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Right-Leaning Social Network Parler Tops Free App Charts (axios.com) 288

Parler, which calls itself a "viewpoint-neutral" social network and is growing popular among conservatives who feel mainstream social platforms are censoring them, is now topping the free app download charts, according to both Apple and Sensor Tower. From a report: With Twitter and other mainstream social media apps more strictly enforcing rules against election-related falsehoods, more permissive, often right-leaning platforms have seen a surge of interest. The app for Newsmax, a right-leaning news network, also began surging on the download charts after all the major networks, including Fox News, called the election for Biden. It remains to be seen if the gains are more than temporary, but the shift has certainly raised eyebrows.
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Right-Leaning Social Network Parler Tops Free App Charts

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  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:16PM (#60704460)

    Now all the people here crying about facebook censoring them have somewhere else to go. Isn't this the exact definition of the free market at work?

    • Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:23PM (#60704514)

      no, because its the revenue optimizing algorithms that was polarizing people. Watch the netflix documentary. There are massive courses and lectures on addictive psychology at play in these apps. As long as the algorithms can identify your personality traits, and what will keep you engaged, they will sell your attention to people for fractions of cents a thousand times per day. The solution is to end these highly addictive algorithms. We used to regulate the sort of content and methods that things like saturday morning used to use when interacting with minors. Now its the wild west using some of the most deviant addictive techniques possible. Its like getting your 11yr old addicted to slot machines. Litterally. That pull-down-to-refresh feature? They talked about it. It was deliberately designed to mimic slot machines. They even had a psycho-babble definition for the behavior. Ultimately it wont matter what the platform is... you and your buddy could find themselves fighting with each other thinking "how could this idiot think this? Isnt he seeing the same information I am?" and the reality is he is not. To quote the movie, you are all in your own personal Truman Show. This shit is going to create middle-eastern style civil war.

      • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

        by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:44PM (#60704644)

        Watch the netflix documentary.

        The same documentary that has the tagline:

        Never before have a handful of tech designers had such control over the way billions of us think, act, and live our lives.

        ? Seems like even they identify the primary problem as censorship.

        This shit is going to create middle-eastern style civil war.

        Comments like this are part of the problem. You're sensationalizing the ranting of a vast minority of radicals. Do you feel like killing your neighbor? I don't either, and neither do most people.

        • Do you feel like killing your neighbor?

          Every damn day.

          Double for his yappy fucking dog that holds the general philosophy ‘I bark therefore I am”.

      • by Jack9 ( 11421 )

        > Now all the people here crying about facebook censoring them have somewhere else to go.

        > no, because its the revenue optimizing algorithms that was polarizing people.

        So...you meant yes but wanted to push an agenda (righteous as it may seem). That's disingenuous.

      • their point is that the right wingers here on /. going on and on about censorship aren't being censored because they still have a platform.

        Your point is that Facebook et al use algorithms to push peoples buttons in order to keep them engaged so they can show them advertisements, and that they drive people to extreme behavior and negative political radicalization to do it, resulting in an electorate that is dangerously ill informed.

        Both are valid points, but they're unrelated. Nonetheless you answere
        • by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @06:02PM (#60705160)

          It was mostly regarding the subject. I disagree that its 'good' :-) did you see the graph of suicides among pre-teens since 2011? I knew it had gotten really bad but damn. When I grew up in the 80s you might hear about one senior at some high school, maybe yours maybe another, that killed themselves. When my daughter was in a small middle school of about 1000 students, there were 4 that I know of in the 3 years she was there. I just dont see the solution to the social media problem to be more social media. Just like I dont buy it that the tech industry is the only ones equipped to solve the radicalization problem they themselves created, by introducing MORE machine-learning.

      • It's as dangerous as crack cocaine.

        Free apps: not even once!

        • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

          a great quote they print in that documentary is

          "There are only two industries that call their customers as 'users': illegal drugs and software. " -- Edward Tufte

      • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @06:32PM (#60705310) Journal

        no, because its the revenue optimizing algorithms that was polarizing people.

        You are describing advertising. Every part of your comment applies to the corrosive effects of late-stage capitalism. The end-game of "free markets" was always going to be "revenue optimizing algorithms".

        • Ya. Blows my mind.
          People are trying to figure out how a system that is designed to maximize profit over anything else has evolved to maximize profit over anything else.
    • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:31PM (#60704552)

      Now all the people here crying about facebook censoring them have somewhere else to go. Isn't this the exact definition of the free market at work?

      Just curious. So you believe this segregation of folks based on their political viewpoint is a good idea? That the likes of Facebook and Twitter haven't held undue influence in the political discourse in this country?

      IMHO - The big social media guys really messed up, they should have gone completely hands off political speech and let the facts and lies fly together without comment or restriction. What they did was jump into the pig pen and tried to referee a fight between two pigs. All they accomplished was to tick off the pigs and get covered by mud.

      • So you believe this segregation of folks based on their political viewpoint is a good idea?

        Sounds like the very definition of safe spaces. Of todays college environment.

      • IMHO - The big social media guys really messed up, they should have gone completely hands off political speech and let the facts and lies fly together without comment or restriction. What they did was jump into the pig pen and tried to referee a fight between two pigs. All they accomplished was to tick off the pigs and get covered by mud.

        The diverse and tolerant folks would have cancelled them had they not. At least that’s what they thought.

        With the Dem administration coming on board, it also holds

    • I think this is a great development. I've been hoping that alternative social media networks would take off and suck some of the marketshare away from TwitBook. I really don't see any downside.

      This also bodes well for Trump's news outlet that he should be launching next year. I'm a bit more ambivalent about that in theory, but practically speaking, Fox News was already filling that market segment when TNN didn't get launched after the 2016 campaign unexpectedly turned from publicity stunt to electoral victo

      • Fox News was already filling that market segment

        Fox has been moving away from the conservative side of things for the past few years.

        They still have a few opinion folks that are truly conservative, but they've been ever so slowly and slightly left for close to a decade now and it is becoming more and more obvious.

        I dunno why they are doing so, as that it is just killing the cash cow that makes them #1 overall and make so much money.

        I think a true conservative rival network would do pretty well if it w

    • Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fish_in_the_c ( 577259 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @05:19PM (#60704886)

      it is but it is NOT Good, because now people will self isolate in their feedback loops even more and our societal divisions will increase.

      • Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @06:32PM (#60705312) Homepage Journal

        I wonder if that's how it used to be. Before our lives were online we tended to surround ourselves with friends who were like minded.

        The internet brought conflict as we were exposed to more opinions, and now it's dividing up into progressive and conservative again.

    • by Kisai ( 213879 )

      It is, but it also isn't

      "Fine, I'll take my toys and go home" is what this literately is. You see it a lot when online platforms go from permissive to restrictive rules, and those rules often come about due to abuse that is created by a few big players on those platforms.

      For example. PewDiePie (who I don't watch or care about) is responsible for a boatload of anti-hate/anti-harassment rules starting to be enforced on both Twitch and Youtube. It's not just him, but all the right-wing wacky-kings that populat

    • Alas, the people complaining about "censoring" aren't fans of free markets. You should try to appeal to them by saying something like "endorsed by the central committee."

      (It's tricky: they identify as right-wing, so politeness requires you call them that. But when we talk about "the good old days," they are remembering the Soviet Union, and that's another wing altogether.)

    • The Internet does not like censorship. It views it as a "damaged connection" and reroutes around it.
  • by Carewolf ( 581105 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:18PM (#60704486) Homepage

    Good they finally found their safespace.

    • by jmccue ( 834797 )
      I wish I had mod points, would mod funny
    • by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:35PM (#60704588)

      Good they finally found their safespace.

      Funny that the few from the left who will follow them over will be allowed to post freely. That's how this should work, if I don't like what you are saying, I just choose not to listen to you, but I don't try to silence you.

      Hopefully the free market will fix the mistakes of the current big boys and freedom will once again be the standard.

      • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        As long as you don't do something so extreme as to promote marijuana.
      • by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:52PM (#60704714) Homepage Journal

        On Parler you have to:

        - avoid language/visuals that are sexual in nature

        - do not use language/visuals that are morbid or degrading

        - do not use language/visuals that are offensive and offer no literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

        - avoid language/visuals that is non-satirical when claiming to be a satire account.

        Along with banning left learning accounts like Devin Nune's cow, they're certainly not as pro-free speech as twitter, where honestly just about anything goes.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by bobbied ( 2522392 )

          Twitter is "anything goes"? You've got to be kidding.

          They held the New York Post's account in suspension for DAYS because they linked to their own article which was unfavorable to Biden and refused to remove the tweet. https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/... [nypost.com]

          Facebook and more suppressed this article too. Just BEFORE the last debate non-the-less, where it would have been a huge story that couldn't have been avoided. It's not that they made a mistake, those happen, but that it took them almost a week to correct

          • The New York Post tweets was removed as they breached Twitters “Hacked Materials Policy”, you can read about that and how Twitter then amended it's policy in this New York Post article: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/... [nypost.com]

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by bobbied ( 2522392 )

              The New York Post tweets was removed as they breached Twitters “Hacked Materials Policy”, you can read about that and how Twitter then amended it's policy in this New York Post article: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/... [nypost.com]

              This wasn't hacked material. It was obtained legally. The New York Post pointed this out to Twitter right away, and they refused to listen or even take steps to read the confirmed facts IN THE STORY, they just banned it and even after being presented with the facts, refused to release the NYP's twitter account until they withdrew the tweet about the story.

              The laptop was the legal property of the shop owner as it was left past the 90 days in the repair agreement, in fact it could be argued that he traded f

      • With all this talk about freedom of speech it's almost like these sites promoting them should be the most popular things in the world. Except they aren't because they devolve into filthy cesspools unfit for human consumption.

        The "free market" has spoken. It saw what happens to sites like Voat, and that's precisely why the free market *chose* to moderate. You are speaking like this is some kind of new free speech platform that hasn't existed before. You only think that because all others very quickly drown i

      • "Funny that the few from the left who will follow them over will be allowed to post freely."

        Except for the ones that were banned.

      • on Facebook & Twitter because, well, we didn't put up posts saying Dr Fauci should be beheaded or accuse people of election fraud and/or pedophilia without evidence...
      • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        I love how conservatives talk about freedoms while at the same time trying to take away the constitutional right to vote.

        I'm technically a registered republican but the past 12 years I've really soured on the GOP. It's not about looking into the future, it's about taking as much as they can right now and letting someone else clean up the mess the next generation.

        For elected officials, the burden of proof should be 100% on them. Any claims they make must be backed by facts or should be removed. I don
  • There already is a censorship free version of Twitter, it is called Gab. It attracted some right wing attention a year or two ago. Because there is no censorship, the antisemitic nonsense ran wild.
    Parler currently does not allow non-users to see it's comments so it is useless for getting a message out. Unless they are willing to go public it will not grow much beyond it's current, mostly right wing whine-fest

  • by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @04:37PM (#60704610)

    Never thought the day would come when I'd read that phrase.

    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      It's (Parler at least) not really more permissive, it's differently permissive.
  • So the French are now forgiven for being obnoxious about trying to take our car-keys away when we were obviously drunk?
  • Have you checked out the newsgroups on usenet the last 20 years? White supremacists took over, and it's just one giant hate fest. This is exactly what will happen to Parler. (Ironic that people who hate France are using a social media platform named with a French word.) Who knows? Maybe even conservatives will come to realize that editorial discretion is distinct from censorship and essential to mass discourse.
  • As the russian troll farms move all their bots there.
  • Twitter has banned the account of the former Donald Trump adviser and surrogate Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.

    Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.

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