Pictured Above: Launched in 2018, the Parler app has gained recent popularity for being a social media platform that refrains from fact-checking its users.
Courtesy of Parler
By Annalise Anderson
The battle between conservative voices and social media platforms has reached a climax since Joe Biden secured the presidency earlier this month.
Facebook and Twitter have been under fire from their conservative users for increased fact-checking and censorship of content that tends to echo right-leaning beliefs. The tech companies’ fact-checking efforts are said to curtail the spread of misinformation.
Twitter published a blog post in May stating “our goal is to make it easy to find credible information on Twitter and to limit the spread of potentially harmful and misleading content.”
As part of Facebook’s recently developed Journalism Project, its Third-Party Fact-Checking Program states: “Since we do not believe that a private company like Facebook should be the arbiters of truth, we rely on independent fact-checkers to identify and review potential misinformation, which enables us to take action.”
Now, a growing wave of conservative users are abandoning these popular social media platforms and signing up for alternative apps like Parler.
Parler has quickly gained traction among the conservative community since the 2020 general election.
According to the New York Times, the number of Parler users nearly doubled within a week, growing it well into the millions. As of Friday, it is the No. 2 news app in Apple’s App Store.
The Twitter-like platform claims to be “built upon a foundation of respect for privacy and personal data, free speech, free markets and ethical, transparent corporate policy” and calls itself “the solution” to frustrations from Big Tech catering to special-interest groups.
The app’s website homepage greets visitors with the phrase “Speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for your views” bannered across an image of a youthful 20-something-year-old dressed in a plaid shirt and overalls.
Lexi Bishop, a political science sophomore at USF St. Petersburg, has joined Parler and said her experience has been “pretty good” so far.
“Having platforms like Parler appearing and providing a place for the truth, in every aspect, to be shared has become extremely important to conservatives,” Bishop said in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “For me, it is important because the major platforms worth billions, and with billions of users, are manipulating their platforms to silence people like me for simply speaking and sharing facts.”
Bishop calls Facebook and Twitter censorship “simply unethical” and believes that their fact-checking criteria are left-leaning.
While she’s pleased to have a platform supportive of conservative views, she believes that it may encourage more criticism from opposing parties.
“I feel that as a two-party country, we will see more lies, insults and stereotyping come from the left,” Bishop said. “I think Parler will remain mostly conservative, but if we do see a rise in democratic users, a fair percentage would probably be trolls and the rest would probably be younger people interested in politics, or even people from other countries.”
USF Tampa student James Tran said he doesn’t use Parler but understands its growing popularity and believes that social media will have an impact on the future of politics.
“Censorship is the number one reason why people are leaving Facebook and Twitter,” Tran said in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “It’s quite clear that censorship affects one political demographic more so than the other… The political landscape of all countries will never be the same due to social media.”
Johnny Boykins, president of Pinellas County Young Democrats and vice chairman of Pinellas Democratic Party, believes otherwise and that social media won’t change the political landscape.
“We often have an impression that Twitter or Facebook, or Instagram, and now Parler represents real life. It doesn’t,” Boykins said in an email to The Crow’s Nest. “I am not all concerned about conservatives moving (to) new media platforms and social media outlets, because many on the right already consume the media diet of Fox News, Breitbart and Drudge. In many ways, more competition on the right might decentralize their messaging.”
Boykins said that people deserve to share their voice but is concerned that platforms like Parler harbor potentially harmful ideas.
“I think people have the right to express themselves in the public square,” Boykins said. “That (is what) free and open societies are all about. However, I fear that these platforms will be used as a radicalizing tool for people who somehow find solace in dark and dystopian spaces.”
Boykins believes that “Facebook and Twitter have a responsibility to let people know when statements from official channels or persons of considerable influence are lying, spreading disinformation or misstatements.”
“The advances in social media are tremendous, but the cost is severe,” he said. “We have lost our ability to think critically and to listen actively. The result of that is that we can no longer problem solve.”
Boykins advised young people to “examine all sides, read various sources and ask yourself the fundamental questions of life. What is truth, freedom, justice, honor, righteousness, decency? How does this impact my life, liberty, or pursuits of happiness?”
