Why we joined #Parler – @legalinsurrection
Tired of being throttled and unable to reach OUR audience at Twitter and Facebook.
So Legal Insurrection is on Parler, find us at @legalinsurrection.
Why? To reach our audience.
Joining Parler for us is in addition to, not a substitute for, Twitter and Facebook. Those two are still the big kahunas, but we have problems there. We are not reaching our audience.
Although we have almost 39,000 followers on Twitter, it’s rare for us to get even 100 retweets, unless some larger account retweets us. Even that is becoming less common. My conclusion is that our tweets are not being shown to our followers and supporters. Can I “prove” we are shadow-banned? No. But the reality is that while Twitter is immensely useful to us for breaking news, it’s not very useful to us in reaching out to readers.
Same on Facebook, though it’s somewhat better than Twitter. We have over 350,000 “likes” on our Facebook page, but most of our posts only “reach” (are shown to) about 10,000 people. Our Facebook shares are pretty good for such limited reach — often reaching several hundred and sometimes several thousand. Imagine what our shares would be if our posts were shown even to 10% of those who like us. We’re also constantly fighting the politicized fact-check monsters at Facebook, whose strikes can cause a severe restriction in reach. So we don’t share other people’s stuff anymore for fear of a strike. Here’s what two bogus strikes against our page did a couple of months ago, our reach fell off a cliff and took almost a month to recover:
So, we’re staying on Twitter and Facebook, but we’ve added Parler, to which a lot of non-liberals have fled. We quickly ran up over 33,000 followers, something that took us several years on Twitter. The lingo is different on Parler, but the equivalent of retweets and views is much better.
There are some things I’m not thrilled about with Parler, mostly it’s getting used to a new interface after a decade on Twitter. Twitter seems to pack more onto a single screen, which is helpful. Also, Parler requires a phone number to register — on balance I think that’s okay, it will help keep out the bot accounts, but I understand why some people would not want to give that up. There’s also was a controversy as to the indemnification provision in the User Agreement, but those provisions are not in the current version.
Parler is proving popular, approaching 2 million users. I’m not sure what the magic number of users is to make it sustainable, but it’s already attracted almost every major conservative Twitter user (but not The Donald so far).
As Fuzzy wrote, Liberal Media Sure Are Obsessed With Villifying #Parler As Alternative To Twitter. That’s a good sign that maybe Parler will have legs. We’ll see.
In the meantime, if you are on Parler, follow us @LegalInsurrection. Follow Fuzzy at @Fuzislippers, Kemberlee at @Kemberleekaye, Stacey at @sistertoldjah, Mike at @MikeLaChance.
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Comments
TU Professor. I have recently opened a Parler account.
You will have at least one follower. 🙂
Snort… 33K in 9 days… not to worry. Bwahaha.
Never was on Twitter.
Never was on Facebook.
I am on Parler.
my only complaint is that I think Parler has a really poor User Interface, one that makes it quite difficult for me to find what I want. I hope they can upgrade it quite a bit in future versions.
That is true.
But, we need to be patient.
You got me!
I would suggest you regularly tell your reader, and social media users that they will never miss a post with your RSS feed. That’s what I use.
Can use an RSS reader like Palabre on Android, a variety of ones on iOS and Feedlab on Windows Store.
I only use RSS to follow LI. Am I missing anything important by not being on Twitter, Facebook, or Parler?
Yes. You miss being data-mined, getting put on junk mail lists, and the other delights of “free” apps.
I understand the reason LI has joined Parler, but I won’t use social media of any kind.
The magic number to make it sustainable is infinity. Do people seriously not remember the in-depth examinations of twitter a few years ago where they discussed how it had hundreds of millions of users (I believe 3 or 4 hundred million at the time) and was still losing money?
That’s why there will never be any viable ‘conservative’ alternative to Twitter. Just like rags like the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, etc. They lose money operating, and they don’t care because making money is not their goal.
They’re underwritten by rich leftists that are willing to pay to continue to publish useful propaganda.
Parler is a joke. If it actually gets to a point that they even CONSIDER it a threat to Twitter, they’ll get Google to start banning it, hiding it from results, and actively attacking any company that even considers advertising on it. For now they’re content using it as a screen for why Twitter doesn’t need any regulation, because there are ‘alternatives’ available.
Burn their UNEARNED platform protections FIRST, and THEN go to an alternative.
“Parler is a joke. If it actually gets to a point that they even CONSIDER it a threat to Twitter, they’ll get Google to start banning it, hiding it from result…”
Who cares if google tries ‘hiding’ it. Google didn’t make Parler, so they can’t break it. Word of mouth is what is making it.
If you were an advertiser and wanted a well-to-do stable audience who are predictable buyers of solid goods, Parler is the place to advertise.
I’m on twittr now as a refugee of a free speech board that was closed down. I detest twittr, but have interacted with many incredible people there. I’ve been on Parler awhile now too, but the real fight is on twittr. I’ll keep doing what I do on twittr, but if they shut me down I’ll be much more active on Parler. I’m in this fight for the long haul, I’ll never give up, never give in, never quit fighting for our Constitution and Republic.
I joined and haven’t looked back.
I joined and am following you too. I like Free Speech. It makes me feel young again.
Added. @TheLivewire
I joined 6 days ago, just made a post and the site is buggy.
Bottom line is that Twitter, Facebook and Google, along with most media sites, are doing their best to use and abuse anyone not toeing the line of Blanck Liars Matter and their associates.
Gab.com is good. Not as buggy and more tolerant than Parler.
I’m on both, as—— you guessed it! —- CloseTheFed or something like that.
Followed.
Thank you!
Twitter Abuse.
“Ya’ll I’m not making sh.. up..
I took my tweet reply to
@Veri
about Trump being Batman and copied and pasted it to my Facebook.
A few mins later FACEBOOK F…ING FACT CHECKS ME!
They FACT CHECK ME to say Trump is, in fact, not Batman.
This post is decisive for me. Thank you.
I rarely ever see a tweet from Legal Insurrection unless it’s been retweeted by someone else I follow and I do follow your account on twitter.
I’ve been on Gab, which is much as you’d expect a free-speech site to be: anything goes, as long as it’s not illegal. That’s simultaneously refreshing and, if the truth be told, a little stressful.
If “free speech” means anything, it must apply just as much to the opinions we hate as to the ones we love. On Gab, it does. There’s a lot of material I like and some that’s just awful, but putting up with awful opinions is part of freedom’s price.
It annoys me that Gab frequently bad-mouths Parler. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but that strikes me as bad form. You and one other person I respect have joined Parler, so I’ll check it out.
I’m on Gab and at first, I spent a lot of time blocking people. Now I’m quite content on there.
As far as bad-mouthing Parler, I don’t blame Andrew Torba, founder of Gab. He has been deplatformed by the Google and Apple app stores, denied service by an EMBED company (who even thought of that?!), denied credit card services, not just for his company, but for HIS WIFE and FAMILY.
He’s been through the battles to keep Gab going, all while Conservative, Inc. never lifted a finger to help him.
Twitter insisted I delete an anodyne tweet (Nope), NextDoor.com blocked me, and FB offends me.
I with Andrew Torba. I’m on Parler too, but it’s a closed system, so you have to be a member to see the posts. I haven’t seen any embeds of them on Gateway Pundit, or here for that matter.
I’m with the fighter!
Even though FB has had people live stream violent crimes, “for some reason” that hasn’t given it a black eye with users. In contrast, http://www.Gab.com has had one and immediately cooperated with law enforcement and has been deplatformed by almost every big and small company known to man.
I’m on Gab and Parler. Parler has more vulnerabilities than Gab, because it hasn’t gone through the fire yet of being deplatformed by all and sundry.
Because Apple has threatened Parler with being removed from the app store – which Gab was a long time ago – Parler has restricted freedom of speech.
It’s also unclear to me how Parler makes money. I pay for Gab and it doesn’t sell my info.
Old article: https://conservativehardliner.com/apples-reality-check-parler-means-gab-will-dominate-alternative-social-media
Newer article: https://conservativehardliner.com/why-parler-sucks-and-why-gab-superior
As I said, I’m on both, I spend more time on Gab, but I can see the writing on the wall: the GOPe will be on Parler.
I understand the Professor’s angle, but I do prefer the battle-scarred Gab to the pink rosy cheeks of the Parler approach.
Parler demands my phone number, access to my contacts, and legal indemnification. NO THANKS.
At least they are wide open and honest about being a dta-miner.
Parler doesn’t have my phone number. They may ask for it, but you don’t have to give it.
facebook, twitter, parler, gab. I suppose newsgroups and listserve still exist, too. All noise masquerading as news. No wonder people feel they’re suffering news burnout. They run all over chasing after it, but never find it . . . so they chase some other shiney new object.
Of course, if chasing shiney new objects is someone’s hobby, that’s another matter.
Surely I’m not the only one old enough to remember the CB craze, which was the “social media” fashion even before BBS’es, CompuServe, AmericaOnline, etc.
Time flies, these things come and go.
10-4 good buddy.
Buy the cheapest prepaid Tracphone smart phone that can receive text messages and register it under a bogus name and address. Then use that as the phone number. If you don’t log out you’ll only need it once to receive a confirmation number.
I assume that this is pronounced par-lay.
Sorry Professor, I WON’T do it. They require a phone number. That means you can
(and eventually will) be tracked.
When I was banned from Twitter, they told me that they wouldn’t let me back in IF I gave them a phone number. Where would I be today, if I do let them track me by my phone?
Remember, your Cellular phone is a double-edged sword. It allows you to do many great things, that speed up processes grocery and merchandise orders and allows us be in constantly available for the communications. But it also allows you to be tracked by radio triangulation.
As long as an Application Provider makes a cell phone number a requirement, I’m out. “No, I don’t agree to your terms and conditions….”
Parler is just a place to run. It is not decentralized so it is more easily silenced by financial cancellation. I use it and many other sites to speak my mind online.
Unfortunately, Parler’s Android app is so horrendous that it is unusable. So I deleted my account.
After years of #RefuseNik, I finally joined tweeter a month ago, and was promptly banned – as a suspected bot – simply for linking twice to an article @Federalist. Unrelated, the Federalist was suspended from tweeter shortly there after.
I re-upped with another sincerely fake tweeter account for ‘research.’ My conclusion: tweeter is a sewer infested with chimpanzees who perpetually fling poo at one another. Nothing productive is ever accomplished.
Parler @username19587; following L.I.
I’ve joined Parler and am following the entire LI crowd. I cleaned up my screen name but come check me out at @Staffordpat. Same old redneck with a law degree and a classic liberal education from classically liberal Quaker professors.
Why haven’t I joined Parler? Because it will not protect my identity. I am required to give a name and phone number. Both of which lead to doxxing. So no thanks, I will not join Parler. If LI goes to it for comments, I guess I am gone from here also.
A few notes on the comments:
1. I didn’t want to give my phone number to sign up, either, initially. But if you use the internet, for anything, “they” know who you are, where you live, and what your favorite order out is. Parler is just one more incursion, not the first, worst, or last. Actual privacy is gone, probably for good. Your IP is almost as revealing as your phone number, in most cases, it’s exactly as revealing. Your IP is known to any site you visit. If the stuff meets fan, what kind of dummy is taking their phone, anyway?
2. I prefer the Parler app. I can view this parsley, that user, the linked article, whatever right on that app/page. There are things I wish we had like being able to echo comments and see in profiles who is following us, etc., but the site is new, these things will come.
3. No, Parler is not going to be shut down like Gab. Gab is a vile disgusting pit of hate from what I saw. By contrast, Parler is peopled with real conservatives, including pointedly, GOP members of Congress, the fighters, not the milquetoast Romneycare types (so far). Try crazy anti-speech crap on them, and it’s so over.
Indeed, Google reportedly threatened Parler about pulling their app from their app store, but reportedly sat back down when elected officials were informed of the scheme.