Parler Is Over The Target – Catching Flak From Mainstream Media And Twitter Trolls
We’re still on Twitter and Facebook, but those are our past. Parler, and MeWe, and other emerging platforms are our future. Conservatives having an option is what the mainstream media and Twitter blue checks cannot stand.
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Have you noticed? The mainstream media is obsessed with Parler. Obsessed with trying to marginalize Parler, to be more precise.
Just in the past week there have been several articles in major publications trying to portray Parler as a home of the dangerous fringe of conspiracy theorists. That’s pretty ironic, since the platform these articles defend, Twitter, is a cesspool of anti-Trump conspiracy theories and has been for 4 years.
Nothingburger people who shout “traitor” on Twitter gain hundreds of thousands of followers, and previously lucid people like Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe have gone off the deep end for followers and RTs. Meanwhile, blue check journalists pat each other on the back for the latest fake anti-Trump scoop based on anonymous sources.
Yet marginalizing Parler is the goal, much as the way the media tried to marginalize the Tea Party.
Politico wrote:
Since the election, President Donald Trump and his allies have faced fact-checks, condemnation and restrictions when trying to spread inconclusive evidence of voter fraud and leftist violence on social media.
But over on Parler, there’s a new, millions-strong MAGA universe where conservatives are freely spreading these claims and reinforcing their belief that Democrats have stolen the election from Trump.
Hashtags on Parler denoting Trump’s favorite conspiracy theories — #Dominion, #Sharpiegate, #QAnon — trend freely, without the restrictions Twitter and Facebook have instituted to suppress them. Stories from fringe sites pushing baseless allegations of voter fraud are not flagged as disinformation, as they often are elsewhere. Videos from the Million MAGA March depicting heated confrontations between MAGA supporters, counterprotesters and D.C. police are shared as evidence of rampant antifa violence, omitting necessary context that would show otherwise.
Yeah, and on Twitter the Iranian Supreme Leader threatens to destroy Israel.
The Atlantic claimed Right-Wing Social Media Finalizes Its Divorce From Reality:
On the social-media app Parler, which has been gaining popularity among supporters of President Donald Trump, posts alleging electoral irregularities mixed with assorted hashtags decrying Fox itself: #BOYCOTTFOXNEWS, #DUMPFOXNEWS, #FAKEFOXNEWS, #FOXNEWSISDEAD, and #FOXNEWSSUCKS. Throughout Election Day, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube had been cracking down on a flurry of allegations about voter fraud in Arizona; the platforms quickly applied warning labels to new posts containing false or disputed information and reduced the distribution of groups spreading them. In response, pro-Trump influencers exhorted their followers to congregate on Parler, which tells users to “speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for your views.”
Sheera Frenkel at the NY Times ran a hit piece on Dan Bongino, an investor in and the public face of Parler, listing him as a “misinformation Superspreader“. That’s also ironic, since the Times was a superspreader of Russia Collusion misinformation:
The NY Times was a superspreader of Trump-Russia collusion misinformation, and social media giants did nothing to stop it. https://t.co/EUFjLE7emO
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) November 24, 2020
And I remember when Frenkel, prior to her NY Times days, tried to spread the misinformation that Hamas was not really responsible for the kidnapping of three Israeli teens just before the 2014 Gaza war, even after Hamas claimed responsibility!
The Washington Post mocked the fact that many of the people who established large Parler followings continue to use their Twitter accounts. Well, duh, moving to Parler for many people and websites is a chance to establish an additional channel to reach people, not necessarily the exclusive channel for doing so. It’s also an insurance policy against being banned or locked at Twitter.
On Twitter, the loons spread a claim that Parler was hacked, and Twitter obediently made the hashtag trend. Liberals were ecstatic that Parler had been hacked and that private Direct Messages of conservatives would be published — but it was all fake. There was no hack.
NBC News also is obsessed:
NBC News' YouTube live feed isn't airing exclusive Joe Biden interview. Instead, they're airing a Skype interview about Parler pic.twitter.com/Msfd0iOQh8
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) November 24, 2020
What is going on?
Parler is over the target, and catching flak.
It is not yet, and may never be, the news influencer that Twitter is. Twitter is more the public square, which is why its blatant censorship is so politically damaging. Parler is more a place where conservatives can have an uncensored voice and reach other conservatives.
That’s certainly the case for Legal Insurrection. In just a few months on Parler, our following is 265,000, and growing daily. By contrast, after a decade on Twitter, we can’t break the 40k barrier — maybe if we screamed “traitor” and “Trump is worse than Hitler!” more often, Twitter would show our tweets to more people. As of now, we tweet into the darkness, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Our engagement — the number of people who interact with our posts on Parler, is through the roof. It now is a major driver of traffic, unlike Twitter which is almost non-existent, and Facebook which has been good in the past but now must have us on some sort of throttle. Our “reach” at Facebook is down significantly, without any reported violations. That may be a result of Facebook deciding to favor large platforms like the NY Times.
We’re still on Twitter and Facebook, but those are our past. Parler, and MeWe, and other emerging platforms are our future. A future in which we just can’t risk being held hostage to internet thugs and autocrats; we need an escape plan, and we’re not waiting to be banned to implement the plan.
Conservatives having an option is what Politico, The Atlantic, The NY Times, NBC News, and Twitter loons cannot stand.
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Comments
Parler and MeWe are a good start, but much more work needs to be done in terms of setting up not only independent platforms, but independent payment and funding sites as alternatives to PayPal and GoFundMe as well.
If we don’t do this then the day may yet come when one’s employment, credit, bank account, mortgage, and possibly even utility services and health care, will be contingent on one’s adherence to a “woke” ideology. Things will get quite unpleasant then.
Not a word about the ADL, smearing Parler.
Parler is a haven for extremists, ADL says | Fortune
https://fortune.com/2020/11/13/parler-extremism-hate-conspiracy-theories-qanon-social-media-adl/
Parler: Where the Mainstream Mingles with the Extreme | Anti-Defamation League
https://www.adl.org/blog/parler-where-the-mainstream-mingles-with-the-extreme?s=09
Twitter is more the public square, which is why its blatant censorship is so politically damaging.
Oh FFS, no it is not, and you are smarter than this. I expect this kind of asinine bleating from the sub-editors and commenters, but a Cornell law professor calling a privately owned electronic messaging service “the public square” is credibility self-immolation.
daniel,
Ok. Let’s say that Twitter isn’t a ‘public square’ instead, as you say, it’s a ‘private square’. Fine. Now the question becomes is Twitter so ubiquitous and necessary for amplification of one’s message or product/service that it has become a digital age public accommodation?
Certainly the inability to utilize Twitter would disadvantage a message and it’s messenger.
Daniel, I don’t think the term “public square” is itself a legal term. It’s a functional term, and for the moment Twitter and Facebook do perform that function.
Also, in several states the judiciary has declared that privately owned shopping malls that function in modern society as “town squares” are therefore public forums and bound by the first amendment. I disagree with those decisions, and think they violate the fifth amendment, but in those states that is the actual law. You build a mall on your own land, with your own money, you invite the public to come there as your guests, and suddenly the courts say you can’t make the rules. You have to allow people to leaflet and propagandize on your property for causes that disgust you. So even as a legal term Prof J isn’t off base.
If the “fringe conspiracy theories” on Parler are false, surely it would be easy to prove that?
Skip the flack and go directly to Gab. It’s already been through the “right-wing-racists” wringer and refused to compromise, as Parler likely will.
Free speech for all.
The problem is that Gab seems to be infested by actual racists.
Why not just block them and be done with it?
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