Parler
Parler (pronounced "parlor") was an American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Launched in August 2018, Parler marketed itself as a free speech-focused and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.[13][14][15] Journalists described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, with its users including those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose their moderation policies.[16][14][17][18]
This article is about the social network. For other uses, see Parler (disambiguation).Type of business
2018[1]
John Matze Jr.
Jared Thomson
Rebekah Mercer[1]
Ryan Rhodes
Elise Pierotti, Jaco Booyens
30 (as of 2020)[2]
Required
September 2018[5]
Online
Parler received criticism for its content policies, which some journalists and users claimed were more restrictive than the company portrays and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors.[19][20][21][22] Conservatives praised Parler as offering an alternative to censorship they claim to endure on more mainstream platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter.[23]
Parler's userbase grew exponentially during 2020 with minimal content moderation.[24][25] After reports that Parler was used to coordinate the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, several companies denied it their services.[26] 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.[27][28][29] Before it went offline in January 2021, according to Parler, the service had about 15 million users.[30] Parler called the removals "a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace".[24] Parler resumed service on February 15, 2021, after moving domain registration to Epik.[31] A version of the app with added content filters was released on the Apple App Store on May 17, 2021.[32][33][34] Parler returned to Google Play on September 2, 2022.[35]
Parler was acquired by the digital media conglomerate Starboard on April 14, 2023, and was shut down on the same day.[36] According to a statement by Starboard on the website's holding page, now removed, this was a temporary measure to allow the site to "undergo a strategic assessment".[37][38]
On December 15, 2023, the company was sold to a new co-owner group consisting of Ryan Rhodes, Elise Pierotti and Jaco Booyens. Ryan Rhodes was appointed CEO.[39] A 2024 relaunch was hinted at by the new ownership soon after the company purchase. In January 2024, the company's external social media outlets officially restarted operations to announce the relaunch. The platform itself remains inaccessible, but the website has been restored.
Usage
Parler had fewer than a million users until early 2020.[168] In the last week of June 2020, it was estimated that the Parler app had more than 1.5 million daily users.[61] As of July 15, 2020, Parler had 2.8 million total users and had been downloaded 2.5 million times, nearly half of which were in June.[19][51] Throughout June and July, Parler on several occasions was highly listed both on the Apple App Store and on the Google Play store, in various categories and overall.[22] 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 both on the Apple App Store and on the Google Play Store.[75] Parler remained the most downloaded app in the United States for five days in early November.[81] The New York Times reported that Parler had added 3.5 million users in a single week,[169] and during that month the service had about four million active users, and more than ten million total.[74][2] In December 2020, Parler had around 2.3 million daily active users.[78] Fast Company reported that, as of December 5, both the number of daily active users and the rate of new downloads had dropped from their November peak, and CNN reported on December 10 that downloads had "plummeted" and were returning to the numbers Parler was experiencing before the election.[77][78] Parler again topped the App Store downloads chart on January 8, 2021, shortly after then-President Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter and also shortly before Parler was removed from the App Store by Apple.[90][94] As of January 2021, Parler reported having 15 million total users.[30] According to Sensor Tower, Parler has received 11.3 million global downloads from both the App Store and the Play Store.[170] Also according to Sensor Tower, app downloads for Parler had dropped from 517,000 in December 2020 to 11,000 in June 2021.[171] According to a May 2022 Pew Research Center poll, 38 percent of American adults have heard of Parler, while only 1 percent regularly get their news from Parler.[172]
Despite the wave in signups in mid-2020, and the larger surge in November of that year, some journalists and researchers expressed doubt that Parler will remain popular or enter mainstream usage. 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.[173] 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.[51] Parler's user base, though it grew substantially in mid- and late 2020, remained much smaller than its competitors'.[19][20][48] As of November 2020, Twitter had 187 million users a day and Facebook had 1.8 billion users a day, whereas Parler had four million active users and eight million total.[74] Slate wrote that alternative social networks like Parler "normally ... just don't get that big."[22] When Parler's download and usage activity diminished following the November surge in popularity, the vice president of insights at the app analytics company Apptopia said to CNN, "The data trends resemble a fad, and a short-lived one at that ... Parler had a very good spike. People were interested, it's in the news, it receives downloads. ... But it appears, in our data, that there is no staying power."[78]
Although some high-profile figures have created accounts on Parler, many of them remain more active, and have substantially larger follower bases, on mainstream social networks.[14][19][48][174] Mic questioned how long Parler's spike in popularity would last, citing as an obstacle the reluctance among those with large Twitter followings to migrate to a new service.[55] The Daily Beast noted in July and October 2020 that many high-profile conservatives who opened accounts on Parler in the previous month had since stopped using the service, while remaining active on mainstream social networks.[175][176] Some have described Parler as a backup in case Twitter bans them.[51][175] CNN interviewed Trump supporters in December 2020 about their social media use and found that "almost none" had completely abandoned Twitter and Facebook.[177] The same month, OneZero reported that Parler users were gathering in Facebook groups to complain that Parler's interface was difficult to operate, to share concerns about having to submit identification to be verified, and to express regrets that their friends and family had not joined.[178]
User base
Parler has a significant user base of conservatives.[7][8][9][10][11] The app also has a number of high-profile Republican users, including Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, as well as Fox News host Sean Hannity.[61][85] The Anti-Defamation League wrote in November 2020 that "Parler has attracted a range of right-wing extremists" including Proud Boys; proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory; anti-government extremists including members of the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and other militia groups; and white supremacists including members of the alt-right and far-right accelerationists such as the terrorist group Atomwaffen Division.[13][168] Leaked GPS coordinates from Parler also revealed that users of the site include police officers in the United States and members of the U.S. Armed Forces.[179] Parler was also used by at least 14 UK Conservative Party Members of Parliament; several ministers including cabinet minister Michael Gove and a number of prominent UK conservative commentators joined the app.[180] Some right-wing news companies including Breitbart News, The Epoch Times, and The Daily Caller also had accounts on Parler.[181]
Researchers, journalists, and Parler users have observed the lack of ideological diversity on the service,[81][48][182] and that Parler has served as an echo chamber for right-wing extremists and Trump supporters.[188] In mid-2020, alt-right activist and Trump supporter Jack Posobiec compared the service to a Trump rally, saying Parler lacks the "energy" Twitter draws from having communities of people with differing viewpoints.[48][182] 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.[22] In June 2020, Matze said he wanted to see more debate on the platform and offered a "progressive bounty" of $10,000 to liberal pundits with at least 50,000 Twitter or Facebook followers who would join; receiving no takers, he later increased this amount to $20,000.[48][61]
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 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." He said Parler's size might result in a smaller audience for those pushing conspiracy theories and spreading misinformation.[189] Angelo Carusone, president of the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America, has said of Parler, "The self-segmenting of this group to Parler will intensify their extremism. No doubt about that. But it will also weaken the influence of the right wing by siphoning off a segment of users, many of whom will be the most engaged users."[186]
Parler is one of a number of alternative social network platforms, including Gab and BitChute, that are popular with people banned from mainstream networks such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram.[190][191] 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. They noted there are also more ideologically neutral alt-tech services, such as Discord and Telegram.[192] Joe Mulhall of the UK anti-racism group Hope Not Hate has categorized Parler among the "bespoke platforms" for the far-right, which he defines as platforms which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings". 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.[193]
Company
Parler was founded in 2018 by John Matze and Jared Thomson. In November 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rebekah Mercer, an investor known for her support of conservative individuals and organizations, had helped fund Parler. After the report was published, Mercer described herself as having "started Parler" with Matze, and she has been described by CNN as a co-founder of the company.[2][1][40]
Parler has not disclosed the identities of its owners; however, Dan Bongino publicly announced in June 2020 that he had purchased an "ownership stake" of unspecified value.[20][50] In November 2020, Matze wrote in a Parler post that Parler was owned by "myself, a small group of close friends and employees", and had as investors Bongino and Parler chief operating officer Jeffrey Wernick[74] 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. Soros does not own Parler and Fox News never reported the claim; the image had been digitally altered from a photo of a television showing a Fox broadcast about a different subject.[224][225][203]
On January 29, 2021, Parler's board, controlled by Mercer, terminated Matze from his position as CEO.[45] In a memo Matze sent to Fox Business, he claimed 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".[45] In interviews, Matze said his termination may have been related to a dispute within the company regarding the limits of free speech and his belief that the company needed to "crack down" on domestic terrorism and violence.[125][45] Matze also had all his Parler shares stripped from him when he was fired.[226] With Matze gone, an executive committee of Mercer, British lawyer Matthew Richardson, and former Tea Party activist Mark Meckler runs the company.[227][43] Parler announced on February 15, 2021, that Mark Meckler would serve as the company's interim CEO while they searched for someone to take the position.[32][228] Parler announced on May 17, 2021, that they had named George Farmer as CEO. Farmer is a former candidate for and financial supporter of the Brexit Party (now known as Reform UK) in the United Kingdom.[229][230] Prior to joining Parler, Farmer worked at Red Kite, a hedge fund founded by his father Michael Farmer, Baron Farmer, a former treasurer of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party, and was the former head of Turning Point UK, a British offshoot of the American conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA.[44]
On March 2, 2021, NPR reported that Parler's lawyers had written in a legal filing that the company's valuation was "approaching $1 billion".[226]
On October 12, 2021, Parler announced in an email that they would be moving their headquarters from Henderson, Nevada to Nashville, Tennessee.[231][232]
Seth Dillon, the CEO of conservative Christian news satire website The Babylon Bee, has been listed as a director of Parler.[233]
As of November 2020, Parler had about thirty employees.[2]
On December 15th, Parler was bought from Starboard by Ryan Rhodes, Elise Pierotti and Jaco Booyens.[39]
Funding
In a June 27, 2020, interview with CNBC, Matze said he wanted to raise an institutional round of financing soon, although he expressed concerns that venture capitalists might not be interested in funding the company because of ideological differences.[61] Fortune wrote in June 2020 that the company planned to add advertising to the service soon.[20] 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.[20][210] Slate has questioned Parler's business model, writing that Parler's plan to rely on advertising revenue "seems far from foolproof" given the 2020 advertising boycotts of Facebook by some large brands who objected to hateful content on the platform.[22] NBC also questioned whether corporations would be interested in advertising alongside "controversial material" on Parler.[74] Matze said in an interview on June 29, 2020, that the business was not profitable.[234] As of January 2021, Parler had not received any known venture capital, although in February 2021, Buzzfeed News reported that Parler had recently sought to obtain funding from J. D. Vance's venture-capital firm Narya Capital.[74][223][43] In January 2022, Parler raised $20 million in funding.[233]
In September 2022, Parler announced $16M in Series B funding, for a total of $56M in funding to date.[235]
