Given the anti-Trump and anti-conservative bias of Twitter, it seemed likely that an alternative platform would come to the fore. Now, it looks like one has.
According to this report by CNBC (which can’t be happy about it), a social medium platform called Parler is suddenly making huge strides. After a Wall Street Journal story reported that Team Trump is looking for alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, and mentioned Parler as such an alternative, Parler quickly became the top-ranked iPhone app in the news category, ahead of Twitter and Reddit. The number of Parler users increased from 1 million to 1.5 million in about a week, according to Parler’s 27-year-old founder and CEO John Matze.
Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik and Nikki Haley all joined during this period. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Devin Nunes were already on board. Will President Trump join them?
Matze, who says he doesn’t like either political party, agrees that conservatives aren’t treated fairly by Twitter. He favors uncensored discourse and welcomes liberals and conservatives.
With conservatives dominating Parler, Matze offered a $10,000 “progressive bounty” to an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook who would agree to start a Parler account. When there was little response, he raised the “bounty” to $20,000.
There must be some amount of money that would entice a prominent liberal to break ranks with the left and enter a true free speech zone. But that amount may be substantially in excess of $20,000.
I don’t participate in social media, but I know that many Power Line readers do. They might want to follow Jim Jordan’s advice: “Join us on @parler_app. . .They don’t censor or shadow ban.”
JOHN adds: I don’t do a lot on social media either, with the exception of Instagram. But I do push out posts on Twitter and Facebook, and I think I have around 13,000 followers on Twitter. I just joined Parler and would be happy to substitute it for Twitter if lots of people migrate there. For now, I will use them in parallel.
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