.

It’s not just Parler, but other extremist conservative apps including MeWeb and Gab that have been known to spread hate speech -- explicitly, anti-Semitism, as well as radical conspiracy theories. 

You may remember Gab as the app used by Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue shooter to network before his attack.

Parler, which has been endorsed by Republican leaders including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, has seized on the backlash from the right, including recent Congressional hearings questioning Twitter’s, Facebook’s and Google’s moves to curtail explicit hate speech and disinformation.

“Parler continues to stand with the People and against techno authoritarianism,” founder and CEO John Matze asserted as the Big 3 were testifying before a Senate committee hearing.

The push has been incredibly successful, making Parler the fastest-growing social app since the election.

“Parler usage has exploded,” Embee Mobile noted in a report released this morning showing that Parler is now among the top seven social media apps, ranking just behind Pinterest and ahead of Tumblr. (Embee’s methodology doesn’t include Twitter and Reddit, which it classifies as “news” apps.)

Demographically, Embee’s data shows Parler users are “overwhelmingly female” (66%), older (46% are 45-plus, while 78% are 35-plus), Caucasian (89%), and skew toward the South (47%).

"This is how fascism gradually envelops a society," "On The Media'"s Bob Garfield said in a tweet responding to Senator Cruz's endorsement of Parler last June.

For the record, Twitter didn't censure or put a disclaimer on it.

3 comments about "Welcome To My 'Parler,' Said The Spider To The Flies".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Tony Jarvis from Olympic Media Consultancy, November 12, 2020 at 10:34 a.m.

    On point, Bob!  Ted Cruz's postions, established over many years, I suggest unequivocally identify him as neo-fascist.  And ever noticed the resemblance both physically and politically between Stephen Miller (WH Senior Advisor for Policy) and Joseph Goebbles?  His Uncle, Dr. David Glosser, also Jewish, publically disowned him!   https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351

  2. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, November 12, 2020 at 11:36 a.m.

    Sounds more like incitement to violence, all kinds of violence which is not protected in the constitution. Then again, we have a supreme court that is not a court anymore. The experiment is only an experiment and needs to be reworked for it to work. 

  3. Craig Mcdaniel from Sweepstakes Today LLC, November 12, 2020 at 12:45 p.m.

    Wow Joe, I am a member of Twitter, Parlar and Media Post. That means Joe that you must be a in-the-closet Conservative right?  LOL  See Joe, you really do have a sense of humor now! 

Next story loading loading..