Parler: The Twitter Alternative For Conservatives

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Trump's reelection campaign joined the social media app Parler in 2018.

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[/tags/twitter/ Twitter] permanently booted [ ] in 2018 for violating the site's rules against hateful conduct. But that didn't stop the right-wing provocateur from finding an alternative platform.
That year, Loomer joined a new social media app called Parler, where she now has more than 574,000 followers. Loomer, who's also barred from [/tags/facebook/ Facebook] and its photo service Instagram, describes herself in all capital letters as the "most banned woman in the world" on her Parler profile. 

Laura Loomer's profile on Parler.

Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET




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Twitter permanently suspended Loomer after she tweeted that Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, was "anti-Jewish" and "pro-Sharia." Twitter said that Loomer, who had more than 260,000 followers on the site, was permanently banned for violating its rules against hateful conduct -- and not because of her political beliefs, as she had claimed. [ ][ Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas] have been promoting the app since Twitter started applying labels to tweets by President Donald Trump that falsely claimed fraud with mail-in ballots or that the company said glorified violence. Trump's campaign has been considering [ "building audiences" on other social media platforms], including Parler, https://maditationshop.bookmark.com/how-does-meditation-help-to-open-third-eye The Wall Street Journal reported last week.




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Two days after the Journal article was published, [ Parler surpassed Twitter and Reddit] to become the top-ranked [/reviews/iphone-11-2019-battery-deep-fusion-review/ iPhone] app in the news category, according to CNBC, which cited app analytics company App Annie. Parler CEO John Matze told CNBC that the company grew its users from 1 million to 1.5 million in roughly a week. As of Thursday afternoon, Parler was ranked second behind Twitter in [/apple/ Apple's] top charts for news. 

Parler didn't respond to a request for comment. 

Here's what you need to know about the social media app.
What is Parler?
Launched in 2018, Parler is a social media app created by University of Denver graduates Matze and Jared Thomson. They came up with Parler because they were "exhausted with a lack of transparency in big tech, ideological suppression and privacy abuse," according to Parler's [ website]. 

The private company is based in Henderson, Nevada, and has between 11 and 50 employees, according to [ LinkedIn]. Parler means "to talk" in French and is meant to be pronounced as PAR-lay. But as more people started saying the app's name like the English word "parlor," that pronunciation took over.

The social network has a similar feel to Twitter. You follow accounts, and content appears in a chronological News Feed. Users can post up to 1,000 characters, which is more than Twitter's 280-character limit, and can upload photos, GIFs and memes. 

You can also comment on a post and search for hashtags. There's a feature called "echo," with a megaphone icon, that functions like the Twitter retweet button, and there's an upvote icon for a feature that resembles "liking" a post on other social media platforms. As with other social networks, you have to be at least 13 years old to sign up for an account.