Tuesday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Parler CEO John Matze discussed his social media platform’s recent growth and credited how the platform governs itself as not to limit free speech.
Matze said his competition was “colluding” to regulate some speech, which he said was antithetical to the idea of social media.
“What we are seeing is a massive explosion in growth because people trust that Parler is going to do the right thing. So as opposed to these other companies, where moderation seems to be the norm, on Parler, we have a community jury. This is where the people decide what is allowed and what’s not allowed. You’re judged by your peers, just like our government allows for people. You’re innocent before proven guilty, unlike these other platforms that are colluding to, I guess, find things to find you guilty for. So, you know, really, we just want to sit back and say social media was supposed to be about the people. It was supposed to be about people having a free voice, being able to be, you know, liberated from restrictions, and so that’s what we’re here to offer. It is a community town square for people to have discussions.”
Matze also responded to Corporate America critics pushing back against Parler’s laissez-faire approach.
“I always ask them, you know, what do you think of the First Amendment? Do you believe that we should have somebody in, you know, New York, let’s say in the middle of Times Square, telling you what you can and cannot say? Because that’s what these companies are doing. I don’t know why they’re so afraid. Maybe it’s because they don’t like that people are getting power again. You know, you mentioned that Parler was a little bit smaller than Twitter. But you know, we do have people that have comparable, if not larger, followings on Parler than they do on Twitter, and they are seeing far more engagement. You know, there’s a neutral algorithm here. You get what you signed up for, and that’s it. You know, you get what you expect, and so that’s why we are seeing such great engagement because it’s not being curated like publishers would do like they are on these other platforms.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor