Parler is not the problem, it's the other
Parler is a North American social network for microblogging. A new Twitter. Telegram is a messaging system developed in Russia. A new WhatsApp. DuckDuckGo is also an American browser. A new Chrome. MeWe is a Californian social network. A new Facebook. Rumble is a Canadian video platform. A new YouTube. Bizfluence is a business social network from New York. A new LinkedIn.
Parler has made it clear in whose hands the cake of web censorship is. Someone says that from this social network the attacks on the Capitol were prepared. The information goes viral and is taken for granted because Parler has a lot of profiles of conservative, republican, right-wing ideology... and the silicon geniuses do the rest with the excuse that they are protecting the world. Apple and Google remove the Parler app from their shops. Amazon shuts down the servers that host the web that supports the app and... goodbye competition. Or as they say: hello to a safer world where we say and think what we want. Why should they let the user decide where he wants to be and where he doesn't? Who they want to follow and who they don't. Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple are already there to make these decisions.
The first to arrive are those who set the rules. Those who stay with the customers. Those who run the business and do not want rivals. Silicon Valley has given us a lot, but it is beginning to collapse and is not capable of generating anything new. Technology startups are born in the garage anywhere in the world and seek to improve what is on the market. Entering is not easy. The owners and masters of the Internet know how to tangle it up. Governments, too. In the midst of all this, ideological ingredients, cultural battles, censorship, post-truth, Fake News and freedom of expression appear. These are big words spoken by people who, depending on what, put the world on its guard.
Parler was born in the American state of Nevada in 2018. It was launched to be the competition of Twitter. It was a time when we all wondered who was putting doors in the field of the Internet. Who was calling himself a judge and part of what was being said on social networks. The laws have become obsolete because of the speed at which everything moves. Common sense, respect, logic... all this has been called into question. Everything is annoying. Everything offends.
Years ago we agreed that the message of terror of Al Qaeda on Twitter had to disappear. The Daesh had almost 600 profiles and generated 800 tweets per hour to continue its ideological expansion and recruitment of young people. The alarm caused the social network to devote great efforts to eliminating this type of identity. But those who live on the invisible line between freedom of expression and incitement to hatred or violence remain. What crimes do the former not commit that the latter do?
With Parler we have entered the new dimension of freedom of expression. Now more people are living in that thin line of political incorrectness. We welcome the fact that Twitter closes accounts when certain rights are violated, but what about those who do not commit crimes by speaking out? It just sounds strong that Trump wants to put up a wall with Mexico, but we like that Conguitos is being massacred on Twitter because its logo now offends.
Parler has been taken out of the game with the excuse that he has no comment moderation. It's annoying that he's free and self-proclaimed the social network without censorship. It is even more annoying that an ideology has been brought together in the same environment. We already know that what we do in front of a mobile phone, a tablet or a computer is hacker meat. We assume that we have no digital privacy. Some people are starting to use VPN to surf safely and privately in their own homes. They don't use illegal pornography, they don't buy weapons, or drugs... but it bothers them that if they find out the price of a pair of boots that model will chase them for months in their browser.
What Apple and Google have done with Parler is purely a facade to make themselves look good for this ideological current that is permanently annoying with everything. This has allowed them to deactivate the competition from Facebook and Twitter. Their business is still intact. And it's so transparent that we don't even see it. The latest update to WhatsApp requires us to accept their new privacy policy to continue using their messaging network. In one of its points they acknowledge that user data will be shared with Facebook yes or no. They will not read the chats, as far as we know, but they will read everything else. And those boots will come back to haunt us. In Europe we have put a stop to these practices and they will not be able to investigate us so thoroughly... for the time being.
Parler will once again serve its nearly three million users. Just as Telegram never left. Every day some new contact joins this network of chats that far exceeds the rest. Parler will have to leave the huge business that its subsidiary AWS (Amazon Web Services) represents for Amazon. Servers for everyone, even if we don't even know it. Cheaper because they can automatically change their power for a few customers or for a flood of occasional users looking for Confederate flags, for example. But if your company does not agree with their ideas... it disappears. The Navy Jack is not illegal, although what it represents is controversial. What about a flag with the swastika or the hammer and sickle? Who decides which website is closed? From now on Amazon does.
By the way, Apple and Hyundai are already working on their electric car. A vehicle that will not only be bought with money. It will have to be ideologically fit to drive it. Because the problem is not Parler, it is the other thing.
