Parler will ‘maximize’ free speech, new owner says
Christopher Hutton
Parler’s new owner said the social network will focus on expanding free speech.
Ryan Coyne, who purchased Parler from Parlement Technologies last week for an undisclosed sum and then shut down the platform for a rebuild, told the Washington Examiner that he aims to bring it back with an assortment of new features to serve those censored by Big Tech.
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“The DNA of this technology is lifting up and allowing a voice for those that are silenced, giving them an opportunity to maximize their First Amendment Rights,” said Coyne, who founded Starboard, an online publisher that operates the conservative websites BizPac Review and American Wire. “That will always be the focus and mission of the technology.”
What those new features would look like, Coyne acknowledged, remains to be seen.
“There’s no definitive path forward,” Coyne said. “And I won’t want to guarantee exactly anything.”
He said he would consider his options, including replicating Mastodon’s localized community building and Facebook Groups.
Coyne said that he hoped to create “additional value” for content creators and ensure users have a “greater level of access to their First Amendment rights.”
He was unwilling to commit to a release date but said the platform would go up once they had a viable business plan.
Kanye West offered to acquire Parler in October after his Instagram and Twitter accounts were suspended but then backed out in November.
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Parler was launched in 2018 by John Matze and Rebekah Mercer as a free speech alternative to Twitter. The platform first saw growth as Republican lawmakers and conservative personalities migrated there in case they were banned on Twitter. The platform saw a surge of interest in 2020 after the presidential election due to Big Tech platforms limiting election misinformation.
Parler made headlines in January 2021 after Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores and Amazon Web Services removed the service from its cloud computing services. The Big Tech companies claimed Parler had not done enough to stop or block posts inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Google and Apple have since reinstated Parler in their app stores.