Social networks are in turmoil, especially in the United States. Changes to his regulations regarding hate speech have upended the apparent impunity with which President Donald Trump tweets, posts on Facebook and Snapchat, and posts videos on YouTube and Twitch. With the exception of Reddit, which has directly closed the channel of its 80,000 followers, the other platforms have chosen to eliminate or label messages that incite violence, spread hate or lie.
The immediate reaction has been a boycott campaign on Twitter with the #Twexit, as well as a mass exodus to Parler, created two years ago by John Matze and far from any kind of notoriety until now. In just over a week, its users have exceeded one and a half million – figures far removed from Facebook and Twitter, which add up to 175.4 million and 53.5 million users respectively in the United States alone, according to eMarketer.
The profile of these digital migrants, attracted by the motto of “no censorship” expressed by Matze, meets a common pattern. Either they come from the political and family environment of the White House tenant or they are grassroots supporters, known as MAGA in allusion to the 2016 campaign slogan: Make America Great Again. Republican senators like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul; Eric Trump and Lara Trump; and communicators like Katie Hopkins, who at the time was expelled from Twitter for comparing immigrants to cockroaches, and Candace Owens have landed on Parler.
“If it stays as a network for the extreme right or alternative right, which is what they call themselves, with a more modern interface and just for their discussions, let them stay there. It’s just for his people and motivate them. Instead, on Twitter you reach a broader political spectrum. It makes more sense to use it to fix the public discussion”, explains Jon Worth, expert in technology and politics and professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.
At first glance, Parler does not show his ultra face. Some comments on Mery Trump’s latest book, conversations about the US economic situation… However, with a little dedication, xenophobic comments and the occasional political outburst appear. Hopkins the same equates the movement Black Lives Matter violently writing that white girls always pay the price for illegal immigration. “In general, social networks that only talk about politics do not last. The size of this platform is going to be what it is. It will not transcend, ”says Matt Stempeck, director of digital mobilization in 2016 for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Although it does not state it, Gab, created by Andrew Torba, is an example of another platform that, four years ago, wanted to become an alternative to Twitter due to the supposed lack of freedom. It quickly gained some popularity among neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups. Some of its users openly wrote their intentions to commit a massacre against a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Gab fell by the wayside because, among other reasons, the provider of its servers stopped providing the service for inciting violence.
BitChute, with more than 25,000 subscribers, is another example of a network, in this case audiovisual, where the extreme right is barricaded. It is part of those social circles outside the big technology companies. It is still possible to find the full terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand—Facebook, where the terrorist began livestreaming, erased any trace—and all kinds of far-right propaganda. “They believe that freedom of expression has no consequences. It is your wrong point of view. The debate now is on how to deal with both published messages and digital protests,” says Stempeck.
Doubts in the economic model
Economic viability is essential for Parler to transcend. It will be useless to attract new users if the figures do not add up. It is precisely what Worth believes, that the model does not have the necessary wicks to compete against Twitter. The volume of data it handles thanks to its hundreds of millions of users translates it into multimillion-dollar revenues through the sale of advertising. “In terms of business, it is copying Twitter, but its numbers are skyrocketing. I think it won’t work. Will it be an equivalent of Twitter? I would say no. This would change slightly if they incorporate people who are not just from the extreme right ”, he settles.
The open front against the big platforms is part of its usual strategy of digital confrontation. An effective approach since 2016. Brexit, the increase in seats in parliaments around the world and the victory in Brazil of Jair Bolsonaro, who recently opened a profile on Parler, illustrate such effectiveness. Intensifying his speech a little more, even abandoning traditional networks, is due to an attempt to condition the companies. “It’s the same thing that happens in football. If you constantly attack the referee, in the end it ends up compensating you in some way. Here is the same. They think that they will have more space to talk and they will be more benevolent with them, ”says Stempeck.
Despite the fact that they have sought in the Matze project, 26, a shelter to spread their ideas, the founder himself has had to clarify on Twitter that there are minimum standards, such as not threatening anyone with death or using obscene usernames . An almost unthinkable nuance days ago when he stated that in Parler you could say the same thing as in the streets of New York.
Part of these ups and downs respond to the electoral campaign facing the United States, there are barely four months left for the presidential elections. Parler has not yet jumped beyond the Atlantic. Only certain UKIP and BNP related characters have switched platforms. Political groups such as Vox, Alternative for Germany, the Northern League or Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom maintain their loyalty to the usual giants. They are aware that the majority of citizens live there and they can influence them more easily. “In Europe maybe they start using Parler, but in terms of business it doesn’t make any sense for the company,” concludes Worth.