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Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#21

Spent 2 minutes on here. Looks like it's just attracting conspiracy nuts. Deleted my account.

Obvious and dead horse beaten issue. I’m working on solving this and will report here when I’ve got a prototype.

Surprising insights arise from pondering the philosophy of show and tell-specifically how listening is involved in order to “earn” your turn to speak.

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#22
post #20

Ominous that the social networks are splitting along these lines

I wouldn't worry. It's basically like a gigantic "always sunny in philadelphia" in there. People regular twitter could do without. I'm sure it would be funny to watch though.

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#23
post #18
post #12

Twitter alternatives will all fail because they try to be an application for millions. They see Twitter and see the volume of users so build something for the numbers and hope that they are less bad. But Twitter and every other thing that has grown big has 1) started small 2) was not initially created to be big and 3) was attractive to use.

Twitter succeeded because (and I'm not au fait with the details of how exactly) they managed to onboard a lot of high profile users from a variety of different walks of life. Everybody else came to hear what they had to say. This must have been a huge amount of work, and not something that's talked about much and I can only presume you'd have to do something similar to mount any kind of credible opposition. That's a…

> au fait

As someone very curious about language usage, why wouldn’t you just write the word “familiar” there.

I’m genuine curious as to your motivations. Is it brevity? Am I missing additional context this provides?

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#24
post #3

Apart from various "trust and safety" censorship and moderation activities, what new features or updates has Twitter done in the past 3 years? I can't think of many changes they've made beyond those things, except for adverse ones (like breaking Firefox compatibility for months). Is it a conscious choice for them to actively do nothing? MySpace died because it didn't innovate and refused to invest in the core platfor…

They have given the option to disable the algorithmic timeline. This has been a game changer for me. I can use twitter without fear of being exposed to unction.

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#26
I think that all these platforms: Parler, Gab, etc, will end up with one of two fates.

They'll either fail to make it big and remain a niche thing for those trolls who enjoy the edginess, like 4chan and its newer alternatives, or...

They'll grow big and end up having to deal with "trust and safety" issues when the majority of users on the mainstream end of the spectrum demand protection from those users who would otherwise be on 4chan/etc. This is pretty much what Twitter and Facebook are going through now, but shifted more towards the right, in the case of Parler/Gab.

We can already see hints of this in the fact that their terms of service prohibit inciting terrorism or acts of violence – issues that 4chan/etc deal with by allowing it, reducing their reach, and Twitter (attempt) to deal with by banning it, increasing their reach as they provide a "safe space".

Parler has the same issues as Twitter, it's just shifted to the right of the political spectrum. They can either deal with those issues and move closer to Twitter, or not and be irrelevant in the long term.

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#27
It reminds me of how reddit went through a period of turmoil with claims of censorship and mods acting too aggressively and all the freedom of speech zealots decided to jump ship over to voat.co. I like to check in from time to time to see how that site is doing, and well...it's not pretty.

I know parler is pulling in some pretty big names to give it some legitimacy, but it's probably going to succumb to the same problem where only the most aggressive and angry users survive, while the more moderate users gravitate back to places like facebook and twitter

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#28
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that this social network is an echo chamber?

Their retweet option is rather hilariously called the echo button. I’m not sure if it’s self-aware or not.

Not stating an opinion either way to the platform or it’s constituents but naming the result of rebroadcasting a message to ones followers has no effect whatsoever on its effect.

A retweet, share, and apparently an echo are all semantically close enough to be called identical functionality, save for perhaps upstream metadata associated with the source.

eg on Facebook I don’t know if, once you share a post, the total share count is displayed on the post itself. However on Twitter this share count is shown.

They’re all the same sheep with isomorphically identical data just dressed up in different pairs of clothes.

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter succeeded because (and I'm not au fait with the details of how exactly) they managed to onboard a lot of high profile users from a variety of different walks of life. Everybody else came to hear what they had to say. This must have been a huge amount of work, and not something that's talked about much and I can only presume you'd have to do something similar to mount any kind of credible opposition. That's a…

> au fait As someone very curious about language usage, why wouldn’t you just write the word “familiar” there. I’m genuine curious as to your motivations. Is it brevity? Am I missing additional context this provides?

It’s just a phrase that’s in standard usage in some dialects (like mine) but I guess not in others. I don’t think it’s deliberately obscurantist, just people writing as they talk. I’m happy with people letting having some flavour or colour to their speech rather than aiming for germanic recidivism as an ideal of purity. (Though yeah clear simple plain writing can be good to aim for, what that means depends on who yer talkin to).

Re: Parler 'free speech' app tops charts in wake of Trump defeat

#30

I think that all these platforms: Parler, Gab, etc, will end up with one of two fates. They'll either fail to make it big and remain a niche thing for those trolls who enjoy the edginess, like 4chan and its newer alternatives, or... They'll grow big and end up having to deal with "trust and safety" issues when the majority of users on the mainstream end of the spectrum demand protection from those users who would oth…

> fail to make it big and remain a niche thing for those trolls who enjoy the edginess,

It would fail on those terms as well due to irrelevance: When your political agenda consists of annoying and offending "the other", they need to be present to take offence. If they're not listening, where's the fun?

The "echo chamber" aspect takes all the fun out of the performative cruelty.

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