[8] One Los Angeles Times opinion columnist called the incident "alarming to see copyright law used to stifle debate in the public square". [51][59] The site initially forbade the posting of pornography, obscenity, or indecency, but later modified its guidelines to allow the posting of "adult sex or nudity". In 2016, in response to politician Jess Phillips's complaint that she frequently received rape threats from men online, Benjamin tweeted to her: "I wouldn't even rape you." [98], Some applauded the technology companies' decisions to deny service to Parler. [38] Apple and Google removed Parler's mobile app from their app stores, and Parler went offline on January 10, 2021, when Amazon Web Services canceled its hosting services. [70] Matze said in an interview on June 29, 2020 that the business was not profitable. "[12][13][14] VidCon founder Hank Green issued a statement that the group's actions were clear "intimidating behaviour" and apologised for the situation "which resulted in [Sarkeesian] being subjected to a hostile environment that she had not signed up for. [77] The New York Times reported that Parler had added 3.5 million users in a single week,[17] and during that month the service had about 4 million active users, and over 10 million total users. [99] Evelyn Douek, a lecturer and content moderation researcher at Harvard Law School, said to The Wall Street Journal that she thought an argument could be made to defend the infrastructure providers' decision to deny service to platforms who don't adequately moderate content, but wondered if similar amounts of violent content might exist elsewhere in platforms they were serving. [12][31][32][156] Parler's guidelines disallow content including blackmail, support for terrorism, false rumors, promoting marijuana, and "fighting words" directed towards others. [48][59], Jason Blazakis, the director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute, told The Hill in November 2020 that he thought that extremist users migrating to Parler was a good thing: "these people are leaving those platforms and no longer trying to red pill individuals to see their conspiracy theories on large platforms like Facebook and Twitter". [71][72] The surge had largely abated by December 2020, with downloads of the app returning to numbers similar to before the election. [134] Bloomberg News also reported that downloads of the app had substantially slowed following the initial mid-2020 wave, and described Parler's June download numbers as a "small fraction" of apps like TikTok, which receives tens of millions of downloads a month. In February 2020, the case was dismissed with prejudice and Hughes was later ordered to pay Benjamin's legal fees after her claims were found to be "objectively unreasonable". Sargon of Akkad. We're world leaders in hate", "Gorilla memes, YouTube trolls, and McMansion copyright fights: this week in internet culture", "Smoke bomb protest halts 'alt‑right' speaker 'Sargon of Akkad' at university", "How PewDiePie 'fudged the labels' to avoid anti-Semitism claims because of his YouTube videos", "We've seen Carl Benjamin's rank misogyny before – remember Gamergate? [37][38], At a UKIP press conference announcing his candidacy for the 2019 European Parliament election, Benjamin once again refused to retract his comments about Phillips, saying "a decent person doesn't laugh about male suicide" and that he would apologise if Jess apologizes for her position on men. [50] Parler's user base, though it grew substantially in mid- and late 2020, remained much smaller than that of its competitors. This led Parler to become the top downloaded app on the Apple App store on January 8. [74], A verified account on Parler claiming to be Ron Watkins, the former site administrator of 8chan and son of 8chan owner Jim Watkins, made several posts on November 15, 2020, appearing to confirm theories that his father was Q, the anonymous figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory. Akkad — Cənubi Mesopotamiyanın şimalında Sippar (indiki Abu Habba) yaxınlığında qədim şəhər. Here's what you need to know", "Parler CEO Says He'll Ban Users for Posting Bad Words, Dicks, Boobs, or Poop", "Conservatives are flocking to a new 'free speech' social media app that has started banning liberal users", "Free speech app Parler is already banning leftists", "Conservatives fed up with 'censorship' on Twitter jump to Parler", "Parler CEO Says He Was Fired by Conservative Political Donor Rebekah Mercer", "Parler social network sues Amazon for pulling support", "Apple and Google Cut Off Parler, an App That Drew Trump Supporters", "Parler social network drops offline after Amazon pulls support", "Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service", "Social app Parler apparently receives funding from the conservative Mercer family", "Amid censorship fears, Trump campaign 'checking out' alternative social network", "Donald Trump's Business Sought A Stake In Parler Before He Would Join", "Parler CEO John Matze says he's been terminated by board: 'I did not participate in this decision, "Parler wants to be the 'free speech' alternative to Twitter", "Saudis Fed Up With Twitter "Censorship" Jump Ship to a Pro-Trump Social Media Site", "Social Media App Parler, a GOP Darling, Isn't Catching On", "Parler, the Ted Cruz-Approved 'Free Speech' App, is Already Banning Users", "Why Facebook and Twitter won't fact-check Trump's latest false claims about voting", "Conservative social media darling Parler discovers that free speech is messy", "What is Parler and why won't conservatives shut up about it? Speaking to The Washington Post after the hoax, Cottle described Parler's security as a "joke". Largely supporters of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the users migrated from Twitter after alleging they were experiencing censorship on the platform. [29], Forbes described Parler as "like a barebones Twitter" in June 2020. [8][49] The influx of new accounts to Parler caused some service interruptions, making the site at times unusable. [40][94] On January 11, Parler sued Amazon under antitrust law, saying that the suspension of services was "apparently motivated by political animus", and had been carried out with the intention of benefiting Twitter by reducing competition. If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler. [22][10][11] Journalists and users have also criticized the service for content policies that are more restrictive than the company portrays and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors. [149][150] Deen Freelon and colleagues writing in Science characterized Parler as among alt-tech websites and services that are "dedicated to right-wing communities", and listed the service along with 4chan, 8chan, BitChute, and Gab. 18 992 members. [32][33] Benjamin was not elected, with his party getting only 3.22% of the vote in his native South West England constituency (a drop of 29.1% from 2014) and losing both of its seats in the region, as well as all twenty-two of its seats across the rest of Britain. The White House Counsel's office reportedly halted the negotiations on the grounds that such a partnership would violate ethics rules as long as Trump was President. Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told The New York Times that he was concerned about neutrality when it came to Internet infrastructure providers such as Amazon AWS and app stores. [8][9][10][32][49] The app has a number of high-profile Republican users, including Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, as well as Fox News host Sean Hannity. [56][57] The incident drew some attention to Parler within the United Kingdom. The Daily Caller. [105][106] According to Wired, although all posts downloaded by the researcher were public, because Parler did not scrub metadata, GPS coordinates of many users' homes had likely been exposed. [36] Parscale, who at the time was managing the Trump campaign, endorsed Parler in a tweet on June 18, also writing, "Hey @twitter your days are numbered", and including a screenshot of a tweet from President Trump which Twitter had flagged as "manipulated media. Parler (/ ˈ p ɑːr l ər /) is an American alt-tech microblogging and social networking service. [47][48] The service initially attracted some Republican personalities, including then-Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, Utah Senator Mike Lee, and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, as well as some who had been banned from other social media networks, such as right-leaning activists and commentators Gavin McInnes, Laura Loomer, and Milo Yiannopoulos. [8], In June 2019, Parler said its user base more than doubled after around 200,000 accounts from Saudi Arabia signed up to the network. An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. [113][114] Matze sent a memo to Parler staff in which he said that "I did not participate in this decision" to terminate him and that he had "met constant resistance to [his] product vision, [his] strong belief in free speech and [his] view of how the Parler site should be managed". Carl Benjamin (born 1979) is a British anti-feminist YouTuber also known by his online pseudonym Sargon of [138], Parler has a significant user base of Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists. [154][77][155], Parler describes itself as a free speech platform, and its founders have proclaimed that the service engages in minimal moderation and will not fact-check posts. "[117], On February 19, Parler briefly banned Matze's account before restoring it later that day after BuzzFeed News contacted a Parler spokesperson about the banning. To complete the login process, please enter the one time code that was sent to your email address. I think he knows exactly what he's creating, he's encouraging people who basically don't like other folks in the country... it's balogna, this is a place for people to fester in their own bigotry. [70][3] In December 2020, Parler had around 2.3 million daily active users. [45][116] Parler investor Dan Bongino published a video on Facebook after Matze's departure, accusing Matze of "really bad decisions" leading to Parler being taken offline and causing app stability issues, and saying that Matze "decided to make this public, not us. For the American abstract expressionist painter, see, "100,000 Subscriber Vlog and Recommendations", "Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt", "A Deep Dive into the Alt-right's Greatest YouTube Hits", "We Are All Fishes Now: DiGRA, Feminism, and GamerGate", "The Guardian uses copyright to shush a critic of its cultural criticism", "Exclusive: Patreon investigated YouTuber "Sargon of Akkad" over VidCon harassment", "VidCon apologizes for panelist clash involving activist Anita Sarkeesian", "Anita Sarkeesian's astounding 'garbage human' moment", "YouTuber Wins Attorneys' Fees in Clinton Party Copyright Case", "Docket for Hughes v. Benjamin, 1:17-cv-06493 - CourtListener.com", "PayPal shuts Russian crowdfunder's account after alt-right influx", "Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,' say they're launching an alternate crowdfunding platform not 'susceptible to arbitrary censorship, "Crowdfunding platform Patreon defends itself from protests by 'intellectual dark web,' publishes slur-filled posts from banned YouTuber", "Jordan Peterson's Starting A 'Free Speech Hub' – And Extremists Are Intrigued", "Jordan Peterson launches anti-censorship site Thinkspot", "Steve Bannon Met A White Nationalist Facebook Personality During London Trip", "Anti-Islam activists get key roles in 'family-friendly' Brexit march", "Violence breaks out as protesters storm King's College London event featuring controversial YouTuber", "Fights break out at King's College London as masked anti-fascist protesters storm talk", "Thousands march in 'free speech' protest led by rightwing figures", "Milo Yiannopoulos expected to speak at controversial far-right rally in central London", "Ukip welcomes social media activists linked to 'alt-right' into party", "Controversial alt-right linked social media activists welcomed as members of Britain's UKIP", "Far-Right YouTube Stars Plan Takeover of UKIP", "Everything you need to know about European Parliament elections", "Anti-feminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad selected as Ukip election candidate", "European election results in full as Tories suffer worst result for 200 years", "I set out to troll her – why all this fuss about 600 rape tweets? Channels I donate to: Count Dankula The Thinkery Sargon of Akkad Timcast Tim Pool Subverse Noel Plum Freedom Toons The Daily Wire Sam Harris. [88] In an interview with Fox News on January 10, Matze said that Parler had faced trouble in finding a new service provider, contradicting a previous Parler post in which he had stated that many vendors were vying for their business. [48][142] Around the same time, extremism researcher and professor Amarnath Amarasingam said of Parler, "talking to yourself in the dark corners of the internet is actually not that satisfying", and that he was skeptical Parler would excite the far right without left-leaning users with whom they can interact and fight. According to TheWrap, after several weeks of more than 700,000 downloads a week, Parler's weekly downloads subsided back into the low 100,000s during mid-July. ", Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube, "Crowdfunding site Patreon is purging far-right figures", "YouTube Bans Tommy Robinson From Making Money Off His Videos", "Patreon, Carl Benjamin and the New Puritanism", "YouTuber accused of triggering rape threats could stand for Ukip", "Prominent YouTubers Find Great Anti-Semitic Hill to Die on", British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, List of British far-right groups since 1945, Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl_Benjamin&oldid=1008799215, Opposition to Islam in the United Kingdom, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 25 February 2021, at 03:01. [125] On January 17, Parler brought their website back online, hosting only a static page without any of the functionality of the Parler service. Don't have Telegram yet? [59] Fortune wrote in June 2020 that the company planned to add advertising to the service soon. [157], In June and July 2020, Parler banned a spate of left-wing accounts, including parody accounts and accounts that were critical of Parler or the prevailing viewpoints on the service. 1 on App Store after Facebook and Twitter ban Trump", "Google suspends Parler from app store after deadly U.S. Capitol violence", "Google pulls Parler from Play Store for fostering calls to violence", "Apple Has Threatened To Ban Parler From The App Store", "Parler Users Prepare for Site Shutdown with Conspiracy Theories, Threats", "Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Parler Suspension and Free Speech Unrelated", "Exclusive: Parler CEO says social media app, favored by Trump supporters, may not return", "Amazon to drop Parler from its web hosting service, citing violent posts", "Amazon to Suspend Hosting Services for Parler, Saying App 'Poses a Very Real Risk to Public Safety, "Parler goes dark after Amazon suspends server hosting", "Parler sues Amazon over removal from web hosting service, alleges political animus", "Judge Refuses To Reinstate Parler After Amazon Shut It Down", "Parler loses bid to require Amazon to restore service", "Parler Is Back Online With New Redesign and User Guidelines", "How Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free Speech", "I'm a First Amendment scholar – and I think Big Tech should be left alone", "Rightwingers flock to 'alt tech' networks as mainstream sites ban Trump", "The next Parler: I tried four apps attracting right-wing users", "With Parler down, QAnon moves onto a 'free speech' TikTok clone", "Every Deleted Parler Post, Many With Users' Location Data, Has Been Archived", "Parler's amateur coding could come back to haunt Capitol Hill rioters", "An Absurdly Basic Bug Let Anyone Grab All of Parler's Data", "Leaked Parler Data Points to Users at Police Stations, U.S. Military Bases", "Videos used as evidence in Trump impeachment trial gathered from Parler by anonymous 'hacktivist, "House Oversight Committee chair requests FBI probe of Parler, including its role in Capitol siege", "House leader calls for FBI investigation into Parler", "House Oversight Committee chairwoman requests FBI probe of Parler, including its role in Capitol siege", "Parler's ownership offer to Trump and possible Russian ties probed by Congress", "Ousted Parler CEO Says He Wanted a Moderation Policy, But Rebekah Mercer Vetoed Him: 'I Got Silenced, "Parler social network terminates CEO John Matze", "Parler CEO Is Fired After 'Constant Resistance' Inside The Conservative-Friendly Site", "Former Parler CEO John Matze says he's 'not exactly sure why' he was terminated", "Parler CEO Says He Was Fired as Platform Neared Restoring Service", "Parler, A Social Media Platform That Stands For Free Speech, Temporarily Blocked Its Founder", "Parler CEO says even his lawyers are abandoning him", "Parler resurfaces on Sunday with an update message, but nothing else", "Parler CEO John Matze says the conservative social media platform could return by end of January", "Parler Faces Complex, Costly Route to Getting Back Online", "Parler moves to Epik, a domain registrar known for hosting far-right extremist content", "Parler's website is back online with a brief message to 'lovers and haters, "Parler Is Coming Back—With Some Russian Help", "Parler Finds a Reprieve in Russia—but Not a Solution", "Parler seems to be sliding back onto the Internet, but not onto mobile", "Parler website partially returns with support from Russian-owned technology firm", "Parler Tries to Survive With Help From Russian Company", "Parler receiving Russian firm's services as it gears up to relaunch", "Parler Is Back and So Are Users Who Cheered on the Capitol Insurrection", "Here's the rationale for SkySilk enabling Parler to get back online", "After Weeks Of Being Offline, Parler Finds A New Web Host", "Parler, Twitter's Free Speech-Focused Competitor, Sees Momentum Stall", "Parler, a right-wing social media site, lures conservatives, but Trump sticks with Twitter — so far", "Parler, the Trumpy Alternative to Twitter, Is Already Falling Apart", "In Georgia, some Trump supporters turn to Parler, a platform for a parallel universe", "Parler Users Are Gathering on Facebook to Complain About Parler", "Revealed: Tory MPs and commentators who joined banned app Parler", "What's the Deal With the "Free Speech" Alternative to Twitter? 116K likes. [121], According to a January 12 Wall Street Journal report, other cloud hosting platforms that could potentially host Parler would be Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, or the Oracle Cloud platform. He distinguishes these from "co-opted platforms" such as DLive and Telegram, which were adopted by the far-right due to minimal moderation but not specifically created for their use. Parler posts from before the service went offline are no longer available. The scraped data included more than 1 million videos, which maintained GPS metadata identifying the exact locations of where the videos were recorded, as well as text and images. "[67] Benjamin has described himself as a "classical liberal"[68] and has said that he opposes the alt-right. Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest. JOE BIDEN GETS #METOO'D - Akkad Daily Email This BlogThis! [75] It was later determined that Aubrey Cottle, a security researcher and co-founder of Anonymous, had taken advantage of Parler security flaws to change the name of an already-verified Parler account, giving it the appearance of belonging to and having been verified as Watkins. [34], In response to Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament Jess Phillips' statement that rape threats are commonplace for her, Benjamin said in May 2016, "I wouldn't even rape you #AntiRapeThreats #FeminismIsCancer" in a YouTube video and repeated this on Twitter. For Sargon of Akkad fans - a must listen ! [29][30][48] As of November 2020[update], Twitter had 187 million users a day and Facebook had 1.8 billion users a day, whereas Parler had 4 million active users and 8 million in total. [100], After the shutdown, Parler users were reported to have migrated to other alt-tech websites including BitChute, Clapper, CloutHub, DLive, Gab, MeWe, Minds, Rumble, and Wimkin, as well as encrypted messaging services including Telegram and Signal. [87] Apple followed through with their warning the next day, removing Parler from the app store on January 9. "[52] Vice criticised Benjamin for a "sense of purist thinking and a logic-before-all attitude" that ignores the complexity of topics related to race and gender. [11][13] An analysis of posts from the week leading up to the Capitol storming found that 87% of the links shared on Parler were to misinformation websites, including Islamophobic and QAnon sites. Benjamin's YouTube channel drew attention during the Gamergate controversy in 2014. [5], Parler experienced a wave of downloads after Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump from their platform due to his remarks about the storming of the Capitol. [39][40][41] It resumed service on February 15, 2021, having found alternative hosting arrangements. "[36] Following the 2014 Isla Vista killings, Benjamin said that social justice feminism was a "disease of the modern age" that had disenfranchised and radicalised young men, causing a rise in the number of mass murders. For other uses, see, Protesters gathering outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, tweet regarding the George Floyd protests, United States Declaration of Independence, disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, interference in the 2016 presidential election, Republican reactions to claims of election fraud, Security preparations for the inauguration, Companies that halted political contributions, Suspensions of other social media accounts, Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, "Meet Rebekah Mercer, the deep-pocketed co-founder of Parler, a controversial conservative social network", "Parler is back online after a month of downtime", "Parler, Backed by Mercer Family, Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at Facebook, Twitter", "Conservatives flocked to Parler after the election. [30] They also planned to generate revenue based on an ad matching scheme whereby companies would be matched with Parler influencers to post sponsored content, with Parler taking a percentage of each deal. Bongino responded by tweeting insults at Watkins. [20] In the last week of June 2020, it was estimated that the Parler app had more than 1.5 million daily users. [9] The Verge noted in November 2020 that Parler had become a "central hub" for the Stop the Steal conspiracy theory relating to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Preview channel. [59] Anyone who verifies their identity by providing government-issued photo identification during signup is identified with a red badge. As a part of the deal, Trump would have had to post all of his content to Parler at least four hours before publishing it to other networks. Journalists have criticized this as being a cover for its far-right userbase. In 2017, he wrote the #1 national bestselling treatise Reasons To Vote For Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide, which President Donald Trump hailed as "a great book for your reading enjoyment." "[4], Although some high-profile figures have created accounts on Parler, many of them remain more active on and have substantially larger follower bases on mainstream social networks. [2][181], As of November 2020[update], Parler had around 30 employees. [118] This banning came after Matze made a post on Parler asking his followers what they thought the "fair market value" of the company was. [34] In January 2021, Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci wrote in a report for the Knight First Amendment Institute that Parler's invitation on its front page, "Speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being 'deplatformed' for your views", "often isn’t borne out in reality as Parler regularly bans trolls who hold opposing viewpoints". [70] In November 2020, a manipulated image circulated on social media of a Fox News chyron that appeared to report that George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and the frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories, was a majority owner of Parler. [33], According to Matze, the identification document scans submitted by users who choose to have their accounts verified are destroyed after verification. [32] The Parler app was downloaded nearly a million times in the week following Election Day in the United States on November 3, and became the most popular free app on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Parler executives also reported there had been an increase in calls for violence on the platform leading up to the riots at the Capitol. 18 952 members. They noted there are also more ideologically neutral alt-tech services, such as Discord and Telegram. [12][55] An account falsely claiming to be hers appeared on Parler shortly after the ban, and was quickly verified by Parler. In particular, BBC News noted the presence of posts spreading the QAnon conspiracy theory, as well as misinformation surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election, COVID-19, child trafficking, and vaccines. [2][7], Parler was founded by John Matze Jr. and Jared Thomson in Henderson, Nevada, in August 2018. But its explosive growth is over", "Parler, a Platform Favored by Trump Fans, Struggles for Survival", "Who Owns Parler?