Parler, the MAGA sect's new favorite social media app, is a nightmare
Trump-loving Republicans who decry “safe spaces” are rallying their followers to join them on Parler, a “non-biased free speech driven entity” where no meanies will yell at them for saying looters should be shot. This isn’t the first time the MAGA sect’s sought to abandon Twitter—there was Gab, for example, which was almost immediately overrun with white supremacists. And Parler, too, was bandied about in recent years as a mecca for “silenced” conservatives, though, unfortunately for us, that migration didn’t stick.
The movement’s got a bit more heft behind it now, what with Twitter actually doing something about the blatant lies and calls to violence spewed by our president. Senator Ted Cruz, for example, shared a video to his Twitter account yesterday in which he praised Parler (pronouncing it “parlor,” not “par-lay,” as intended) for “getting what free speech is all about.” (Although a new OneZero report on its guidelines finds its rules to be not all that different from Twitter’s, helping solidify the fact that Trump supporters really just want to maintain the illusion that they’re being repressed. As studies have shown, conservative content continues to thrive on social media.)
Cruz is joined in his enthusiasm for Parler by Capitol Hill colleagues like Rand Paul, Devin Nunes, and Matt Gaetz, as well as Eric Trump and de-platformed grifters like Jacob Wohl and the “liberal” Krassenstein Brothers, who were also booted from Twitter last year.
The discourse is about what you’d expect.