Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 42 posts

Re: Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

#3

Post by pop3 »

Am I correct in thinking this is a designated safe space?

Since they ban 'non-conservative' accounts the claim to being more free speech than twitter or FB is hardly accurate.

A true free speech social media platform, which this is not, would be an interesting experiment. It would end badly but the entertainment value would be quite high until it implodes. Pity that they are not actually interested in free speech.

Besides, if they get a non-trivial amount of users, the stability they claim the platform has will not last.

Re: Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

#4

Post by Traster »

> It is not yet clear that Parler is set to become the online home for the political right, but its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants of Silicon Valley

I think it's important in these conversations to be clear, that might be what they claim to envision, it's demonstrably not what they actually envision. For example, Devin Nunes' Cow has already been banned.

It didn't take long for the free speech pretext to be dropped.

It's also quite funny how neutral this article is about the business model of Parler.

Re: Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

#7

Post by [deleted] »

Traster wrote: post #4

> It is not yet clear that Parler is set to become the online home for the political right, but its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants of Silicon Valley I think it's important in these conversations to be clear, that might be what they claim to envision, it's demonstrably not what they actually envision. For example, Devin Nunes' Cow has already been banned. It didn't take long for…

[deleted]

Re: Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

#8

Post by katzgrau »

Of course I have conservative (and pretty reasonable) friends who have made a declaration on FB that they're moving to Parler because they're concerned about "big tech's" controls on free speech.

I checked it out and I'm pretty sure a big issue will be that it's going to attract an audience and subsequent content that national brands aren't going to consider brand safe. So if they find a model, I can't imagine it's going to be advertising unless it's My Pillow guy and gold sellers. That probably isn't going to float the development of the platform.

I do think there's something to be said for censorship (regardless of whether it's a private platform) and the control of misinformation as well. My point is that I don't think it's sustainable unless they find a subscription model. But given the zeal of the (far) right, it doesn't seem outlandish.

Re: Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at FB, Twitter

#9

Post by bmarquez »

Traster wrote: post #4

> It is not yet clear that Parler is set to become the online home for the political right, but its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative to the giants of Silicon Valley I think it's important in these conversations to be clear, that might be what they claim to envision, it's demonstrably not what they actually envision. For example, Devin Nunes' Cow has already been banned. It didn't take long for…

To be fair, Parler views itself as a town square, certainly more free speech than Twitter, but less free than Gab and 8Kun. Having minimal standards on free expression is probably a good thing, lest they get kicked off all the app stores.

When I tried Parler there were plenty of accounts that exist solely to troll Trump and his supporters, none of which were banned. Perhaps that Cow account was banned for reasons other than its speech.

Post reply on HN