When the attack on censorship was growing rampant, Parler stepped up to the plate as being the free speech platform. Parler was the biggest and best competitor that existed. That is until Big Tech banded together on January 10th, 2021, to take them down.
They fought vigilantly to make a comeback, and they did. Being that they returned, it was requested that Team World Supporter review them.
As I turned to review them, I reflected that they made a strong comeback to almost where they were before they were taken down.
They reinstated the different verification badges, which I consider to be the best method. I included a picture of their various badges. They also reinstated the 1000-character limit per post. They don't have direct messages; they didn't respond to my question about whether they plan to reinstate it. The engagement on Parler is very limited due to people not using the platform.
They have made a return to the Apple app store, but not the Google Play store yet but there is way to get the app on android https://parler.com/android.html. In order to get back on the App Store, the troll and NSFW filters aren’t able to be turned off. If you want the filters off, you can visit the website or the android version.
The trolling filter blocks attacks based on immutable or otherwise irrelevant characteristics such as race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion that do not contribute to a productive conversation. We wanted to provide our users with a way to minimize it in their feeds. In spirit of free speech, no violation points are assigned for content that triggers the trolling filter. This is based on the user's choice to turn it on.
The complaints are that they have sold user's data for profit. In Parler's Privacy policy, it says that Parler will use a user's data for "For marketing and advertising purposes, such as developing and providing promotional and advertising materials that may be relevant, valuable or otherwise of interest to you, including providing you with targeted offers and ads through our Website, and via email or text message (with your consent, where required by law);" This is referring to their emails and/or SMS that they themselves send out. Your information ISN’T given to non-affiliated third parties.
We have noticed that they are getting into the NFT game and are powering a platform for the former First Lady of the US, Melania Trump, which we applaud.
The review was hindered by the fact that they didn't respond to most of our efforts for transparency. We have noticed that although they care about and protect the first amendment, it seems that they care more about getting into the Crypto world than actual free speech and transparency.
I have assessed as much as I can without their help and have come to the following review.
There are some lower level employees that really care about being transparent, and especially the first amendment. However, the platform is a bit buggy at times. They have a lot of work to do to be considered a valid competitor to the other platforms that do exist. At this moment we can give them a 7.9/10, due to the fact that they are in, middle of climbing back from the massive attack that they faced. I would be more than happy to work with them on another transparent review. But they need to focus on transparency and the platform before adding more features that take their attention away from the things that matter.
For any questions or information, I can be reached at yossi@teamworldsupporter.com. If you, the reader, have a platform that you would like us to review, we would love to do so.
Make sure to check out The Yossi Schmidt Show at: https://www.podpage.com/the-yossi-schmidt-show/ or watch it on Rumble or YouTube
