
Conservatives are flocking to the social media app Parler - dgudkov
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/27/parler-ceo-wants-liberal-to-join-the-pro-trump-crowd-on-the-app.html
======
sethbannon
In describing the site as a bastion of free speech, the Parler CEO says “If
you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler.”

But, according to the article, "the app doesn’t allow terrorist organizations
or support for terrorism, the sharing of false rumors, violent language (what
the site describes as 'fighting words') toward others, blackmail or
pornography."

Last I was in NYC, "fighting words" were most certainly allowed, as was
pornography, as was the sharing of false rumors (most of the time). Seems like
he's just drawing a different arbitrary line and trying to claim he's a purist
for free speech.

~~~
gotoeleven
Those are cases where the supreme court has found restrictions on speech to be
justifiable, in case you thought it was just a grab bag of random stuff.

~~~
scarface74
Well, seeing that Supreme Court decisions on what is legal to censor has
absolutely no bearing on what a private corporation can do. The right to free
speech only applies to what the government can and can’t do.

------
bmarquez
I'm trying out Parler. While I absolutely hated having to add a phone number
to sign up, a positive side effect is that I have not run into any obvious
troll or bot accounts. So far, it's keeping everyone honest.

This will probably also turn out much better than Gab due to the presence of
high-profile politicians.

~~~
Kye
Twitter will hit you with a suspension and a demand for a phone number shortly
after signing up. It hasn't helped with the troll or bot problem.

------
froogle
You have to be careful: given a rallying cry of free speech and no censorship,
the main appeal of the platform is going to be attracting those holding
unpopular opinions.

This happened with the mass exodus from Reddit to Voat of r/the_donald and
similar, and I absolutely can see it happening here. Voat became host to a ton
of toxic communities.

And because of that, it's going to push more orthodox people people away from
the site towards Twitter in a self-reinforcing loop.

The plan for the site to get a broad range of opinions (in this case, the
bounty of $20k for a prominent liberal) seems doomed as a result.

Still - hopefully the founders have learned from Voat and have plans in action
to stop it before it gets too stuck in the cycle. The bounty is an interesting
idea, though I don't think it'll be strong enough to break the perverse social
dynamics involved. More competition with Twitter is a good thing.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
The terms of service PDF is really clear on what and what is not allowed.

Particularly interesting were links to the US Entity list of defined
terriorist organizations. Downloadable in a text file (and it's large).

Since it's not pseudo-anonymous like Voat, and is also being endorsed pretty
much by politicians, I think it won't fall into the same traps. I think it's
going to become a de facto pipeline to politicians though.

The Terms of Service sound like the vision of a social media network after a
Section 230 crackdown.

------
jameslk
I think I see where this is going: Twitter will be the new CNN and Parler will
be the new Fox News, and both will be insufferable politicized dumpster fires
just like the old media companies they're replacing.

~~~
Fellshard
The polarization of every company to serve one half of a political divide does
not seem terribly healthy.

~~~
drewcoo
Because it deserts the other half of the public, because it doesn't make for a
large enough addressable market, both, or other?

~~~
29083011397778
Likely in relation to "One Nation, _indivisible_ , under God" (emphasis mine,
quoted from the pledge of allegiance.) A nation so divided it needs two of
every company seems brittle and fragile.

~~~
Fellshard
It seems like two nations, in the end.

------
tkiley
I'm surprised that a "Free Speech" network would demand that its users
indemnify it against liability arising from their speech. Here's Parler's ToS:

> You agree to defend and indemnify Parler [...] from and against any and all
> claims, actions, damages, obligations losses, liabilities, costs or debt,
> and expenses (including but not limited to all attorneys fees) arising from
> or relating to your access to and use of the Services. Parler will have the
> right to conduct its own defense, at your expense, in any action or
> proceeding covered by this indemnity.

Twitter has no similar clause, because 47 USC § 230 provides computer services
with a pretty good shield against liability of this kind. I'm not sure why
Parler would include such a clause.

~~~
derision
That shield might be weakening
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.natlawreview.com/article/pr...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.natlawreview.com/article/president-
signs-executive-order-directing-agencies-to-probe-contours-cda-immunity%3famp)

------
noobaccount
This submission seems to have been censored; it has fallen off the front page
of HN.

I signed up for Parler. It seems refreshingly welcoming to me. That might be
problematic for those currently censoring existing spaces.

~~~
solzhenitsyn
Disappeared from the front page after just a few minutes.

------
causality0
_“If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler.”_

Even if his claim were true, he's going to hit the same problem Twitter did:
profitability. Twitter doesn't censor because its CEO is some kind of
bleeding-heart softie, it censors because advertisers won't engage with it
unless it meets a certain reputational standard.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
I dunno; I'm tempted to turn on Fox News to analyze which companies advertise
on there. I suspect advertisers' squeamishness only runs skin deep and they
really don't want to give up ad reach to 40+% of the country.

[EDIT] Interesting. According to this link ([https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-
news/these-are-fox-news-lea...](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/these-
are-fox-news-leading-advertisers)), very prominent national brands advertise
on Fox News, including Verizon, who recently garnered mention for boycotting
Facebook ads. Kind of reinforces my hypothesis.

------
geofft
These are the guidelines of this "free speech social network":
[https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf](https://legal.parler.com/documents/guidelines.pdf)

Apart from the clear US-centric worldview of acceptable and unacceptable
speech (e.g., using the US list of foreign terrorist organizations - for
instance, many countries would not consider Hezbollah a terrorist
organization), I don't understand the "fighting words" portion. It references
a US Supreme Court case, _Terminiello v. Chicago_ , in which the speaker was
ruled to have _not_ been a "clear and present danger" or have used "fighting
words" \- so it's not clear what "fighting words" _are_. The term was defined
in an earlier case, _Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_ , where it was ruled that
calling someone "a damned fascist" was not protected by the First Amendment -
is that the point of view that Parler takes?

Meanwhile, in US jurisprudence, the "clear and present danger" test was
replaced by the "imminent lawless action" one in 1969 ( _Brandenburg v. Ohio_
), which specifically constitutionally guarantees quite a bit more free
speech, including non-imminent advocacy of breaking laws. Does Parler follow
the "clear and present danger" standard or the "imminent lawless action" one?

Also, the network bans "pornography," "obscenity," and "indecency" (which goes
farther than the FCC, which permits "indecent" content on TV or the radio
between 10 pm and 6 am, and doesn't regulate them in print etc.) and adds the
suggestion, "Make sure everyone in your photos has clothes." Are shirtless men
acceptable? Shirtless women (permitted in public in at least six US states)?
Are medical diagrams acceptable? (Content is merely indecent and not obscene
if it has "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value".)

------
scarface74
And this is how it should work Instead of whining about “regulating tech”
every time they do something you don’t like, create your own platform where
like minded individuals are free to congregate.

It’s surprising that so many conservative groups who are the first to want
deregulation and the free market when it suits them wanted government
interference when big tech was being mean to them.

~~~
emerged
It's not "being mean" it's being unable to participate in discussions when you
don't tow the line. This is true on Twitter and Reddit, even HN. You are also
not supposed to even bring up the issue as that will be down regulated even
more heavily.

The problem needs to be solved one way or another because things are
spiralling out of control. The solution isn't "conservatives should just stop
not saying what I want them to say" as that will never happen.

~~~
scarface74
Sure. If you want to have a discussion where you don’t have to be dependent on
other people’s rules. Create your own forum. That’s how you solve it.

The open source community didn’t just complain about the closed source
products that other vendors released. They created their own alternatives.

Why can’t conservatives come up with successful forums? Are there no
conservative entrepreneurs with the technological wherewithal?

~~~
emerged
Just as systemic racism can occur in institutions, systemic bias can occur in
the technology sector. Once momentum builds in a political direction, there
becomes a cost associated with going against that grain. Over time it has
built up to a breaking point where dissent from that bias effectively removes
people from being able to participate.

I think it's not intellectually honest to believe systemic issues in one
instance require intervention, but not in the other.

~~~
scarface74
Really? HN is a forum of technical people. The technology behind creating a
forum is not rocket science. Getting a colocated server is not rocket science.

There are enough conservative outlets that should both be willing to fund the
development and for a marketing outlet.

Hell, I am the furthest thing from a conservative but if conservatives are
really so inept that they can’t create their own forums, give me the money.
I’ll figure it out. I’m not going to do your marketing for you. But if an
atheist can make it big selling bible apps,I’ll take their money to create a
forum.

Oh and BTW, I think I probably know a little more about “systemic racism” than
you do. You can’t imagine the looks we got when we first started searching for
homes and getting one built in the neighborhoods where “we don’t belong” or
the number of times that consultants came in to talk to the dev lead and
started talking to one of my reports and walked right past me.

------
horsemessiah
Ah, good. More echo chambers.

------
DaniloDias
Why are people still trying to build businesses on the idea that people need a
new way to talk to each other?

It feels like these solutions cater to the lazy or the distract-able. All of
these businesses start looking so shiny and inevitably are masticated, then
digested, and then reach the final state associated with excretion.

Free services just fuck their users.

------
riffic
ActivityPub, the web standard that powers the software that currently holds
the #1 spot on top of HN today, is better.

------
Crye
It's not clear it's a bastion for free speech.

According to this tweet, folks are getting banned for imitating politicians.

[https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/127659055637488025...](https://twitter.com/RespectableLaw/status/1276590556374880258?s=19)

~~~
Grue3
>folks are getting banned for imitating politicians

Why is this bad? Freedom to impersonate other people is an issue orthogonal to
free speech.

------
emerged
Perhaps there could be a new internet standard which allows every website in
existence to run parallel political left/right instances. Segment ourselves
into two entirely separate realities since we clearly aren't able to get along
together.

------
chrisco255
I like seeing the competition. Maybe that's the answer for the social media
bias. But I fear that any private platform will eventually get corrupted. I
would strongly prefer an open-source standard to beat out the big tech
monopolies.

~~~
riffic
that standard exists.

~~~
chrisco255
What's the user friendly, normie friendly open source social media service
that rivals Twitter and Facebook in usability?

~~~
riffic
Go to the front page of HN, and view the top post today. That is just one
example of software that uses open web standards published by the W3C.

There is a healthy ecosystem of software being designed to conform with these
specifications.

------
Traster
It'll be very interesting to see if a social media network exclusively of
political content will be viable. Twitter may have a lot of politics on it,
but that's not its raison d'etre.

I have to laugh at the article though:

>“With Devin Nunes came a whole pack of haters,” said Matze. He said that
parody accounts are fine and even welcome, but Parler draws a line when it
comes to spammers. “You can’t spam people’s comment sections with unrelated
content,” he said.

Well, firstly, it's well documented that Devin Nunes has _sued_ parody
accounts, and seccondly, making editorial decisions about which comments are
suitably related is the editorial control that right wing partisans are falsly
claiming is a red line abot twitter.

Given that we know Parler is offering a bounty for users, how much did they
pay CNBC for the puff piece?

------
GEBBL
You know someone’s a wanker if you see Parler on their phone. Could be useful
in this way.

------
troughway
So if this is the platform for the conservatives - what's the platform for the
liberals?

~~~
bmarquez
Reddit

------
tibbydudeza
Well that is great ... give nutjobs like Alex Jones their own echo chamber to
rant and rave about Bill Gates, Soros 5G , Corona and the evil of vaccines.

------
azangru
CNBC title: "Trump fans..."

HN title: "Conservatives..."

Are conservatives regarded as indistinguishable from Trump fans these days?

~~~
na85
>Are conservatives regarded as indistinguishable from Trump fans these days?

In what meaningful way can they be distinguished?

~~~
dx87
Favoring a certain style of government doesn't mean you have to be a fan of
every politician advocating for that style of government. It's like a quote
from one of the main characters on The Newsroom.

>First off, I'm a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I believe
that hurricanes are caused by high barrometric pressure, and not gay marriage.

~~~
na85
I've seen that series as well, and what it fails to portray is that for all
intents and purposes, the social conservatives define the Republican party. To
be a social liberal and still vote Republican is to be manipulated.

The Republican party hasn't been about responsible small government in
decades.

