By Jeff Horwitz and Keach Hagey
As Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have taken a harder line
against unsubstantiated claims of a stolen presidential election,
prominent conservatives on both platforms have responded with anger
and a frequent retort: Follow me on Parler.
Launched in 2018, the libertarian-leaning social network was the
most downloaded app on both Android and Apple devices for most of
last week, according to data from Google and analytics firm App
Annie. Its leaders envision it as a free-speech-focused alternative
to the giants of Silicon Valley.
The platform also has some deep-pocketed investors. Rebekah
Mercer, daughter of hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer, is among the
company's financial backers, according to people familiar with the
matter. The Mercers have previously financed a number of
conservative causes.
After The Wall Street Journal reported on the Mercers' ties with
Parler, Chief Executive John Matze confirmed that Ms. Mercer was
the lead investor in the company at its outset and said that her
backing was dependent on the platform allowing users to control
what they see.
Some of the people familiar with the matter said Parler was a
Mercer family investment. Ms. Mercer, in a post on Parler after a
version of this article was published, said that her father had no
involvement or ownership of the company. Mr. Mercer couldn't
immediately be reached for comment.
Ms. Mercer said in a separate post that she and Mr. Matze
"started Parler to provide a neutral platform for free speech, as
our founders intended." She said the effort is an answer to what
she called the "ever increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech
overlords."
The company's user base more than doubled to 10 million in under
a week, making it difficult for its roughly 30-person staff to keep
up with the flood of new sign-ups.
"You'd fix one thing, and another would blow out," Mr. Matze
said. "We're now solid at this point."
Other allies of President Trump have joined Ms. Mercer in
framing Parler's rapid growth as a rebuke to major tech platforms'
efforts to more aggressively label content or restrict the reach of
posts that the platforms deemed misleading or dangerous. Fox
Business anchor Maria Bartiromo announced she was quitting Twitter
for Parler, where she has amassed more than 1 million followers.
Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino -- who is both one of
Facebook's most popular content creators and an investor in Parler
-- heralded its growth as "a collective middle finger to the tech
tyrants."
Both of them have continued to post on Facebook and Twitter,
though, raising the question of whether Parler will eventually
complement or replace larger platforms with much bigger
audiences.
In part, that answer will be determined by the success of
Parler's business model, which eschews some of the foundational
tools of social media.
Twitter and Facebook gather extensive data about the content
users interact with -- and then customize what users see based on
what's likely to appeal to them. When the platforms detect content
that's popular among a swath of users, they promote that content in
more users' feeds -- creating the sort of viral sensations social
media is known for.
Parler doesn't do that. The platform doesn't use
content-recommendation algorithms, collects almost no data about
its users and, for privacy reasons, hasn't provided the tools to
let users easily cross-post from other platforms. Parler simply
shows users all the posts from everyone they follow, in reverse
chronological order.
While Parler's terms of service allow the app to tailor content
for its users in the future, executives said they were committed to
their libertarian principles.
"We're choosing to be a neutral platform," said Jeffrey Wernick,
the company's chief operating officer.
Parler's hands-off philosophy could test users.
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Parler leaves virtually all
moderation decisions up to individuals, allowing them to choose
whether to apply filters that hide content such as hate speech,
graphic violence and pornography. The minimal enforcement that
exists -- primarily the removal of spam, threats of violence, or
illegal activity -- is handled by "community jurors," all currently
volunteers.
That policy leads to freewheeling political discussion. It also
allows some communities to flourish that don't fit as easily on
other platforms, such as a group of users who publish their nude
photos on the platform, Mr. Matze said.
Parler has also been embraced by individuals who have been
banned by other platforms. Far-right talk-show host Alex Jones, the
extremist group The Proud Boys and the "Stop the Steal" election
protest organizers all have established sizable followings on
Parler after being banned from Facebook.
In recent weeks the app has teemed with claims about election
fraud without offering evidence, white-supremacist content and
posts from backers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the
Anti-Defamation League said in a blog post Thursday.
Mr. Matze said allowing those groups on the platform is
consistent with the company's commitment to free speech, even if
not all of it is to his taste.
"Those Q-Anon people, they creep me out," said Mr. Matze, the
26-year-old CEO who founded the Henderson, Nev.-based company after
graduating from the University of Denver.
"I can see why there's interest in this," said Antonio Garcia
Martinez, a former Facebook product manager and Twitter adviser,
noting that mainstream platforms feel they must make concessions on
free speech in order to reach the broadest possible audience.
Yet recent history suggests that "at some point the world
revolts against this sort of thing," he said, noting the struggles
of alt-right platforms such as Gab. It faced both public
condemnation and a blockade by web-hosting and payment providers in
2018 after revelations that a man who killed 11 people at a
Pittsburgh synagogue had posted on Gab about plans to act on his
anti-Semitic beliefs. Gab said afterward that it would bolster
efforts to prevent threats of physical harm.
Shannon McGregor, a social media researcher at the University of
North Carolina's Center for Information, Technology and Public
Life, said partisan social media has traditionally struggled, in
part because sparring across ideological lines keeps users
engaged.
In addition, she said, Parler's commitment to chronological
feeds for users could present challenges for high-profile content
creators.
"It's not going to give the greatest voice to the leading
figures in the way that an algorithmic feed does," she said.
Parler executives acknowledge that their principles could slow
their growth.
Turning a profit isn't an urgent concern, Mr. Wernick said,
adding that the surge in Parler downloads has been accompanied by
interest from new potential investors and advertisers.
"We think that, long term, doing the right thing will pay off,"
he said.
Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com and Keach Hagey at
keach.hagey@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 14, 2020 22:20 ET (03:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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