Parler CEO Slams Big Tech Censorship in CPAC Appearance

John Matze, CEO of social media platform Parler, slammed big tech companies for failing to respect privacy and free speech in an appearance at CPAC.

Matze was introduced by Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC.

“Conservatives are the new liberals, we’re not the censors, we don’t want to censor people, we want to out-think them,” said Schlapp.

“Parler thinks that the free market solution is to out-compete the bad guys,” the ACU head said.

Matze said that competition in the markets is “your leverage as consumers.”

“The main mission is to join another site, use both communities to maximize your voice,” continued Matze. “Bring your friends and family and anyone else you want to argue with or agree with…  as you expand that audience, you gain more leverage.”

“Go to your app store, type in Parler, it’s the red app, you can download and join, you can follow me there @john”

The Parler CEO also condemned his competitors in Silicon Valley, comparing them to dictatorships. “We created Parler with free speech and privacy in mind, because a lot of tech companies don’t respect that.”

“These people are censoring individuals … This started happening mainly in 2016 with president Trump’s election, and this is really going to keep happening on these platforms. These platforms are kinda acting like socialist dictatorships.”

“I’m censoring ‘kinda’,” interjected Schlapp.

“We’re not going to take sides. We don’t care what your political ideology is,” said Matze. “Frankly it’s not a fair fight if you stay on these platforms, it’s an unfair fight.”

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