LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In December of 2018, long before Twitter began calling out major political figures for sharing misleading information and disputed claims, Rand Paul opened an account on Parler, the self-proclaimed “premier free speech platform” in the world. The Kentucky senator was ahead of the curve.
Nearly two years and one presidential election later, a parade of influential conservatives, and those who hang on their every word, have followed Paul to Parler. In the week after the election, Parler, which operates much like Twitter, rocketed all the way to the top of the most popular downloads list in Apple’s App Store. Its user base more than doubled to over 10 million (a number dwarfed by Twitter’s 187 million and Facebook’s 1.8 billion daily users). Several weeks later, it’s still number five in the news category.
Kentucky’s junior senator may have played a small part in that popularity. Days after the election, Paul exhorted his three million Twitter followers to join him on Parler, where he has 1.1 million followers. The plea came after a tweet in which Paul suggested that more than a million dead people may have voted in the presidential election was flagged for including “disputed” information. He made the same suggestion on Parler, where he’s gone largely unchallenged.
Asked what the senator likes about Parler, Paul's spokesperson Kelsey Cooper said he "has always been a steadfast defender of both free market alternatives and free speech as opposed to massive government regulations and attempts at censorship."
Congressman Thomas Massie, who represents Northern Kentucky, has also urged his followers to join him on Parler. Upon announcing his creation of an account on the site over the summer, he tweeted: “I’m hopeful that they’ve built a platform and a community with less vitriol, fewer trolls, and none of the liberal bias endemic in other platforms!” Like Paul, he’s also promoted the site in the weeks since the election. Several other Kentucky state lawmakers also appear to have Parler accounts, but none of them are verified on the site.
Like Paul and Massie, most prominent Parler users explain the decision to start an account by citing efforts by Twitter and Facebook to combat election misinformation. They see these moves as evidence that the platforms are biased against conservatives.
“Big Tech will continue to censor election info that doesn't fit their narrative,” Paul tweeted in October. “Don't let them keep you in the dark. Sign up for @Parler_app and get uncensored coverage.”
The suggestion is that Parler is for open and honest debate, unlike Twitter, which Rep. Massie has called a “dumpster fire” nearly a dozen times.
"So far Parler is more civil than Twitter and they accomplish this with less censorship," Massie told Spectrum News 1 in an email. "In my opinion, Twitter’s biggest defect is too many of the accounts are anonymous, and when people can be anonymous they have nothing to lose by being rude. Parler overcomes this by allowing regular users to become verified as real people — a level reserved only for celebrities and politicians on Twitter. Furthermore, Parler has a dislike/downvote feature which allows the community to more effectively police itself for offensive content, especially against anonymous users who have no goal other than starting dumpster fires."
Even though the site makes no claim of supporting any political side, signing up for an account leaves little doubt where it leans. After creating an account, users are prompted to follow news sources, including PragerU, The Babylon Bee, and Legal Insurrection, all unabashedly conservative in their viewpoint. The Daily Mail is the most mainstream outlet listed. Users are also asked if they’d like to follow some of Parler's most popular users, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson.
A recent scroll through the stories on the platforms “discover” page surfaced stories promoting unproven claims of election fraud, conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and the suggestion that CNN is trying to cancel Christmas this year.
On Parler, “people are only encountering like-minded others,” said Josh Pasek, assistant professor of communications, media and political science at the University of Michigan. “Liberals simply aren’t joining because they don’t see what the traditional social media sites are doing as a problem.”
Parler’s community guidelines say content and users could be removed if they use the site for criminal activity or to spam other uses. Everything else is fair game. “We believe in people and their ability to solve these things on their own without our heavy hand," CEO John Matze told Cheddar last month. Parler did not respond to a request to comment.
The result is platform that could be bad for society, Pasek said. "There are people there who are spewing a whole lot of rather dangerous content — racist, Nazi stuff," he said. "That’s why it’s a dangerous environment in some respects. There’s not control over the stuff that someone probably should restrict the sharing of."
Having elected officials on such a site presents even more problems, he said. “It’s important for lawmakers to be in the middle of their constituency and not to only interact with the people who tend to agree with them," Pasek said. Also, Parler is a site where conspiracy theories thrive and the potential for lawmakers to believe fringe ideas are mainstream and to "bring them up in their official capacities is quite worrisome,” Pasek added.
Ultimately though, Parler's strategy may not prove to be a winning one. It's already slipped on the download charts in the weeks since its post-election bounce, while Paul and Massie tweet more than they “parley.” Just last week, Massie conceded that he needs “to spend more time in Parler.” The admission came in a tweet.