Parler

Parler (French: parler, lit. 'to speak') was founded by CEO John Matze in Henderson, Nevada in 2018.[4][5][6] Its rollout was in August 2018.[3][7]

From December 2018 through 2019, the service's user base grew after prominent politically conservative personalities, among them Brad Parscale, Senator Mike Lee, and activist Candace Owens, signed up to and publicized the network to their social media followers on other platforms.[5] Parscale had met with Matze in early May 2019 prior to signing up.[6] Other notable users include conservative personalities banned from Twitter or other networks.[7]

According to Matze, as of May 2019, Parler had about 100,000 users.[5] Parler said its user base had more than doubled in June 2019 when around 200,000 accounts from Saudi Arabia signed up to the network after allegedly suffering mass censorship and suspensions of accounts on Twitter.[8] Parler described these accounts as part of the "the nationalist movement of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia". Twitter had deactivated hundreds of accounts that pushed talking points favorable to the Saudi government, describing them as inauthentic accounts in an "electronic army" pushing the Saudi government agenda.

Donald Trump ally David Clarke Jr. said he would join Parler in March 2020 after Twitter deleted several of his tweets promoting coronavirus disinformation.[9] A wave of right-wing and conservative media and political figures joined Parler in June 2020, including Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, Rudy Giuliani, Katie Hopkins, Alex Jones and Ted Cruz.[10][11]

Parler has attracted Donald Trump supporters,[8] and is noted for its far-right[12] and alt-right,[13] conspiratorial,[14][13] antisemitic,[12][14] and anti-feminist[5] content. The site also includes anti-Muslim content,[5] although it also has a user base of Saudi nationalists who support Crown Prince and de facto prime minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.[8] Parler is one of a number of social network platforms, including Minds, MeWe, Gab and BitChute, that are popular with people banned from mainstream networks such as Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and Facebook.[7][10]

Both The Independent [12] and Jewish news site The Forward have noted the site's antisemitic conspiracy theory content. Matze told The Forward, "If you're going to fight these peoples' views, they need to be out in the open ... Don't force these people into the corners of the internet where they're not going to be able to be proven wrong." Political scientist Alison Dagnes responded "I don’t think you can have it both ways ... There is no such thing as civilized hate speech."[14]

Though the site's co-founder and CEO said that he initially envisaged it as a bipartisan platform, Parler has a significant user base of Trump fans,[8] and of far-right figures who had been removed from other platforms.[12]

The New Statesman described Parler as "an echo chamber for hard-right views."[13] The New European called Parler "an echo chamber where only the shrillest sounds reverberate into the void."[15]

The Parler terms of service do include the stipulation that "Parler may remove any content and terminate [the user's] access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason".[16]

In June 2020 CEO John Matze said he wanted to see more debate on the platform and offered a "progressive bounty" of $10,000 to liberal pundits with at least 50,000 Twitter of Facebook followers who would join the site, later increasing this amount to $20,000.[2]

British The Apprentice contestant and right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins appeared to join Parler and raised hundreds of pounds of crowdfunding donations in aid of a legal challenge to her ban from Twitter.[17] Susbsequently, it emerged the account in Hopkins's name was not authentic and had been verified accidentally by a Parler staff member.[17] Hopkins later created her own account.[17]

• Official website