The Patriot Post® · Parler and the Big Tech Backlash
Parler, an unbiased social media platform that competes with Twitter but doesn’t feel a need to censor the speech of certain of its members, had been shuffling along, growing its user base steadily but unremarkably in recent months.
That all changed this weekend.
As Fortune’s Aaron Pressman reports, “Over the weekend and on Monday, Parler was the most downloaded free app on Apple’s U.S. mobile app store and on Google’s U.S. Play store for mobile apps. It’s more popular than TikTok, Zoom, and YouTube. … Parler says it has roughly 8 million members now, up from 4.5 million a week ago. ‘Parler is a breath of fresh air for those weary and wary of the way they’ve been treated by our competitors,’ Parler chief operating officer Jeffrey Wernick says. ‘And now that many of their friends are already on Parler, they’ve decided it’s worth their investment of time to give us a try. We plan to earn their continued business.’”
According to its platform description, Parler’s content “is moderated based off the FCC and the Supreme Court of the United States which enables free expression without violence and a lack of censorship.” The platform, which was launched in 2018 by University of Denver graduates John Matze and Jared Thomson, also promises never to share its users’ personal data.
Among the early adopters of Parler were conservative commentators and Republican politicians who’d grown tired of Twitter’s increasingly anti-conservative and totalitarian approach to political speech.
And nowhere has Twitter’s heavy hand and naked partisanship been more apparent than in its now-routine suppression of President Donald Trump’s speech and in its stunning, weeks-long censorship of the New York Post’s bombshell reporting on the influence peddling and self-enrichment schemes of the Biden Crime Family.
Conservative commentator Mark Levin made clear that he’d finally had enough. “Hurry and follow me at Parler,” he tweeted Sunday. “I’m trying to encourage as many of you as possible to immediately join me there as I may not stay at Facebook or Twitter if they continue censoring me. And one day, I’ll have left their platforms. Parler is a wonderful alternative and is growing, and we need you there ASAP. It believes in truly open speech.”
Fellow conservative Dan Bongino, who announced a partnership with and an ownership stake in Parler in June, also had something to say about social media censorship, though his remarks were a bit more, er, colorful: “The media and the anti-Trump lunatics have awakened a sleeping giant,” he said. “We gave a collective middle finger to the tech tyrants as Parler remains the NUMBER ONE most downloaded app in the world.”
“Freedom of speech,” said Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo more than 80 years ago, “is the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.”
We can’t disagree with Justice Cardozo, especially when it comes to free political speech, which our Founders felt was the most important speech of all. That’s why, in addition to finding The Patriot Post on Twitter (at least for the time being), you can also find us on Parler. We hope to see you there.