The free speech social media platform Parler is now back online. Reuters. Parler was kicked off of Amazon's services after the January 6th protests due to claims they didn't do enough to stop violent posts. Parler was unable to return until now and now claims that it is now independent from big tech. Parler is back online for most users and will open up new registrations in a week. Parler's old posts, videos and pictures did not survive the transfer. Parler replaced their CEO John Matze due to the site being taken down with Mark Meckler taking his place.
My Comment:
As you might be aware I have an account on Parler. I'm @Politicswarblog on there, just like I am on Twitter and Gab. If you are on there feel free to follow but just be aware that all my old posts there are gone. Though Parler wasn't my main social media site it was a decent source of views for this blog and I am glad to see it back.
That being said, I am not too confident with the leadership of Parler. Unlike Gab, they did not harden themselves against big tech. There was absolutely no reason to have the site hosted on Amazon given the obvious political bias at the company. Leftists are just as furious about Gab as they are about Parler but Gab was able to survive and even thrive while Parler lost a month of user growth and much of the confidence their userbase had.
Indeed, I think Gab probably won out as the leading Twitter alternative. After all they have gotten the biggest prize of them all, President Donald Trump. Though Trump hasn't made many posts he has put a few posts up which means that if you want to see his posts you pretty much have to go with Gab.
I do think that John Matze deserved to get fired. Amazon's actions may have been deplorable but they were also predictable. He also failed to protect his users data and it damaged the credibility of the company. Meckler is going to have an uphill battle now.
Still, I think that having more than one alternative to Twitter is a good idea. Twitter's moderation is out of control and they will ban you for just about anything. Parler also has the advantage of not having as many actual out and out racists as Gab has. Parler is pretty mild in comparison. It's good to have multiple choices.
As for Parler itself it appears to be working for me. I will go back to cross posting everything I post on Twitter on Parler, just like I do on Gab. My account there is not huge but it was growing fairly fast before Amazon nuked it. I hope that my account there continues to grow in order to replace some of the followers I lost on Twitter.
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