Remember Parler? The short-lived “free speech” network that was a honey pot for anti-vaxxing, anti-masking, common variety racism, and gained its claim to fame due to its connection to the January 6th insurrection attacks in Washington D.C.? Yeah, well, it has returned to the Apple app store after being forced out in January.
For users returning to the app on iPhone, Parler now hides posts marked as hate speech according to Parler’s AI-based moderation system. Though this is a feature that the brand admits is key to Parler developing a good relationship with Apple—and by extension, having success—the company has maintained that it still hoped to persuade Apple to allow hate speech in the future.
At the time of this writing, app retailers such as Amazon and Google have not restored Parler on their marketplaces.
The arrival of Parler back to the app store is occurring at a not-insignificant point of convergence. While Parler’s connection to hate speech, and by extension the insurrection is egregious and enough cause for it to be destroyed writ-large, on the other side of the coin, Apple has to manage this against problems associated with public perception. The reality is that while Apple has the power to ban Parler, there is the problem of Apple falling under scrutiny because of its heavy-handed treatment of competitors in its marketplace. In many ways, this means that while the people at Apple may love to ban Parler, banning the network does not necessarily bode well for the greater narratives pervading the public discourse about whether or not they wield too much power via their app store—regardless of whether or not Parler is actually a direct competitor to apple.
At the end of the day, regardless of whether or not you love it or hate it, Parler occupies an important space in any conversation related to social media, or content marketing in the 21st century. It will be interesting, however, to see how long the network lasts in the coming months and years. Particularly, as conservative influencers get de-platformed from mainstream media channels, while their audiences make the gradual shift over to Parler, as well as more extreme online communities. (info via Engadget)
No Comments