Parler: A Free Speech Dystopia

By Oliver Rosand, Staff Writer

Have you ever done something really stupid just because you were with a group of friends? Maybe you just got back from school and you somehow end up in the middle of the Charles River halfway through winter break on a record cold? I’m sure most of you have some story like this. The thing is, acting in groups can sometimes lead to dumb decisions. It’s not just friend groups. Being in any group where you share some connection can lead to exacerbation of poor decision making. This group polarization is one of the reasons people criticize social media so frequently. It keeps us in a dangerous feedback loop surrounded only by those with similar viewpoints, shifting our worldview and assumptions, and dangerously biasing our decision making. And that’s just what happens on mainstream social media networks like Facebook. A new conservatives-only social media, called Parler, takes it even another step further.

Parler is a new social media app that has popped up in the Trump era. It advertises itself as ‘unbiased social media’, but, in reality, it is the most heavily partisan, biased, and manipulated social media network I have ever seen. It spews hatred, violence, and misinformation on the daily. After the recent Texas Supreme Court denial, Parler users were pushing for red states to secede from the Union. There are regular calls to kill judges and public health officials, and they are hostile to liberals, fact-checkers, or anyone who voices a message that goes against their narrative. It is the perfect safe space for a subgroup of the growing alt-right of America.

Parler was founded under vague circumstances in 2018. It is difficult to track down much of the history of the app, with John Matze and Jared Thomson founding it with some mysterious money later revealed to be from Rebekah Mercer (all high-profile actors in the conservative sphere). It grew relatively quickly throughout its first two years, but its biggest boost was mid-2020, as it received a surge of users after Twitter and Facebook began to implement harsher stances on spreading misinformation on their platforms. In fact, it topped the charts on the App Store after Biden’s victory over Trump. Parler countered mainstream apps by advertising ‘no fact-checking’ and ‘no censorship’ (only the former was true), and it played out from there. While I write this, Parler has about 4 million active users, regularly features messages from QAnon 

conspiracy theorists, and is being used more and more by mainstream users as a lens with which to view the growing misinformed network of extreme right-wing voters.

Now Parler is something new, and it’s worth noting that its success appears to be based on a rather unique model. As a platform Parler is incredibly boring. While I personally haven’t made an account due to their incredibly worrying privacy policy (they collect everything from location to phone numbers, and they give you much less control than mainstream platforms), even just looking at screenshots online you can tell that the app is unoriginal in terms of technological developments. It is a mashup/carbon copy of other, more popular, mainstream social media apps. It seems almost like Twitter if it was made by Instagram. However, what Parler does innovate on is its techniques for showing people what they want to see. In essence, while other apps use algorithms to show users what they want to see, Parler simply shows you the same positive content by only allowing one kind of person on their platform. This is so fascinating because, as Mark Zuckerberg notes, “Once someone wins at a specific mechanic, it’s difficult for others to supplant them without doing something different.” Essentially, in the social media world, it is incredibly difficult to get migration to your app from someone else’s without doing ‘something different’. What Mark means here is that, without doing something better technologically, social media apps can’t enter similar spaces. Innovations like structuring your app differently, making a new way of interacting with others, or designing better algorithms are commonly thought of as the only way to enter the social media space. What Mark likely didn’t expect was something like Parler. They made their app the most appealing for people of one viewpoint and made it a self-confirming mess of positive stimuli in order to retain that demographic and only that demographic. It might be argued that this is even more dangerous than any algorithm, as unlike Facebook or Twitter, even if you look for disaffirming viewpoints, you won’t find them.

Now, I have to respect what Parler did. They identified that they would be unable to compete with any social media network based on innovation, and instead, they focused on another way to compete. By using buzzwords like ‘no censorship,’ and ‘unbiased’ to lure in their demographic, they were able to create the conservative conspiracy theory utopia. 

I struggle to think of any other successful social media app that took this route. It seems like an innately nonsensical idea to intentionally limit your possible userbase when social media relies on connections to as many people as possible and yet that is the tract Parler took, and it has been wildly successful.

Parler’s success also comes at a high price. While there have always been conspiracy theorists and extremists within the Republican party, the app has pushed these ideas into the mainstream for its millions of users. It bans liberal users, and the conversation is dominated by right-wing extremist dog whistles. That’s not to say the app is directly advocating for extreme ideas like the election fraud theories. The app is simply banning those who oppose them, which in turn causes extreme group polarization. It is a lot like the story I told about friends jumping in the freezing river. Most people wouldn’t do something like that on their own, but when you are surrounded by your friends, no one wants to say no, so you all join in. Parler is much the same way. As everyone joins in on the misinformation-laden conversations, there are no opposing viewpoints, and no one checks you as you browse the calls for violence and accusations of voter fraud. 

Just to give Parler the benefit of the doubt, they claim that the liberal ban allegations are inaccurate. Matze, one of the founders, explained in a post on the platform that the only reasons you would be banned would be: an obscene username, pornography, spamming, death threats, and finally, this is a direct quote, “posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.” They claim they have one of the most unrestricted platforms on the internet, specifically stating that their moderation is based on only the positions of “The FCC and the Supreme Court,” which, as Gizmodo explains, is total nonsense. And, while we can’t look at their data for reasons people were banned, looking at Twitter feeds and news stories paints a very different story than what Parler is selling.

That is not to say that Parler is alone on this kind of issue. Other social media networks, especially Facebook, have similar problems. Facebook seeks to keep users on for as long as possible, and it does so by showing you what you want to see. Facebook will take advantage of confirmation bias by showing you posts that go along with your current views, thus keeping you engaged as long as possible. The issue is that Parler doesn’t just show you confirming views, it flat out deletes disaffirming ones. Thus, the polarization that occurs is much stronger than any other platform.

And, while Parler is still pretty new, we know that this loop on other similar sites has had some incredibly dangerous consequences. The Christchurch shooter in New Zealand streamed his shooting on Facebook and engaged in racist discussions on 4chan from a young age. The constant loop radicalizes views towards ever more violent and dangerous ideas. 

Parler is just that, but on an even larger scale. While on Facebook you can cheaply reach up to 1 million users with right-wing militias to take action, Parler’s 4 million users are receiving nothing but right-wing radicalization, as they slowly move to the right, and adopt the conspiracy theories pedaled unchallenged on the platform. Just like your friends might do something stupid together, so too will Parler users push each other to take more radical and dangerous action. We don’t know yet if the platform will result in anything as extreme as the Christchurch shooting, but we’ve already begun to see some action, as one police chief in Arkansas resigned after calling for “death to all Marxist Democrats.”

I wish I could end this article with some good news, or a positive spin on this new social media network. But, in reality, Parler is really scary. It is developing as a very powerful persuasive engine within a section of our country and is spreading very dangerous messages. We haven’t yet seen any evidence that Parler has led to violence. Yet, just browsing messages extracted from Parler shows how extreme views are becoming on the platform. Group polarization can occur even at a massive scale, and it is likely doing so on Parler. I have seen threats against sitting judges and claims that the Supreme Court is an illegitimate institution, and therefore, no law should be obeyed. Before Parler hit the mainstream, this kind of sentiment was reserved for some backchannels on 4chan or alt-right Facebook groups. Parler sees regular calls for secession and violent civil disobedience while denying others the very free speech they claim to champion. As much as Facebook may have failed to control misinformation and threats of violence on its platform, it didn’t ban users who share liberal viewpoints (or conservative for that matter) and it was at least somewhat cognizant when its platform led to real threats and violence. There should be serious concern in our society if Parler continues to fester as it has done and disseminate alt-right messaging to its users.

Oliver Rosand ’23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at orosand@wustl.edu.