Parler, Section 230, and the Future of the Internet

An upstart social media site tries to break the grip of Big Tech on the public discourse.

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Parler, the upstart social network that bills itself as Twitter but with more free speech, is having a moment.

Capitalizing on many conservatives’ growing distrust for Silicon Valley, and aided by a burst of recent high-profile endorsements from right-wing politicians and pundits, the app, which was launched in 2018, has doubled its online presence over the last week. As of May 2019, the app had about 100,000 users, which had grown to about 1 million a year later. Now, its founder says, it’s pushing 2 million, with more coming every day. It’s not Facebook, but it’s not chump change either.

The appeal of Parler (which is pronounced like the pirate truce, from the French “to speak”) is twofold. First, there’s the elevator pitch: Parler describes itself as a network that won’t regulate your speech. If the government couldn’t keep you from saying it, Parler won’t either. “We’re a community town square, an open town square, with no censorship,” founder John Matze told CNBC last week. “If you can say it on the streets of New York, you can say it on Parler.”

Then there’s the subtextual pitch: Here is a place that will be a safer, more congenial space for conservatives to break free of the tyranny of the hostile lefties of Silicon Valley. The site’s de facto rightward bent is apparent the second you actually step onto Parler. Make a Twitter account, and the app might suggest you follow ESPN, NASA, Cardi B, Donald Trump, and the Pope. Make a Parler, and you’ll be advised to follow Breitbart, the Daily Caller, Epoch Times, Dan Bongino, Eric Trump, Laura Loomer, and Rudy Giuliani.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Angie

    I find this a clever piece on Section 230 and explains it very well...

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml

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  2. Avatar photo
    Angie

    I have a problem with the disconnect here as far as: many conservatives insisted private businesses should be free to insert any rules they want ( like the cake baking case)...yet, when internet sites, which are private companies, want to institute there own rules...somehow they change their point of view?

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      Angie

      PS: Both are free speech no?

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  3. Avatar photo
    Man-Eating Cow

    The article touches on the problem, which is the anonymity. When you can register and post anonymously, there is no personal reputation to be protected. This leads to bad behavior.

    (What really startles me is that this is true even of subscriber-only sites. I don't understand paying for the pleasure of trolling. But it seems to be a real thing.)

    Anonymity also creates an environment in which there is a strong incentive for even good actors to register anonymously, for their own protection. Which has a definite tendency to encourage them speak a little more frankly than they would on the streets of New York City. So there is a vicious spiral.

    It's hard enough to be civil talking with someone you are new to even in person when you're told the topic of conversation in politics. It's amazing how many of us live in a bubble where we just *assume* right-thinking folks think this or that, and discovering otherwise can lead to a lot of heat even when you're face to face.

    Now try it where the Other has no face, is using a false name, and could be a Turing machine for all you know -- and you know they can't see your face and you're using a pseudonym, no doubt for good reasons, but you know you can say terrible things back and no one will associate them with the real "you."

    What's amazing is not that the Internet is a cesspool of anger and hate. What's amazing is that it's ever anything else.

    I'm of the opposite view of many civil libertarians. Let private companies run their sites however they want -- but I'll look for ones that moderate mercilessly. Such moderation will *always* be subjective, but I know what looks like moderating in good faith to me.

    Another thing that would be helpful is a long delay to having comments actually appear. I have a hypothesis that if you put an automatic 24-hour delay on all comments, with the option to withdraw a comment, no questions asked, before that time, a lot of the discourse would improve. But I'm not sure of that because I'm not sure all the heat is genuine -- I think a lot of really awful stuff gets posted "in cold blood", so to speak, by folks in the grip of an activist mind frame.

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    Jake

    The opposite of Twitter isn’t a site that promotes Breitbart, but a site that promotes honest debate. Good luck getting that for free.

    Also, the name “Parler” is stupid. Until this article, I thought it was a play on “parlor”. If people don’t know how to pronounce your product name, you’re doing it wrong.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    So I went over to Parle and set up an account. The site is horrible to use. You cannot search easily, the site does not keep up as you type, it freezes a lot, it takes forever to upload. Donald Trump does not have an account at Parle, but someone is reposting all his tweets there.

    And if you go onto its "community standards" it specifically says not to impersonate anyone...and the site is full of impersonating accounts, and not to "suggest people should die" yet it is full of accounts wishing people dead.

    Lol, I don't think so. Unless they make some drastic improvements. It is pretty rough.

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      Man-Eating Cow

      I think the Parler proprietors' hearts are in the right place, but they just haven't thought deeply enough about how *hard* it is to do this right. Which is kind of astounding.

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        Angie

        Maybe they will realize why other sites have a problem doing it well too?

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          Man-Eating Cow

          I've heard it said that really gifted artists, musicians, athletes, and other entertainers have the characteristic that they make it look easy. When it isn't.

          I wonder if Zuckerberg, whatever my other feelings about him, is an example of a techie who makes it look easy -- when it isn't.

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            Angie

            I think you may be right...anyone good at their job makes it look easier than it might be

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  6. ROBERT

    Because of his popularity and support I think Josh Hawley has become one of the most frightening members of the Senate. He's pushing hard for a federal government intervention- that's not a conservative position. It's what conservatives complain about Democrats doing.
    This movement is dangerous for the internet we've been using for years. It seems Senator Hawley is upset that his product being sold on social media is not as popular as he would like it to be. Fine. Let him go to Parlor if he hates Facebook. Market competition is the real conservative solution to the Senator's perceived problem.

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    BrettH

    Interesting read, nice work Andrew. I’ll happily continue to let you fine folks at The Dispatch wallow in the mire for me; social media is, in my humble judgement, a net negative for society.

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    Pat Riot

    Parler will have its "dog catches car" moment soon if it's not already having one. Moderation is hard.

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    Sonofasailor35

    Very strange that there’s not a word in this article about the reason a lot of conservatives are upset with some social media sites: their self-professed “neutral” guidelines are used to silence conservative voices much more than liberal ones - most likely because their employees can’t see their own liberal bias.

    As David French and others have said, the solution is not to amend Sec 230 to make it more “fair.” That just gets the government involved in these disputes where it has no place. No, the solution is to “let a thousand Parlers bloom”. As with so many things, let the market decide.

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    1. Patrick O'Sullivan

      I definitely agree with your solution. The internet has allowed entrepreneurs who see a problem to solve a problem in a way that's faster and wider-reaching than ever before.

      As far as the first bit, I'm not entirely sure that either side has it entirely right. There's plenty of evidence that young, educated, idealistic people skew liberal, and when you have an industry run by young, educated people, it's largely going to be populated by liberals (or libertarians, but, anecdotally, I feel like I'm encountering fewer "libertarian tech bros" as of late.

      But looking at reporting on this issue, I don't see enough evidence that there's willful silencing of conservative voices. I see plenty of people repeating "what everybody knows," but there's a lot of outright false things in our national discourse that "everybody knows," and I'm not convinced that "conservatives are moderated unevenly" isn't one of them.

      This recent Wall Street Journal piece (https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499) seems to say that Facebook has *the opposite problem*, where they'll stop themselves from instituting moderation policies because even a "fair" application will lead to the appearance of conservative censorship, when none may exist.

      As the piece says:
      "A second finding in the U.S. saw a larger infrastructure of accounts and publishers on the far right than on the far left. Outside observers were documenting the same phenomenon. The gap meant even seemingly apolitical actions such as reducing the spread of clickbait headlines—along the lines of “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next”—affected conservative speech more than liberal content in aggregate."

      I don't think any of us would take issue with a "fair" moderation policy that affects a group differently, but not disproportionately, but most arguments on this topic operate on the underlying assumption that any difference is due to bias. And that's the part that I'm not sure of yet.

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    JohnF

    I suggest that the litmus test shouldn't be "if you CAN say it on the streets of NYC" but rather "if you WOULD say it..." People tend to self-regulate their free speech more carefully when there is the chance that what you say will get you punched in the face.

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