Day: December 3, 2020

Parler… A website I struggle to figure out. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Lately it’s become a trendy thing to say your going to the alternative social media website, Parler because people are getting fed up with the constant disclaimers and censorship of major social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It is obnoxious that every time you mention or see a post about the election or COVID-19 your splashed with a disclaimer pointing to a platform curated collection of news articles. Maybe it’s a good idea to confront disinformation but it seems like these social media platforms have gone too far.

So the alternative people point to is Parler. But when I created my account I was disappointed on how much of a political echo chamber it is, full of weird conspiracy theories and far right news feeds. Yeah, I kind of like Larry the Cable Guy and John Rich’s feeds there but it lacks all of the groups and diversity that Facebook has.

I’ve been warned that Parler is kind of a far right echo chamber. But I was hoping it would have an interesting mix of off-gridders, farmers, homesteaders, hunters, sportsman and back to the earth type folks and not be dominated by politicos. I get that folks who live off the land like their guns and aren’t afraid of a little blood, manure or smoke and are conservative in persuasion but I didn’t go there for the politics or the love of Donald Trump, a man who I find quite awful.

I am not sure if the issue with the lack of users or the lack of search function but it’s really hard to find non political, communities of interest on Parler. There just aren’t the groups or pages I like, it’s more individual users than content feeds. No YouTube feeds, no cute pictures of cattle, deer or wildlife. Really not much of interest. Maybe the site will improve but right now it really lacks much of interest unless you’re interested in werid right wing conspiracy theories.