Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.co.uk

71–80 of 151 posts

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

#71
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's ominous. Different platforms serve different interests and demographics - some people want the barely moderated edgelord chaos of 4chan, most people don't.

What's ominous is the growing media separation between the two political sides leading to ever-increasing difference in worldviews. How can we negotiate and compromise when viewpoints are so diametrically opposed that no middle-ground can be made?

This. It’s already bad enough with segmented Twitter follower graphs and Fox News. Just imagine when they’re entirely walled off from one another

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> When your political agenda consists of annoying and offending "the other", they need to be present to take offense. I'm not sure what you mean by "the other". "The other" is an actual concept signifying people who are somehow excluded from society. Rarely do people get banned for going after "the other". Most of these people get banned for going after mainstream journalists and politicians. Many don't get banned fo…

Milo was more about the grift than the cruelty. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/milo-yiannop...

(entertaining little detail in there of one of the "anti-immigration" activists getting banned from Australia by their, er, immigration control)

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

#73
> adds 2M users in a single day

I'd love this to be true. A fast moving populace that can uptake tech quickly.

But I've never heard of numbers like these.

Where does this number come from?

Where are the campaigns pushing this being run?

I simply don't believe it without more of an explanation. Did BBC fact check this?

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

#74
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because the corporate media in general and the left leaning companies, don’t really respect facts anymore. Entire networks ignore valid stories. And they subtly and aggressive distort and deflect, “There is no explicit evidence of overt corruption and to suggest otherwise is dangerous to our institutions.” I’m a big defender of intelligence agencies but people like John Brennan are widely hated within the Intell…

I have a genuine question: why is it that left-leaning companies dominate media and/or nearly all other walks-of-life? I hear this all the time, but I’d like to know how it came about. I would guess, knowing nothing else, that companies would tend to lean right.

Obviously this isn't true; any analysis would require first trying to establish where "left" and "right" might be, then looking at media ownership, and also referencing the extreme Overton Window effects of the US.

Biden/Harris are center-right candidates, which probably contributed to them winning the election, and definitely contributed to them winning the primaries.

(also you'd need to disentangle "left" and "liberal"!)

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

#75
post #38

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

Exactly. I deleted my accounts on both since you don't get anything out from echo chambers anyway. I returned back to look at Twitter again after blocking it for months and it is just as bad as Parler, but with more lunatics and rabid bots everywhere. There are still very crazy users on Twitter especially those who fancy taking down 'The oppressive capitalist system™' if that suits you more. All I can say to those wh…

> There are still very crazy users on Twitter especially those who fancy taking down 'The oppressive capitalist system™'

I mean, if my only two choices are a fairer form of capitalism or the resurgence of neo-Nazism, I guess I'll pick the former.

If the only two choices are the abolition of captialism or the resurgence of neo-Nazism, I'd still pick the former.

I'm being facetious, but to be fair to Twitter, there's a lot of "sub-cultures" within it. All extremes appear to be well represented. Parler appears to be 4chan with a nicer user interface.

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

#76
post #41

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…

That doesn’t mean they don’t have a massive potential market. All the centre right people who see Twitter banning people for questioning unlimited immigration, or trans men competing against women in sport, and feel like current social media companies aren’t for them. I think in this election Twitter definitely, but also Facebook have taken sides. There are a lot of normal, decent right wing people out there, despite…

> questioning unlimited immigration

There is no unlimited immigration. Even European Free Movement has limits, albeit rarely relevant or enforced.

This contributes to a ratchet of delusion where the laws are made more and more onerous on immigrants while people complain that it's "unlimited".

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

#78
post #74
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a genuine question: why is it that left-leaning companies dominate media and/or nearly all other walks-of-life? I hear this all the time, but I’d like to know how it came about. I would guess, knowing nothing else, that companies would tend to lean right.

Obviously this isn't true; any analysis would require first trying to establish where "left" and "right" might be, then looking at media ownership, and also referencing the extreme Overton Window effects of the US. Biden/Harris are center-right candidates, which probably contributed to them winning the election, and definitely contributed to them winning the primaries. (also you'd need to disentangle "left" and "libe…

[deleted]

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

#79
post #37

Do they really want just an echo chamber though? As I understand it they are catering to the far right. Some of the fun they have on FB or Twitter is probably arguing, feeling controversial, etc.

This works both ways, by clamping down on viewpoints and banning people, Twitter will become the echo chamber.

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

#80
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because the corporate media in general and the left leaning companies, don’t really respect facts anymore. Entire networks ignore valid stories. And they subtly and aggressive distort and deflect, “There is no explicit evidence of overt corruption and to suggest otherwise is dangerous to our institutions.” I’m a big defender of intelligence agencies but people like John Brennan are widely hated within the Intell…

I have a genuine question: why is it that left-leaning companies dominate media and/or nearly all other walks-of-life? I hear this all the time, but I’d like to know how it came about. I would guess, knowing nothing else, that companies would tend to lean right.

> why is it that left-leaning companies dominate media and/or nearly all other walks-of-life?

... I mean, they don't. The largest media network by most metrics (at least in the sense that people normally mean by media; Comcast and Liberty Global would be bigger, but are mostly comms companies, really) is News Corporation and its affiliates. This owns Fox and the Sun and various other right-wing gutter press, along with some more respectable, but certainly right-leaning, organs like the Times and WSJ.

Other top tens include Sinclair Broadcasting Co (hardly left-leaning), and the Daily Mail and its affiliates.

Post reply on HN