Parler, the free speech-friendly social network founded in 2018 at the height of Big Tech censorship, has been shut down pending a strategic reassessment from its new owners, Starboard Media, although the company says it will continue to serve censored communities in the future.
In its press release, Starboard praised Parler CEO George Farmer for successfully leading Parler into new industries, including cloud services.
“Parler’s large user base and additional strategic assets represent an enormous opportunity for Starboard to continue to build aggressively in our media and publishing business. The team at Parler has built an exceptional audience and we look forward to integrating that audience across all of our existing platforms,” said Ryan Coyne, CEO of Starboard.
While the Parler app as it currently exists has been taken down, Starboard said it would continue to focus on serving censored communities.
From the press release:
No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more.
…
While the Parler app as it is currently constituted will be pulled down from operation to undergo a strategic assessment, we at Starboard see tremendous opportunities across multiple sectors to continue to serve marginalized or even outright censored communities – even extending beyond domestic politics.
Advancements in AI technology, along with the existing code base and other new features, provide an opportunity for Starboard to begin servicing unsupported online communities – building a home for them away from the ad-hoc regulatory hand of platforms that hate them.
Along with Gab, Parler was one of the first companies to recognize consumer demand for free speech-friendly social media. The app became a target of the same Silicon Valley censorship it sought to counter in early 2020, when it was deplatformed by Amazon Web Services and Apple’s app store.
The app surged in popularity as Big Tech companies tightened their censorship of Donald Trump in the days following the 2020 presidential election. The ban was one of the clearest cases of Big Tech censors actively seeking to choke off the growth of a business.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.