If you read my recent Trump’s Second Impeachment article, then consider this an extension to the aforementioned article. Because Parler shouldn’t be viewed in a vacuum and it directly ties to the January 6th deadly insurrection
It’s not me, it’s you. Okay fine, maybe it is me. That was the tone of John Matez’s farewell memorandum to Parler employees (note how he specifically calls out Becky with the shittyhair?) his memo reads in part
“On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision…I understand that those who now control the company have made some communications to employees and other third parties that have unfortunately created confusion and prompted me to make this public statement.” Former CEO John Matez wrote on his LinkedIn Profile
Parler still tango down-ish
Оставайтесь сильным Парлер, папа Владди имеет спину и глубокие карманы loosely translates to: Stay Strong Parler, Daddy Vladdy has your back and deep pockets
I mean isn’t it normal to have your platform essentially PNG’d by nearly all American based hosting companies? Admittedly I am very eager to see what Parler sends to Congress. Because allowing a known Russian Hosting Company that has more ties to the Russian Government, than most people have toothbrushes is, in a word; intriguing.
I. HAVE. QUESTIONS.
Who solicited who? (maybe you elicited who is more accurate)
What types of pre-planning communications occurred?
When did Parler give D-DOS Guard access to its servers?
What if any administrative privileges did Parler grant D-DOS? (That last question is completely snarky)
Has Parler’s current leadership run an exhaustive scan on the potential of malware being implanted on their network devices?
When is Becky with the shittyhair going to be subpoenaed? Why does she hate our Democracy so much?
I want Becky with the shittyhair hauled before Congress. I want that hearing to be public. After the Cambridge Analytica insanity I want Becky with the shittyhair to be held accountable.
Parler’s main page https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmatze
Parler & GAB allowed Russian Disinformation proliferate on their platforms
While other mainstream social media platforms attempted to at least quarantine Russian Disinformation from contaminating their platform’s content. Especially in the months preceding the November 2020 Presidential election, both Parler and Gab, arguably encouraged and amplified the known Russian Disinformation. See October 2020 Washington Post Article
Parler & Gab’s complicity actually facilitated and ostensibly encouraged Russia’s protracted disinformation campaign, in yet another one of our Country’s presidential elections. Which resulted in sowing even more chaos in American voters “news” consumption and deepening the caustic “fake news” rhetoric.
Earlier this month USAToday published an analysis of Parler, Trump and nearly a minute by minute tick-took of the events leading up to Trump’s January 6, 2021 deadly insurrection. The interactive timeline is just stunning, both in terms of the volume of data, time/date/stamps and how Parler became a weaponized echo chamber. That culminated into the horrifying Domestic Terrorist attack on our Nation’s Capitol Building. And ultimately five Americans were killed.
experts who study language, social media use and extremism see strong connections between the words of Trump, Parler users and people in the Washington mob that day.
In mid-January 2021, Researchers from NYU, Binghamton University, University College London, Boston University, Max Planck Institute for Informatics Published this whitepaper and used the following datasets:
This paper presents a dataset of 183M Parler posts made by 4M users between August 2018 and January 2021, as well as metadata from 13.25M user profiles.
…collect all user profile information for the 13.25M Parler accounts created between August 2018 and January 2021. Additionally, we collect 98.5M public posts and 84.5M public comments from a random set of 4M users;
But it’s this set of infographics in the January 2021 Researchers whitepaper that blew my mind. Think of this graphic like a bunch of spaghetti noodles that look like they should have their own trajectory but ultimately end up converging into one giant spaghetti noodle. (I really shouldn’t write when I’m hangry, because I often use food analogies, la sigh)
The aggregated user data can be summarized as; most Parler Users are conservative, use religion, Trump, patriot in their online Beta Satan personas
-a substantial number of users on Parler self identify as conservatives, representing 1.3% of all users include the word “conservative” it in their bios -Trump supporters, 1% include the word “trump” and 0.27% the bigram “trump supporter”
Patriots = 0.79% of all users include the word “patriot” and
Religious individuals = 1.05% of all users include the word “god” in their bios
Overall, these results indicate that Parler attracts a user base similar to the one that exists on Gab - Bans on Parler (I personally found this data fascinating) Parler user profile data includes a flag that is set when a user is banned.
We find this flag set for 252,209 (2.09%) of users. Almost all of these banned accounts, 252,076 (99.95%) are also set to private
I was curious and decided to run some preliminary research on my own. I decided to use this Social Media Analysis Toolkit. The sheer volume of activity on Parler compare to Twitter, is simply astounding and it confirms some of the data analysis in the researchers whitepaper. Admittedly I ran a very crude query, strictly using a 36 hour window as exclusive perimeter and yet the numbers show, Parler’s parleys out paced Twitter’s tweets by nearly 26% for that small time-frame
“Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election, he has the absolute right…Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country,” - 12:51 p.m. “And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”
House Oversight wants documents
In a February 8, 2021 letter to Jeffrey Wernick, Parler’s Chief Operating Officer and let me tell you the House Oversight Committee is going there with Parler and by there I mean - Russia temporarily hosting Parler’s servers and Trump negotiations with Parler to own some 40%. At a certain point Becky with the shittyhair needs to meet the Congressional Oversight barrel
U.S. hosting services cut ties with Parler for repeatedly failing to moderate content advocating violence, Parler re-emerged on a Russian, hosting service, DDos-Guard, which has ties to the Russian government and counts the Russian Ministry of Defense as one of its clients.
the “Trump Organization negotiated on behalf of then-president Donald Trump to make Parler his primary social network, but it had a condition: an ownership stake in return for joining.” These negotiations reportedly occurred while President Trump was still in office, which experts have warned raise legal concerns regarding anti-bribery laws. Parler reportedly offered President Trump a 40% ownership stake, but the negotiations “were ultimately derailed by the events of January 6.”
The Oversight Committee formally asked Parler to produce the following documents to the Committee by February 22, 2021:
A capitalization table showing individuals and entities with direct or indirect ownership interests in Parler, and a shareholder register maintained by you or any third-party on your behalf;
A list of all individuals and entities who have or had any control over Parler;
A list of Parler’s creditors which hold or held a debt of at least $10,000, including the type of debt funding, amount owed, maturity, and applicable interest rate;
All agreements, including but not limited to consulting, service, or business agreements, that Parler has with any Russian individual or entity;
All documents and communications referring or relating to proposed or completed financing, gifts, or investment in Parler directly or indirectly by any Russian individual or entity; and
All documents and communications referring to relating to a proposal to provide President Donald Trump with an ownership stake in Parler.
Relevant Documents:
February 8, 2021 House OverSight letter to Parler, found here
I missed you! Welcome!