The social media platform which recently emerged as the preferred platform of the US far right, Parler, has sacked its CEO John Matze.
Conservative Users
This news of his termination was confirmed by Matze himself in a text message to Reuters.
In a memo to Parler staff, he wrote: "On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision". This much was originally reported by Fox News.
Founded in 2018, Parler sees itself as a "free speech driven" space. As more mainstream platforms like Facebook and Twitter became more and more intolerant of misinformation and falsehoods, disgruntled conservative users began to switch attention and focus to Parler.
These days, however, the app is enjoying less than smooth sailing after being essentially forced offline in the fallout of the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Amazon's cloud hosting division dropped the website, with its app also suspended from Google and Apple app stores.
Favorite of Right-wing Politicians
Parler has been able to resume partial operations with the help of a technology company owned by Russia.
Parler was founded by Matze, who describes himself as a libertarian, as an alternative to mainstream platforms. However, he soon began to cozy up to right-wing users as the app entertained more of such sentiments along with more vociferous Trump supporters. Figures such as Republican senator Ted Cruz has publicly stated their support of the app. Other right-wing users who faced censure from other platforms have found the Parler app more receptive to their sentiments.
Parler bears a certain resemblance to Twitter and derives its name from the French verb which means "to talk". However, in pronunciation, it sounds closer to the English word "parlor". The social network site claims to have over 10 million users.
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