Yes? I wouldn't work for Parler, but I fail to see how the phrase "free speech social network" should elicit some negative emotion. Parler sucks because they are a haven to right wing extremists, not because of their marketing.
Its like being angry at Signal because their encryption allows terrorists communicate securely.
Everywhere I go, I feel like I have free speech by default. I suppose it's my privilege that I feel like that, but I digress. When free speech is explicitly advertised, it smells.
Yes, this, exactly. It's sad that "free speech" currently feels like a dog whistle for the alt right, but it's disingenuous to ignore the reality that social media sites and forums that have sprung up in the last few years explicitly advertising this have very much been going after an explicitly far right audience. The explicit promise is "we won't suppress your speech like those other platforms do," but Twitter, Facebook, et. al., demonstrably suppress very little speech: there are high-profile cases of people who have been kicked off after repeated warnings, but that's not actually the same claim. The real promise of Parler and friends is "you'll be surrounded by people who agree with you, unlike those other platforms."
(There are lots of anecdotes of individual users who get temporary bans on Twitter for political speech, but I have heard those anecdotes across the political spectrum. I suspect conservatives grumpy at Twitter would be very surprised how much left-wing discourse there is about how Twitter protects TERFs, how they pay lip service to banning Nazis but don't really do it, how Jack Dorsey is probably a crypto-fascist, and so on. The parallel -- "I know of people who agree with me who have been moderated and people who disagree with me who have not, ergo Twitter is obviously biased in favor of The Other Side" -- is kind of fascinating.)
I agree the “free speech” label has been taken over by these content-outcasts and turned into a dog whistle. Today, if a platform markets itself as “The Free Speech version of X” it seems to always mean “The platform that hosts only content so bad it’s banned from X”.
Well, free speech is a good thing, if done responsibly. In practice though, "free speech" as used by Parler means no moderation at all, so the most blatant lies and the craziest conspiracy theories can run unchecked. And since mainstream platforms are cracking down on extremists, your platform will inevitably become a haven (and echo chamber) for them, even if you didn't intend to be one.
Yeah I checked it out for a bit a few days after it launched, scrolled around for 10-20 min to see if it'd turn out like twitter, 8chan, or the_donald in terms of discussion and it was really weird. IDK how to even describe it other than that it seemed to have that MLM esque or truman show vibe where everything seemed strangely personal but also really shallow and performative? None of the discussions I saw felt natural. It was all super identity focused with very little policy discussion let alone material disagreement.
Almost everything on Parler and similar sites that is not explicit calls to violence against specific targets and does not call describe black people using the n-word and does not talk about things like how the Nazis were right when it comes to Jews could be posted on Reddit in /r/conservative without violating any rules of the subreddit or of Reddit itself.
Most of it could also be posted on Twitter and Facebook, although there it might get labeled as misinformation.
It's actually fairly difficult for the overwhelming majority of people to get legitimately kicked off of most mainstream social media. By "legitimately" I mean by actually violating the site's published rules. At the scale of these sites there are occasional mistakes made where someone gets banned who shouldn't, and it can be difficult to get that reviewed, but nevertheless for most people those sites are "free speech social networks".
Because of this, when you start a site like Parler you get almost all of your initial membership from those people who got kicked off of Reddit, Twitter, etc., or who are having to work at not getting kicked off because they want to post calls to violence, etc.
That sets the tone for the site from then on. Hence, when a site is specifically selling itself as a "free speech social network" it almost always can correctly be interpreted as "a social network for <X> extremists who could not follow basic norms for civilized discourse" for some X.
> I fail to see how the phrase "free speech social network" should elicit some negative emotion.
Can you name a "free speech social network" that isn't overrun by white supremacists and Nazis?
It turns out that if you prioritize free speech, then the people who congregate on your site are mostly those with beliefs that are sufficiently repugnant that decent humans don't want to be associated with them.
Someone recommends you some games, about one they say "it has a simulated theme park with intricate rollercoaster building engine and you compete with other theme parks for customers", about another they say "you're trying to build a rocket to the moon but it's really challenging", and about another they say "the interface responds to mouse clicks".
"if a working interface is only for bad games, I fear what good games look like"
Good games have working interfaces too, but they have a lot more worth talking about.
Its like being angry at Signal because their encryption allows terrorists communicate securely.