When Apple and Google banned the “free speech” social network Parler from their app stores, and Amazon banned them from their cloud services—it was the final nail in Parler’s coffin.
Before Parler was buried alive, it was home to tens of millions of conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and Trump devotees who felt that they were being censored on “leftist” platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately for Parler, their platform was used to plan and carry out the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol—this was the beginning of the end.
Is banning apps the new normal?
Can any centralized social network actually guarantee freedom of speech?
Why is Parler being treated differently than Twitter and Facebook? They also host dangerous/problematic users.
It’s clear that the definition of free speech is getting muddier by the day. While moderating social media is necessary, what’s to stop Big Tech monopolies from getting trigger-happy when it comes to banning apps? Will free speech cease to exist?
When Apple and Google banned the “free speech” social network Parler from their app stores, and Amazon banned them from their cloud services—it was the final nail in Parler’s coffin.
Before Parler was buried alive, it was home to tens of millions of conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and Trump devotees who felt that they were being censored on “leftist” platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately for Parler, their platform was used to plan and carry out the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol—this was the beginning of the end.
Is banning apps the new normal?
Can any centralized social network actually guarantee freedom of speech?
Why is Parler being treated differently than Twitter and Facebook? They also host dangerous/problematic users.
It’s clear that the definition of free speech is getting muddier by the day. While moderating social media is necessary, what’s to stop Big Tech monopolies from getting trigger-happy when it comes to banning apps? Will free speech cease to exist?
Henry: Hey everyone. It's Henry, Mike and Chris of the Decentralists and it's another hot topic time. There's certainly been an awful lot of material for us, specifically, Parler being kicked off, Amazon, Apple, Google, everybody is dropping them now and probably for a good reason. But it leads to a fundamental question and that is free speech. What is free speech who gets it, who shouldn't get it, but doesn't it always come with a price? And that's exactly what Mike and Chris really wanted to talk about this week. So I don't know, Chris, why don't you lead us off this time?
Chris: First Henry, I think it's important to talk about what Parler was. Yeah. Parler basically positioned itself as a Twitter alternative for everybody who was de platformed by Twitter, the type of people who were on Parler. They were Donald Trump supporters, conservatives conspiracy theorists and there was a lot of antisemitism. Now, Henry, it wasn't always like this. I've had a Parler account for two years. Wasn't always like this, whatsoever? It's my job as a community advisor to check out competing products to our own. When I went on to Parler, I, I saw nothing of significance.
Mike: That's probably why they did what they did.
Chris: That is why they did what they did, because they were like every other Twitter alternative out there and so on so forth.
Henry: So, they saw an opportunity to grab a whole bunch of users and they didn't care what their views were.
Chris: Well, they did care, they absolutely did care and we'll get to that in a bit, but basically if it wasn't for the fact that Parler saw a marketing opportunity, okay. They would have been nothing. So, props to them for recognizing that there was a big demographic out there that was looking for a social media home. But you know, the problem is that by tracking that demographic now they're not in business.
Mike: Right. So, what happened, Chris? What happened to these guys?
Chris: Well, right after the interaction, I mean, the insurrection occurred right on January 6th. And it was discovered that a lot of organization of the queue was done on Parler at first Apple and Google removed Parler from their respective stores. Right.
Mike: Which basically means if you have an iPhone or an Android device, you basically can't download the app.
Chris: That's correct and the second thing that happened right after Parler was removed is Amazon basically stopped allowing Parler to use Amazon web services.
Henry: All the hosting up in the cloud. Exactly.
Chris: So, at first Parler was like, okay, whatever, we're gonna find another service provider, but they couldn't find another service provider. Nobody wanted Parler to be hosted on their cloud services.
Mike: Why do you think that was?
Chris: Because nobody wants to be associated. Nobody wanted to deal with the bad PR. Right. There's a lot of alternative web services that have found hosts. But they have to go outside the USA to find them, right. Like eight Chan and four Chan are now hosted in Russia.
Mike: Oh man, that sounds legit.
Chris: And that comes with their own problems. right. I bet. Geez. So as of right now, Parler is unusable. Yeah. It's as good as dead and not only is it as good as dead, but now that it is dead. A whole bunch of hackers discovered a bunch of security exploits. That's right. Were able to read old Parler messages, including messages that were deleted and they were able to look over the GPS and see how many Parler users were storming the capital which has been mapped out and it's been significant.
Henry: Incredible. Okay. So, now that you've introduced us with some depth, Chris, what do you think, or Mike, how about you? Was Parler an un biased free speech platform, as it claimed it was?
Mike: Well, okay. So this is actually, I think Henry now you're delving into the real issue with this Parler thing. Okay. You know, what we're seeing is technology companies that are basically abandoning, turning their back on Parler. That was, you know, as an app and as a company, right. So, you can't download the app, you can't even host the data. Right. You've got the government in the United States on the war path to figure out, to identify all of these people and try to kind of make an example of people who would want to kind of rise up against their own democracy. They've got this pile of data from Parler that is conveniently wrapped in a bow that gives them all of the posts and the pictures and the GPS datas Chris just talked about. Right. Then you've got this, you know. But the real underlying point is that Parler, what they did. Parler's actually suing Amazon for de-platforming them. Parler, you know, has always maintained all along. This is that they are a platform for true free speech. Okay. This is no different. We've talked about this before and the way that Twitter and Facebook and Google and all these other guys also talk about their social. Well, that's what I thought.
Henry: Yeah. They all claim the same.
Mike: They all claim the same. The difference was so, and this is funny, right? Parler said, we are a platform for true free speech, which in effect meant that they didn't moderate. Right. So, what they were doing there is very subtle. They were saying, all those other guys, Twitter and Facebook, and all of them are not free speech because they have moderators that control sift and as we've seen, can stop anybody from communicating with a network that they've built.
Henry: Well, that's what the social fabric of society wants. They don't want to hear terrible racists. Generally, they don't wanna want to hear crazy theories. That's why it is indeed moderated.
Mike: Well, but okay, you're right, Henry, but okay. The reason why they need moderation. Okay. Presumably, so, the thing with Parler, so Parler goes in and says, we are true free speech. We have no moderation. Then to Chris's point, what they did is they saw an easy way to kind of build themselves into a, say, a force social media was to use the fact that they had no moderation to appeal to the people who were radicalized and were getting de-platformed from these other places for their radicalization, right. The far right. Totally. So, you know, as we alluded to the other day, right, when we talked about this idea that what is free speech, okay. Free speech is this concept that is best kind of represented by the speaker's corner idea where you live in a country in the United States is the first amendment to a constitution. So, the very first one, they said, you have the right to free speech. So, any citizen could go to say a speaker's corner, which is an actual physical space in the town square. They could stand literally on a soapbox and they could say whatever they wanted to do to say, without fear of the government coming and sending the police to arrest you for your opinions and for voicing them. Okay. So, it ensures that people have a place where their voice can be heard. All right. That's a good thing. It is a very good thing. But think about, you know, if the way that it was represented is an actual physical space in a park where you talk. So how many people can hear you at any point in time, right. You know, 30 or 40 people, you stand up and say your thing, people walk by, they maybe stop for a minute. They listen to what you're saying, and then they walk on. Okay. So what you have is you have two examples of social media that don't work. One of them, you have the free no moderation place where people are posting, you know, plans to go and you know, kid the go the Lieutenant or the governor of Michigan. Yeah. You've got people posting plans to, you know, kind of attend rallies, black lives matters rallies and cause a ruckus. You've got people talking about conspiracy theories, like QAN, you've got all of these things and it becomes this kind of big echo chamber of content that only the people who are interested in that are really gonna wanna see.
Chris: So, Mike, I just wanna interject here and say, Parler said that they were a Haven for free speech. Right. They said they did no moderation, but that ended up being a lie. Right and the reason why we know this is because first they banned left wing accounts. Right. They banned parities of influencers. Right. They banned fellow conservative users who didn't tow the party line. So, for example, over in Georgia, some Parler users wanted to write Donald Trump's name into the candidate ballots. Okay and Parler banned them.
Mike: So, basically what you're saying. So, this is like, I mean, this is the idea, right? Like let's face it and it's because they're centralized. Okay. Henry like let's face it. We know this. Okay. Oh yeah. Twitter. There's a guy, Jack Dorsey, Facebook. There's a guy mark Zuckerberg. I don't know the name of the guy at Parler. It's not off the top of my head, but there is a human being or, or a group of human beings who literally have the right. Because it's a private platform that's owned by them. They can at any point in time, for whatever reason, press a button and ban you sure it's a private corporation. Well, exactly. So, you know, you hear, there's a lot of talk going on in this issue clearly because it is very, very important. But like a lot of the stuff you hear, it's all this chatter, people yelling back and forth, you know, I should have free speech, blah, blah, blah.
I should have this channel. Be able to say what I want and all this other kinda stuff. No private, it's a private corporation. The real issue here is that I would argue that banning Donald Trump, banning anybody really like, especially the president. But let's use him as the example without some kind of illegal, you know, like they didn't get a warrant or some kind of legal order. A cease and desist from the federal government, right. It's not like the US government, you know, the house of representatives or something said that, you know, Donald Trump is violating the first amendment of the constitution and we want you to turn his megaphone off. Right. This was something where a bunch of lawyers sitting at Facebook's and his headquarters and Apples and Amazons and Googles decided that the risk of allowing him to continue to talk on their platforms was greater than the risk, they would face by banning. Okay.
Henry: Yeah. In other words, the risk is greater for the damage he could do to the multitude of users that he brings with him, which they already have.
Mike: Right. So, think about it, right? Think about this, like, we're now in this weird kind of, you know, the snake that eats its own tail kind of scenario, because you have the Googles, the Facebooks and the Twitters of the world, you know, two months ago sitting in front of congressional committees saying that section two 30 should not be banned because they are the true platforms for free speech to enable people to speak freely. Oh, by the way, unless you're Donald Trump. So now we're gonna ban you. So, you can't speak freely.
Chris: Well, there's one thing that social media companies say publicly, and there's another thing they say in their legal documents. Right. Right. Even, even Parler was the same way when it worked Parler's community guidelines said they could remove content and band users at any time and for any reason, or for no reason. Right. Right. So obviously, whatever Twitter, Google Parler any centralized social media service says publicly, you have to take it with not just a grain of salt, but assault, mine, assault, mine. Exactly.
Mike: Right. Well, and so here we go, you know, guys, we're getting close, right. The re what's the real fundamental issue here, the first amendment, right. To free speech in the United States is something that is guaranteed in the constitution. That means it's the right of every citizen. Okay. Right. But it a does not say that an, that an online platform has to guarantee the first amendment. Right. That's correct. Because if it did, then they couldn't ban him. Correct. Right. So, it does not say that a private company has to do it. Right. Chris, you made an example is the other day of somebody wants to organize a riot in a Walmart. Walmart can call the cops and say, get out, cuz this is private property. Right and it's the same thing here. Right? So, there is no law in the United States. It says that Facebook and Twitter and Apple and Amazon, and all these guys have to provide the backbone or the access or the platform for people to exercise their free speech. I would argue they shouldn't because there is no way that a corporation, right. Not the government, a corporation should be the arbiter of free speech. Exactly. Right. The issue here is, is that these things are not free speech platforms because they have a moderation and B an algorithm that Bly says when I'm standing on my soapbox, little corner of the park, where only 30 people can actually hear me at any one point in time, they're going to, they're gonna basically put a megaphone in front of my mouth that will broadcast that to people all over the planet. Yeah, exactly. Itwas about to say that right. To people all over the planet, but not just broadcast it freely to people all over the planet, they broadcast it, selectively to people all over the planet who their algorithm deems yes. To be susceptible or receptive to that message. That point of view. Exactly. Right. Yes. So, you know, so if, if what you, you know, like if there was a way for an individual to express their opinion in an online platform where the access to that opinion was voluntary. Yes. So I decide that I'm going to create a, a, a, a soapbox group where I'm gonna stand on my soapbox and I'm going to, I'm like the other, another great example you used earlier, Chris was Lenon. So, or Carl Marks, I am going to stand up on a soapbox, create this group called communists unite. I am going to give speeches that anyone can freely and voluntarily click on listen to, and if they like it, they can kind of subscribe or join or whatever it is. And listen to me, continue to speak. Right. Right. I should not be somebody who happens to be say let's say I'm a, I'm a poor farmer in the outskirts of Moscow and I'm, and I don't like what is how I'm being treated by the czar. And all of a sudden, I get this message from this guy named Carl Mars, or this guy named Lenin, then what I start to, and all I get when I turn my radio on, in my farm outside of Moscow is messages from Lenin and Carl Mars. Right. What do you think the chances are that I'm going to come out of that farm, you know, with my pickaxe, ready to stick it into somebody, because, because they've told me this is what needs to happen in terms of a revolution? Right. Okay.
Chris: You know, well, that's the other problem with centralized platforms is that they tend to elevate some voices over other voices because that that's the way the algorithms are, are built
Mike: Well and it's human nature, guys. What are the other things let's remember? What Facebook and all these social platforms have also done is they've kind of forced all of us to think of ourselves like brands, right? People talk about how many followers they have. So, what they've done is they've kind of made it seem like, you know, the average person who walks down the street should be concerned about how many people read their tweets or their messages when they post them. The validity of my opinions that I express on these platforms is directly related to how many people hear it. Right. They're basically saying the validity, if you have a thousand followers and I have 10,000 followers, the validity of my message, almost the truth of my message is more than yours because I have more followers. Then the algorithm keeps now starts to provide you incentives to start sending messages so that maybe you start to gain more followers. This is the way these things are set up. This is not, this is not a real thing. Right. So, you know, at the nut, these, these tech companies are coming out in, in a, in completely selfish, self-preservation, instincts they're com they're pandering to what they, the incoming administration wants, because for the last four years, they've paned to what the current administration wanted. Right? Yep. Now they're gonna, they've gone the opposite way. And they basically said, okay, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna basically do what you got. We think you guys want us to do, and that shut everything down. We're gonna give you all the day. We're gonna do all these things and that's bad enough. Hey, I mean, how do you feel about it now that, you know, your records are being just freely handed over by these guys you know, to the government, just because they think it's what they want. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? This is not in no way, is this a good thing for any of us? No matter which of the coin you're on in this equation. I mean, I fundamentally don't agree with the banning of Parler and the de platforming of it. Right. I do fundamentally disagree with radicalization and, you know, the end effect. Okay. But people do, you know, if people want to organize, it's just like the labor mute movement. They should have the right to organize and have the right to have shared opinions, whether it's religious or political or ideological. I mean, that's a right that we have. Yeah. I have to agree, Mike, you know what I mean? It's just the fact that these private corporations are controlling. What we should believe is legit or not. This is not free speech.
Henry: Okay. Question. Why do you think Parler was singled out for banning? While Twitter and Facebook were not after all come on. Twitter and Facebook have also very much profited from the far-right propaganda and the advertising.
Mike: Yeah, and they're not getting de-platformed by AWS.
Chris: That's for sure. Well, I'll tell you one reason why they weren't removed by Apple and Google. They make money. Parler does not make money or did not make money yet. Will probably never make money. Also, Twitter and Facebook, they're more than 10 years old. Right, and Parler was the new guy on the block.
Henry: Yes. Right and let's face it when Twitter and Facebook started. It hadn't yet been perverted by algorithms and advertising and right wing, radical crazies.
Mike: Well, exactly. Or anybody, it's not just right wing, radical, crazies. Right. I mean, there's these weird cons, products, you know, that talk about diets and things like this that are complete scams that have big followings on social media. Right. They're ridiculous. I mean, hell Al-Qaeda has a bunch of followers on social media for God's sakes. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Chris: But those accounts have been like zealously removed all through. So sure.
Mike: But hold on a second. It's important. Those guys have been legitimately removed, right? Because you could argue the deep platform, like the EU actually has a law that says if content that is deemed to be terrorist content, like an Al-Qaeda is not removed within an hour, you're gonna get fined. So, to me, that's legitimate. This is what I was alluding to earlier. Right. The government of the United States did not go to Twitter and Facebook and Amazon and Google, and all these guys and say you need to de-platform Donald Trump.
Chris: No, but they did say you have to de-platform terrorists.
Mike: That's exactly what I mean.
Chris: Now a lot of these folks who are using Parler, they've been deemed terrorists. Right and they're blaming Parler for facilitating terrorism.
Mike: Right. But I don't, as far as I know, okay. As far as I know, there was no court order from, you know, some judge in the United States that was delivered to AWS, like to Amazon, Apple, and Google that said, I need you to de platform say, selectively, proud voice Q Anon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. They didn't say that.
Chris: Well, you're exactly right, Mike, and, this is the problem with the internet right now. Which is, it's not being governed by government. It's being by monopolized.
Henry: Right. Oh yeah, absolutely. So, guys with that said, let's talk about the future a little bit now. First of all, with, you know, Apple, Google, Amazon shutting down Parler, what does that have to say about any new social media startups, if they're centralized, what does that say to you?
Chris: Put a fork in them.
Mike: That's awesome.
Henry: Totally okay. Okay. because it doesn't matter if you're centralized, you're gonna run into this problem eventually. Is that what you're saying?
Chris: Yeah. I think that if you're a new guy, if you're a startup, okay. I think that you can't be centralized whatsoever. Twitter and Facebook are able to get away with it because they're old and they already have a big trace trove of user data. They have essentially, they've not only monopolized this user data, but now they're using the internet itself to keep others from competing for this user data. Right.
Henry: So, if that's the case, why is decentralization now more important than ever? And how do you see it as part of the solution? Like, for example, anyone?
Mike: Well, you know, we've seen over the last you know, kind of, since January 6th, it was kind of like, you know, there's always been a fuse burning. I think Henry for decentralization, you know, and we've seen it as people have come to us and, you know, just through our Twitter, when we were still on it and the little, you know, kind of little bits and pieces that we do to try to get the word out you know. We've seen people come to us in twos and threes here and there and stuff like this. Then the events of January 6th were basically the Incendiary moment. This fuse hit that, you know, that little ke of gun powder that they used to use on the wildly coyote bugs bunny cart. Oh yeah. I loved it and it blew up. Okay and what's happened now is for example, for us, we're seeing 20, 30 people a day are now coming to the site and registering to test because they're looking for alternatives. Good. We've seen you know, we've seen kind of articles and callouts and things in all of the major news outlets, right. And tech publications. So not just New York times and guys like this, but tech crunch and Gizmoto, and even Yahoo finance are saying the future of the internet is decentralized. Because what decentralization allows us to do is truly give everyone free speech, because we can with a decentralized say social media or messaging app, every single person is their own kind of server and their own node on a network. Right? So imagine Facebook with, instead of Facebook being one entity with 2 billion kind of servers stuck in big warehouses, all over the world, it's 2 billion individual people with their server on their mobile device. That's what decentralization does to the architecture of Facebook. Then what that means is that by default, right now you join Facebook or any, as Chris said, centralized version of a social media platform or a messaging platform, you are automatically connected to 2 billion people. Yeah. and, and, and the algorithm Del hammers you with stuff you like, how, how you can join us social network and already have like a, an endlessly scrolling newsfeed is beyond me. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You don't have any connections. Like you're like, I just joined Facebook. I don't know anybody. My newsfeed should be blank, right. Until I connect with the first person that I connect with. And then maybe I start to see their posts. And then I connect with another person and I start to see their, and then I can, and the idea should be is that that should be the way that this works. That's a healthy way to build a social network, connect to people and organizations, government banks, whatever advertisers voluntarily take their content into your newsfeed. And then if you don't like something, moderate it yourself, click a button and delete the connection and remove them from your newsfeed. Whereas right now the algorithms do not give the average human that option exactly. To do that, right. If you go down the wrong path, click on the wrong post, whatever it is, you know, you click, hello. You know, you, you somehow click on a hello kitty post on Facebook. All you're gonna see is hell hello, kitty posts from 14-year-old Korean girls for the rest of your life, because you've been put into that swim lane by Facebook or Twitter, because they know they can get more money out of you. And you're like, how do I get out of this? Right. That should not be the metric. It should be you in control. That's what decentralization does. And it's the only fix agreed. Chris closing thoughts from you.
Chris: Mike closing thoughts are that if we want free speech on the internet, and I think there is a case for free speech, you can't have intermediaries or arbiter in the middle of that free speech, right. Anything centralized is going to is going to compromise it, and you can't take any company's word that they're going to provide you with free speech. Exactly. If you doubt this, just go ahead and take a look in the terms of service or community guidelines. I guarantee any legitimate company has some legalese out there that basically lessen their liability. Right? Yep. Go read that. I know it's gonna be long. It's basically a textbook nowadays. Right? What I'm getting at here is don't take anybody's word for it. If you're looking for free speech look at the technology itself, look at how it works, right? If I'm the dude between you and the person you want to communicate with, and I'm the one who basically pulls the strings of whether or not you're able to talk to them. That's not really free speech. Exactly. Correct. So, Parler so long, we hardly knew ya, that's a great title, but the truth is that they kind of did it to themselves.
Henry: Exactly and essentially what we're saying, gentlemen is there's not gonna be real free speech until one is decentralized. Absolutely. Hallelujah. Thank you, gentlemen. Another illuminating chat and I'm sure we're gonna have another hot topic very soon. Thank you.
Chris: Thank you.