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Amid growing social media turmoil, the newly formed social network Parler is gaining traction with prominent conservative politicians claiming their voices are being silenced by Silicon Valley giants. Image: Olivier Douliery / AFP
Could Parler’s success be short-lived? The “free speech” social network has been in the limelight since the US presidential election in early November. Faced with the various measures taken by the giants Facebook and Twitter to combat the lack of information and fake news, many Internet users turned unhappy instead to this alternative platform.
Billed as the “free speech” social network, Parler became the most downloaded free app on the App Store in the US The platform’s co-founder, John Matze, claims it has nearly 10 million registered users up to the date, compared to 4.5 million prior to the US presidential election.
This social network grew very rapidly, thanks in particular to calls from conservative political figures frustrated by being called to order on Twitter or Facebook. Politicians like US Senator from Texas Ted Cruz, as well as Fox News journalists Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo, joined the app and asked their fans to do the same. Donald Trump’s campaign team also signed up for the app.
However, while Parler’s growth has skyrocketed, some experts say the app’s popularity is unlikely to reach its limits. Fadi Quran, campaign manager for Avaaz, a global civic organization that studies disinformation, told ABC News that he does not think the app will survive. Similarly, technology analyst Benedict Evans told ABC News that the Parler platform is unlikely to gain enough popularity to compete with companies like Facebook and Twitter.
“Parler is a weak clone of Twitter, but you can go there to talk about a particular topic that is now mostly blocked on Twitter,” Evans said, referring to posts and profiles that spread misinformation about voter fraud during the elections. presidential elections, who were verified or removed on Twitter and Facebook.
According to Benedict Evans, users could soon tire of being in Parler, precisely due to the lack of diversity of topics covered there: “But how many people care about that one question? And do they care enough to spend all their time there, and not on Twitter or Facebook, where all the other news and discussions are happening? ”.
Towards more violence and more fake news?
However, even though Parler is far from overshadowing the most popular social networks, the controversial platform could still have an impact on the behavior of Internet users.
“Facebook and Twitter should be ready when [Parler users] come back because many of them will want to instigate violence and spread more misinformation. … The hatred spreads. … People are going to lose confidence in the idea of community, they will not be civil to people they disagree with, ”Fari Quran explains to ABC News.
Or is it already too little, too late?
According to the Quran, Facebook and Twitter did not do enough to stop the spread of viral misinformation around the elections.
“We have seen fake videos circulating social media after the election of people allegedly burning the ballots that received millions of views before being taken down,” said Koran. “Facebook could retroactively message you and say, ‘Hey, we figured you saw this video, it turned out to be wrong,’ but it’s not doing that.” NVG
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