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Free Speech Lives! Parler is Back Online.
Parler is back! Seems a bit buggy, but free speech always was. At the moment I can get it on Chrome using my phone, but not on the laptop.
I’ve occasionally toyed with the response I might give when someone is upset that I’m on Parler. I imagine some statement of dismay from a friend or co-worker, something like, “You mean you’re on that website that has extremists, that internet playground for conspiracy theorists?” I lean towards a response along the lines of, “Yes, I’ve been on Facebook for some time.”
It’s not like there aren’t abortion-to-the-point-of-birth-and-maybe-a-little-bit-after extremists, people with extreme socialist views on economic policy, and various other extremists favorable to the left on Facebook and Twitter–alongside the people who actually planned the January 6 acts of evil. One difference is that the left-wing extremists are more mainstream on the left than right-wing extremists are on the right, but the main difference seems to be simply that Big Tech likes them more.
And conspiracy theories? Well, it’s not like there aren’t right-wing conspiracy theorists on Facebook. But what gets me is the left-wing conspiracy theories that are not only mainstream Democrat positions but are also perfectly welcome on Facebook–“Bush lied about WMD” and Russian collusion.
I’ve met one Q-Anon guy on Parler that I know of; at least, I think he is, based on the overlap between things he says and things I’m vaguely aware that Q-Anon confusedly says. At least he cares about small children and recognizes that all human beings matter. His heart appears to be in the right place. If Parler can be a soul-destroying cesspool of hate, I haven’t noticed it yet. I’ve been splashed by the waters of that cesspool on Facebook a few times, and, as for Twitter, well . . . Twitter just scares me.
That’s one reason I’m on Parler: It’s like a Twitter that doesn’t scare me. (Actually, I initially joined up because of Mrs. Augustine, who had recently joined. Same reason I originally joined Facebook.)
But probably the biggest reason I aim to stay, and am glad today that Parler is back up, is that I prefer refutation to censorship for nearly every bad idea. Welcome back, Parler!
Published in Technology
Off and on.
Hit or miss. I’ve been on semi-successfully a few times today. Sometimes it can’t quite finish refreshing the screen. It has yet to let me see my most recent responses on posts — sometimes it tells me I don’t have sufficient authority to view them. I’ve only occasionally been able to scroll the screen; the absence of scroll bars is bizarre.
MeWe, in contrast, seems to be doing a pretty good job.
Just got straight in using Brave.
It’s been much more responsive in the past few hours. Perhaps they’re getting their technical act together.
(I use Brave almost exclusively and was having the same problems earlier; unlikely that it’s a browser issue.)
Yes, much better.
I downloaded Brave. May begin using some.