I think that all these platforms: Parler, Gab, etc, will end up with one of two fates.<p>They'll either fail to make it big and remain a niche thing for those trolls who enjoy the edginess, like 4chan and its newer alternatives, or...<p>They'll grow big and end up having to deal with "trust and safety" issues when the majority of users on the mainstream end of the spectrum demand protection from those users who would otherwise be on 4chan/etc. This is pretty much what Twitter and Facebook are going through now, but shifted more towards the right, in the case of Parler/Gab.<p>We can already see hints of this in the fact that their terms of service prohibit inciting terrorism or acts of violence – issues that 4chan/etc deal with by allowing it, reducing their reach, and Twitter (attempt) to deal with by banning it, increasing their reach as they provide a "safe space".<p>Parler has the same issues as Twitter, it's just shifted to the right of the political spectrum. They can either deal with those issues and move closer to Twitter, or not and be irrelevant in the long term.
It reminds me of how reddit went through a period of turmoil with claims of censorship and mods acting too aggressively and all the freedom of speech zealots decided to jump ship over to voat.co. I like to check in from time to time to see how that site is doing, and well...it's not pretty.<p>I know parler is pulling in some pretty big names to give it some legitimacy, but it's probably going to succumb to the same problem where only the most aggressive and angry users survive, while the more moderate users gravitate back to places like facebook and twitter
My main issue with all these platforms supposedly being born to defend "free speech" is that they're a reactionist measure from certain ideas being deemed inappropriate by the common populace, so it's less about <i>all</i> kinds of free speech and more about protecting <i>their</i> speech.<p>I'm convinced that no centralized platform is able to provide true free speech and even if it does, people should not be denied of the benefits of moderation/curation so I do think distributed/federated platforms are the way to go, even if they have issues scaling up. True, in the end, they may just end up being bubbles and echo chambers, but you ultimately get to choose which ones to engage in, instead of leaving that choice to someone else and their fickle mood to appease shareholders.
Twitter alternatives will all fail because they try to be an application for millions. They see Twitter and see the volume of users so build something for the numbers and hope that they are less bad.<p>But Twitter and every other thing that has grown big has 1) started small 2) was not initially created to be big and 3) was attractive to use.
Not sure how to feel about it. I think there will be a concentrated mass of user with certain viewpoints. On the other hand the censorship of Twitter is not attractive for many users and alternatives are always good, although I think Twitter is losing relevance for media exposure. Seems we are getting two distince bubbles.
Do they really want just an echo chamber though? As I understand it they are catering to the far right. Some of the fun they have on FB or Twitter is probably arguing, feeling controversial, etc.
The most hilarious part about Parler is that they ban "content posted by or on behalf of terrorist organizations", which seems reasonable at face value until you realize that the admins consider "Antifa" to be a terrorist organization, and purge any content related to anti-fascism.<p>They also, until recently, had a zero-tolerance policy on nudity and eroticism, only compromising by forcing users who want to post NSFW content out of view entirely. This includes content related to LGBTQ+ people and sexual health.<p>Parler is not a "free speech" website. Parler is a safe space for right wing extremists who got tired of getting banned from traditional social media sites for posting hate, and who prefer an environment that is as hostile to minority groups as they are.
I received a text message from them yesterday with an activation code to create an account, despite not signing up for them. I reported it as spam.<p>I wouldn't be surprised if there was a deliberate bot effort to register fluff accounts yesterday, to make this PR piece possible.
> adds 2M users in a single day<p>I'd love this to be true. A fast moving populace that can uptake tech quickly.<p>But I've never heard of numbers like these.<p>Where does this number come from?<p>Where are the campaigns pushing this being run?<p>I simply don't believe it without more of an explanation. Did BBC fact check this?
I just read about this "alternative" here, so whats the benefit of joining this instead of a mastodon instance which has probably better moderation and community support other than the cool factor ?
For myself, I was one of those new users, but not by choice. Someone created a Parler account using my email. I guess that's one way to bump up your numbers?
Apart from various "trust and safety" censorship and moderation activities, what new features or updates has Twitter done in the past 3 years? I can't think of many changes they've made beyond those things, except for adverse ones (like breaking Firefox compatibility for months).<p>Is it a conscious choice for them to actively do nothing?<p>MySpace died because it didn't innovate and refused to invest in the core platform. While Facebook was spiking in popularity, MySpace was still a slow ad-plastered mess. Twitter seems to be that sleepy giant who has stopped all progress.