According to Fox Business Parler CEO John Matze has been removed by the small group of owners of Parler. Rebekah Mercer (financial aspects) and Dan Bongino (public face) are pushing back against the reasoning that Matze is sharing with the public.
At the 30,000 ft level the outline of the problems are clear. Both elements within the ownership group have issues.
It was not surprising to see the trouble they encountered with re-platforming the social media network.
First, here’s the report:
EXCLUSIVE – Parler has terminated CEO John Matze, according to a memo Matze sent to staffers that has been obtained by Fox News.
“On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision,” Matze wrote. “I understand that those who now control the company have made some communications to employees and other third parties that have unfortunately created confusion and prompted me to make this public statement.”
Matze wrote that over the past few months he has been met with “constant resistance” to his original vision for the social media platform following Amazon Web Services’ decision to shut Parler down for failure to moderate “egregious content” related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Over the past few months, I’ve met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler site should be managed. For example, I advocated for more product stability and what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation,” Matze wrote.
Parler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I have worked endless hours and fought constant battles to get the Parler site running but at this point, the future of Parler is no longer in my hands,” he continued. “I want to thank the Parler employees, the people on Parler and Parler supporters for their tireless work and devotion to the company. They are an amazing group of diverse, hardworking and talented individuals and I have the utmost respect for them. Many of them have become my second family.” (read more)
First, Matze should have been fired -and the ownership group eviscerated- for allowing the vulnerability of their host server system to exist on Amazon. That was perhaps the stupidest decision of a “conservative” platform ever.
Second, it seems apparent from Matze statements he wanted a heavily moderated and highly controlled moderation system in the platform. Inevitably that can be problematic because humans have to make the decisions on where the line is… it is not easy to support free speech while knowing that some speech can lead to your removal for extremist content. Moderation is a key component, but a balance is needed… the location of the balance bubble seemed to be the issue.
Third, Dan Bongino takes exception to the way Matze frames his support for free speech.
Parler Owner @dbongino corrects the false narrative leaked out by the fired CEO of Parler, John Matze.
My take? Bongino is a winner. Parler will be back up and better than ever before you know it under better leadership. pic.twitter.com/Xrw84qDvvX
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) February 4, 2021
Bottom line is…. from my perspective… the front end of Parler was not the priority. If it was, the decision to make Amazon the server host would never have been made. Instead it was the backside operation, the user data, that held the value from the Mercer perspective.
That outlook makes the most sense.
As they did with Breitbart, the Mercers were in the business of assembling the identities of users that could be leveraged as a commodity for engaged political influence. This is what the Mercers did with the 18 month Breitbart poll of 2016 GOP republican candidates. They built a file of site users for their candidate, Ted Cruz, to use.
It looks to me like the emphasis on Parler 2020 was the same as the emphasis in the Breitbart purchase in 2014. User data providing contact information of conservative minded Americans was the priority; that’s why the ridiculously obvious front-end vulnerability was permitted… it simply was less important than the backside value of the data.
One thing CTH is 100% committed to is to never compromise user privacy for any data exploit; even if that means forgoing bells and whistles that people want. User privacy is the #1 priority…. When you start there, you are forced, by your mission statement, to focus on front-end security and stability. Every decision related to user privacy is what makes a website anti-fragile because it eliminates the intrusion of Big Tech.
Parler joined with Big Tech and launched with Big Tech… and they suffered the consequences of not having emphasis on the front-end of their creation where stewardship on behalf of the user is the #1 priority. To me, that’s the bottom line.
Protect the front-end users from exploitation by locking down the privacy issues and everything else will fall into place. Allow the front-end users to be exploited, and/or assemble data on those users that might be exploited by others; and/or allow vendors who are not under the same privacy rules; and the site stability will always be vulnerable.
I’m not really into the social media platform stuff, but somebody needed to get fired for leaving Parler as vulnerable as they were. Where was the back up plan?!!
Backup plan is called GAB. It has been for like 2 damn years already.
GAB has been ridiculously too slow for me to use.
Have you tried it over the last few days? It seems much faster!
Matze seemed like he wanted to be a member of the Big Tech Club.
He wanted to work with Jack and Mark. Fellow travelers
I last tried to get on a day or two ago. Stayed locked up for over 10 minutes so I shut it down.
Maybe my Duck Duck Go Privacy Browser that encrypts everything is to fault?
I use the Duck Duck Go Privacy Essentials extension on Firefox and gab performance has been good over the last day or so. I hadn’t heard of the DDG browser, I’ll check it out!
I am using the Brave browser. It appears to consume much less data than my Firefox. And that makes it faster.
I’m using Gab’s browser Dissenter which uses Brave as a base. You can read what Dissenter offers over Brave at the Gab web site.
I just went over to look at someone I follow on Gab, it loaded fast. Gab is making progress.
Firefox ain’t on our side either, kiddoes! Check up on it!!!
Try StartPage it’s far better that Duck Duck Go.
DuckDuckGo is a search engine (search engines work within web browsers to find websites that also work within web browsers). Search engines search for websites and allow you to click through to those websites. Once you are in a website, the search engine is not involved any longer.
Meaning, of course, that DuckDuckGo (your search engine) is NOT why Gab has been slow. Gab has been slow because large numbers of users are leaving radical leftist social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for Gab. Gab is scaling up as fast as they can to meet the challenge of so many new users.
They are talking about the DuckDuckGo addon/app [https://duckduckgo.com/app], which is an extension in the browser so it could in theory affect the loading times. However, it’s still more likely that your reason is correct and it’s because Gab is under heavy load from their recent massive growth.
Duck duck go is owned by Google
DuckDuckGo is owned by Duck Duck Go, Inc. which was started by Gabriel Weinberg. Anyone who wants to use DuckDuckGo can be assured they’re not using a Google product in doing so.Nov 14, 2020-on line search
I use Brave. Works well. But duck duck go is still the search engine.
I use Brave with Startpage as my search browser. That combination works well, too.
Opera, lots of privacy options. DuckDuckGo for search engine.
I have the same issue. Sometime Gab is so slow the images don’t load.
IMO #BigTech keeps hitting it sporadically!
Now Parler looks like a fizzer – they’ll probably try their best against #GAB before moving onto the smaller fish!
Possible on Duck duck go. I use too. However I found if don’t use the Goigle play app to load and wait ,but instead use a bookmark link I get right in the last few times. May be random luck LOL
Come to Gab and see Catturd and all your old friends!
Thanks Matt, I just searched and followed catturd on Gab.
Because I was never on Twatter, I am not familiar with the good accounts to follow there. I’ve found only about 9 so far.
I’ll start making a habit of following any one mentioned here.
Yes it is – I joined Gab only recently after Parler went comatose (I don’t like to call it dead yet).
Gab was hard to get signed on to because of the flood of new users, but has been pretty reasonable over the last week.
Also, I have never been on Twitter so can’t compare speed. Well, except for the Treehouse speed which is now smoking!!
Much better now.
GAB got completely overwhelmed in a mass exodus from Twitter and picked up a lot of Parler refugees.
Servers could not handle the traffic and it took Torba and Co a few days to get it fixed
It’s running fine now, it seems
I’m not a user of Gab, but I have never had a problem VISITING the site(like I just did), bookmarking users and returning. The CEO puts out regular updates.
Between explosive growth(buying new servers, arriving, setting them up) and DOS(denial of service) attacks his team is working, according to his updates, diligently to upscale as quickly as possible.
https://news.gab.com/
i’m talking about Parler’s backup plan.
Wondering about that too. Looks to me as if Matze’s departure may help.
Bingo you are on target Magabear
Parler slept with a tramp and got an STD.
That’s basically what you’re saying?
To me social media is a social disease.
And Dan Bongino sez:
https://rumble.com/vdjpej-the-real-story-behind-the-firing-of-the-parler-ceo.html
Thanks.
The Twitter exchange between SD and Bongino is all we have to see to know this article is ? on point.
Dan’s words (after quoting SD numerous times) seal the deal.
SD: Let’s not forget DB having that little spat with you on twat about how ‘it isn’t data mining’.
(I spent a little energy for ya on that one)
I wish I heard the whole thing.
Sundance sees problems so much before the rest of us.
Now we know his data mining got people hacked and fired from their jobs just for literally being garden variety Republicans.
This problem was not hard to see. As soon as Parler got cancelled and I learned they were on Amazon servers — jeez, I am not a computer genius but that is a HUGE RED FLAG.
I worked for a company, we made a product and had very valuable intellectual property. the highly paid IT manager put us on GOOGLE MAIL!!!! It took a couple of years but finally the CEO and OWNER (privately owned 6th largest chemical company in the world) said get off google.
It didnt take a genius ….
The difficulty is that if you want to start something up quickly and be able to scale it quickly, there are no platforms without Big Redd Flags. Basically you have Amazon and Microsoft. That’s part of why it took Sundance so long to move CT back when they tried to deplatform CT: he had to build everything from the ground up to prevent future deplatforming attacks. And while setting up and maintaining a blog is no easy feat, I think it is somewhat easier than developing the full infrastructure for a chat app.
But given corporate governance, someone had to go and I have no reason to doubt that all the Cxx types were more interested in mining the data than building the platform, so Sundance’s primary criticism still holds, it’s just broader than the CEO.
If you don’t have tine to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? John Wooden
Goggle, Facebook, Twitter, & YouTube aren’t the only games in town.
You want silly, mindless entertainment with cat videos, then check out YouTube. If you want candid discussions on hot topics then maybe Rumble will serve.
Will Telegram do instead of Twitter? Only time will tell.
And the list goes on. There are plenty of alternative sites out there with lots of alternative takes … some are really wacko … but, for the edification of the tech tyrants, plenty of people can tell the difference between shocking and wacko.
But CTH has done the right thing in doing the hard thing, which is to protect the integrity of the site and the privacy of its customers (users).
Leon- one thing about FB, it is very useful for LOCAL advertising in one’s town or village, especially political ads. There is no more print or other old fashioned media to get out the message or to advertise. I can reach a huge audience in my town for $5 when I run for office or want to send out a political ad.
~ I wanna vote for Seneca the Elder – for any office he chooses ~
It’s a whole new world!
No voter suppression!
I demand GLOBAL mail-in ballots!
Telegram does not look very Twitterish to me so far – it appears to rely on one’s phone number and seems more like a replacement for FaceBook Messenger.
But then, I have put a halt on joining it because of the phone number connection, and am just attempting to read up on it instead of actually joining it. I was finding their information quite Byzantine, but probably just need to re-read it when properly caffeinated.
Again, would LOVE a Treeper recommendation for a low-end phone that does just enough text to do Telegram but isn’t wired in to all the baddies. I already have the service – Patriot Mobile – picked out – just need to identify a decent phone.
I never liked Parler that much – the format seemed awful to me and the font was too pale. Plus I didn’t like the info they required to be verified. Consequently – I miss Twitter and all that goes on there but won’t put up with the censorship and I don’t miss Parler. Guess what – I can live without either of them and add FB and Netflix. It’s a smaller world when you start cancelling your enemies but you get used to it and this gives me more time to do real things.
Get on Gab. Great place, good things happening there. Excellent (and Christian) owner.
Actually I am on Gab but just haven’t gone there lately. I sure hope our real POTUS goes there one day! Glad to know the owner is a Christian!
It opens you up to be ready when our new avenues line up. So we enjoy our sites like here and soon hopefully Trump or Peter Thiel creates something that really provides an umbrella for us all. A congregation point that allows many voices to emerge.
Like how Sundance has his blog roll. Like Youtube, etc. But really allows a total crackdown on libs. They have lost all right to free speech on our sites.
You can’t even comment respectfully as a Republican on Leftwing gossip sites. It’s ridiculous.
I think we should have some dialogue with them but only when it helps us or keeps us open so we don’t become insular and ossified.
I have two sites that keep me afloat. Free Republic (which frequently posts articles from the enemy so they can be dissected) and TCH. Gab is great – and will get better as more go there and I should go there more.
Let us hope that Sundances lead will be followed, but remember something:
FREEDOM ISN’T FREE!!
Because TCH (and other sites that hopefully follow his lead) don’t/ won’t be harvesting AND SELLING Data, they will HAVE to have a steady revenue stream.
To pay for servers, etc.
So, in addition to funding worthwhile Candidates, like MTG, we will need to hit that DONATE button.
Great places to send that $ that some of us USED to send to RNC.
Me too, I do check out Daily Mail to see the trash once in a while.
Life would be so much simpler if we just went back to the Telegraph and the Pony Express.
Carrier Pigeons.
smoke signals
Elizabeth Warren will moderate smoke signals!
Plain old fashioned LETTERS, you know “snail mail”.
Funny how they discontinued the Concord jet, cause it turned out not that many people actually NEEDED to get from NY to Europe in 3 hours,…
Perhaps “weening” ourselves off of this “faster easier” technology, is also something to work on?
Laughed with my neighbor the other day,…
He lives about 50 yds away.
I sent a text message, to a cell tower 5 miles away, which sent it to a satellite, up in space, then BACK down to the tower, and to his phone, asking him “whats up, u home?”
How CRAZY is THAT??!!
Off course nation,
The Pony Express could probably deliver mail faster than the service from USPS now days. But can’t give up the phone, I need to read CTH.
I vote for the messenger pigeon…
Pony Express only lasted for 2 years before the train eliminated it… point being is that “big tech” has become an arm of the deep state and is way past its prime. Much innovation has been quashed.
No. The telegraph eliminated Pony Express.
Yup, a basic premise of “tech” is INNOVATION, i.e. something new and different.
And inherent IN tech is this rapid turnover, as “better” hardware and software comes along, making the old systems obsolete.
“Big Tech” jumped on harvesting and marketing mega data, to generate a bunch of $, and then used that $ to squelch any further advancements, that would make THEM obsolete.
Buying up and killing off innovations, and buying off Congress, to maintain what is an inherently vulnerable cash cow.
Same exact thing with MSM both broadcast and cable. The consistent ratings superiority of Faux, is one of many indicators, of the POTENTIAL market we are, and directly refutes the false narrative of pollsters MSM, that
“America is a 50/50 nation,with slightly more voting Democrat.”
The Pony Express lasted from April 1860 to October 1861.
The first transcontinental railroad was finished on May 10, 1869.
Bunch of children fighting over a broken toy.
A little humor that makes sense in this situation:
This is spot on…..they want a “conservative” google, in which they could monetize the users.
Anybody here remember when a fellow named Dan Bongino sort of appeared for interviews on Alex Jones back in the days of the Anthony Weiner laptop scandal? I do. And I remember how he said his contacts in the NYPD had told him they weren’t going to turn over the laptop to the FBI under ANY circumstances after what they saw on it. In fact, those “brave” folks were going to stand up and let people know what they found. So he said.
Well, they turned it over to the FBI. After that, I couldn’t listen to the guy or trust anything he said. I get that he may have been misled. Which means he has unreliable and/or untrustworthy contacts. I’m not interested in that. I get that a lot of people like him. That’s fine. Doesn’t mean spit to me.
As for Parler, he should have known better, especially when solid reliable people tried to warn him. Instead, he blames Matze.
Exactly! Why would Matze be responsible for the Amazon server if they couldn’t afford anything else?
Looks like they made Matze the fall guy. It’s not a good look. In fact, it’s kind of despicable.
I didn’t know that but I don’t trust him after the crap with Sundance. He reaks of FOX and the feds. So that’s not a permanent deal killer, but I need proof you can be trusted now that those two institutions have been proved corrupted.
Now that you mention it, Falana, he kind of does have that fed persona.
Its at the point where I don’t need “proof” someone is a rolcon, …
I need “proof” someone ISN’T.
MTG gets my “vote” and cash, because on the podcast she clearly and PUBLICALLY said negative things about McConnell.
Only one in Congress I know of, other than her, who has done that is GHOMERT.
THATS out of 435. And not ONE Senator will speak against McConnell.
Secret ballot vote to retain Liz 145-61, so MAYBE we have 61 maga in Congress, am not. convinced we have ONE in the Senate.
No, not Cruz, certainly. Not Hawley either, IMHO.
He is ambicious, and angling for votes in a run for POTUS in 2024.
And no, not Rand Paul, either. I think he is controlled op, he certainly has never criticised Mitch, despite Rands reputation for outspokenness.
So, with NO representation in the Senate, and PERHAPS 60 out of 435 in the House, the MAGA movement has a lot of work ahead of it.
In Az, the R party State chair is MAGA. THATS a good start, check out YOUR State R party officers. Are the MAGA or RINO?
Your numbers look accurate to me.
Totally replace those and totally remake the national organization and we might have a chance.
In his speech against Cheney in Wyoming, Matt Gaetz spoke against McConnell. It was a brief part of a larger statement (as I recall), but it definitely got my attention.
The first I ever heard of Bongino was his run for Congress in Maryland. Seemingly came out of no where at the time. Then he moved south after the loss. Who has funded him?
I believe Dan used to be a Secret Service Agent.
Many of the police who were involved and saw what was on that laptop have died ….
“First, Matze should have been fired -and the ownership group eviscerated- for allowing the vulnerability of their host server system to exist on Amazon. That was perhaps the stupidest decision of a “conservative” platform ever.”
BINGO! Matze did a terrible job, his decisions on using Amazon servers to host Parler’s platform is why they got shut down & exposed user privacy.
.
Unless we are willing to believe that the Mercers and Bongino are fairly stupid and completely tech illiterate (which I do not believe), Matze didn’t make these major decisions all on his own.
Mercers & Bongino weren’t given the jov title & responsibilities of CEO. The consequences of the decisions he made in that are HIS and HIS alone. Personally, I hated Parler. Gab is much better, but that’s on the CEO.
.
Major contracts such as basing an entire operation on Amazon services (“leasing”) rather than building one’s own facilities and physical plant, or the company’s purpose and corporate goals, are not things that the CEO of a start-up company makes on his own. These are decisions that get run by the Board of Directors.
which is why they fired his ass
I guess the irony is … that the Mercers wanted a social media platform that self-generated a conservative user “contact list” to mine for political donations, but then hosted the contact list on another platform that hates conservative users.
“But AWS doesn’t read your data” yeah right, just like how Amazon data mines their 3rd party sellers’ hot products and competes against them? That group of thieves?
They basically built a target list, then acted surprised when someone used the target list to blacklist.
So they were trying similar approach as Facebook to collect and use user info for their own purposes. A sign of our times. But Big Tech collaborating to take down competition still very very wrong. I’m still so thankful Sundance has clear vision as well as being a brilliant analyst. This is the best place!!!
I would rather pay a monthly fee to use the service…Theres no free lunch. And a lot of our problems come from the “Napster” mentality, that everything should be free.
Some people say that the best things in life are free; I think that the truly valuable things in life come at a price.
TANSTAAFL
The one name here that makes me want to believe Matze over Bongino is “Mercer”. Mercer owns Breitbart, and Breitbart is a traitor site, which was unwilling to publish the truth about voter fraud in the 2020 election. I HATE Breitbart for that. I felt completely betrayed by that site.
So yeah, Bongino and Mercer – don’t bother trying to resurrect Parler. I’m on Gab and Telegram now. Stay down!
If they revive it, it’s lost its appeal. I’ve gotten used to no Twitter and parlor.
Were you ever actually on Parler if you spelled it that way?
Seems to me it woulda made it kinda hard to find the site… ?
Donald Trump Calls In to Arizona Voter Fraud Hearing: We’re Fighting Back
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/30/donald-trump-calls-in-to-arizona-voter-fraud-hearing-were-fighting-back/
I cannot express how much I appreciate the privacy protection of this site.
I’m not going anywhere or using anything that doesn’t do the same.
I will even wait and not join any Trump endeavor until they do the same.
The greatest paradox:
If Trump would become hellbent on helping people recover their privacy he would rule the world. A place you could go that protected you like Sundance, fought all the Big Brother intrusions and civil liberties violations, fought for our elections again, and continued to push the whole MAGA agenda would attract a global movement based on populism/nationalism.
Totally agree, Falana. And I really appreciate the admins. Ever since I’ve been here, I have yet to see a single troll. I’m sure it has happened from time to time, they can slip through on occasion, but I’ll bet it only happens once and they’re gone.
I was reading some comments at a site that currently seems to be experiencing a troll plague and it got so bad with one guy that the site operator addressed him directly in the comments and said he’d contacted the FBI. So I’m thinking, wait, you did WHAT? I hope it was just an idle threat, because if the FBI did show up (Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help) you just know what the drill would be. They wouldn’t stop with just one troll, oh no, they’d want to look at every commenter “just in case” and the next thing you know, some folks might end up like Ricky Vaughn/Douglass Mackey.
So yes, I appreciate both the privacy and the troll control here.
I, on the other hand, don’t entirely trust even all levels of CTH, since one “stella”, identified as an Ad Rem “Wolverine Club Level” strove one day here to badmouth Sidney Powell and the overwhelming evidence for 2020 vote fraud, in a series of comments:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/01/12/president-trump-impromptu-remarks-departing-white-house-8/#comment-7461464
PS: Click on the above to go to the CTH post with the comments.
Hi there! I’m an Admin here, as is Ad Rem. Ad Rem is a person, not a level, btw.
I’ve been a volunteer admin since February 1, 2011. Who the hell are you?
Feel free to disagree respectfully, if you know how, which I doubt.
PS: I reminded you back then that if you made one more smart ass comment about an Admin, I would put you in moderation. Hope you like it there.
ADD: Another one, and it’s the black hole. If you think any of the other admins will bail you out, you are sadly mistaken.
And factor in a MEDIA alternative, as well. News that doesn’t employ libtard talking heads, under the guise of “fair and balanced” b.s.
If I want to know what libtards are thinking, I don’t need Juan Williams to tell me, I can flip to any other channel, and here it direct from the horses asses on CNN, MSNBC, etc.
Give me news and in depth fact based analyses, like we see from Sundance, and wholesome entertainment, and watch the other companies go right down the tubes.
Big Tech, MSM AND the Republican party, all of the same mold; both in the “marketplace of ideas” and in the marketplace of goods and services, they are using influence to prevent competition, and trying to force an inferior, unwanted product on consumers.
Its as if Coca Cola had not only rolled out “new coke”, and d.c.’d old coke, but had bought out “the uncola” and all other competitors, and bribed Congress to pass legislationto drive any competitors out of business.
THIS is what comes from Corruption of Conmunism.
It institutionalises corruption, eliminates incentive and innovation.
And, inevitable results in the death of millions, and the living death of grey, meaningless and joyless lives for the survivors.
Every dsy I wake up to another ‘shoe falling’ under this regime…this mornings tidings was a military-wide stand down to eliminate racial inequities….those inequities must be in the upper ranks…because I sure havent seen or heard of any…UNLESS…this has to do with officers at the incoming level, and specifically the Academies…..anything to control and subvert the Constitutionally mandated purpose of our military….perhaps now the govt will only admit regime supporting candidates into the Academy programs….Constitutionalists and conservatives need not apply…what better way to create a military force that will enforce an illegitimate regime….
I am now living in a parallel universe…there is my universe and that universe that controls Washington right now.
Excuse me while I go vomit….
Dutch for President!
Please.
Social media addiction is real. I don’t trust people who have alcohol on their breath, you can smell them from across the room. They will tell you they can, “quit any time”. :-/
I haven’t logged into twitter in a decade. Not because it’s not a safe space(it isn’t, like hanging out in a bar trying to stay sober). But because there is no reason to…if you can go directly to the users website and pull the RSS feed independently. Easier and faster then logging into any social media site.
“Since its peak in July 2013, Twitter was on a years-long decline through the end of 2018, but had begun slowly growing again over the course of 2019. Then, in the space of just two weeks in the middle of March 2020, as lockdowns swept the world, the platform grew by almost 100 million tweets a day, rising back to its July 2013 numbers.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/01/29/tracking_twitters_growth_did_trump_ban_cause_a_dip_145154.html
Sundance and his team are the BEST.
I had 3400 followers on parler. If they are going to follow ruining the Breitbart name, with parler,
I want out.
Didn’t Bongino swear up and down at one point Mercer wasn’t part of Parler?
Either way, that vid reeks of fake outrage. I don’t like people who repeat their points that many times. It makes me think they’re trying to convince themselves too.
Let’s have a show of hands (figuratively, of course). Who here thinks that the fact that “parler” was just left out there dangling as the conservatives “last choice”, while data mining was the goal?
Yep, herds of BCS victims led “into the chute”.
Thanks dan…
skipper
‘I want everyone to follow me on Parler. I’m on Parler. I want you on Parler. Go to Parler, join up on Parler and follow me there.’
— Mark Levin, radio show last year
Nunes too.
The “conservative” media Trump traitors of the 2015-2016 Republican primaries: Limbaugh, Levin, Beck and Medved. Never forget!
Salem got rid of Medved quick when his anti-Trump talk sent listeners packing and his ratings tanked.
To these ears he was always unlistenable.
It makes me sick to see Rush Limbaugh referred to as a “Trump traitor.” Shameful.
I’ve listened to nearly every Rush program since 2015-16, and know how incorrect you are. What a wonderful moment, when President Trump honored Rush Limbaugh with the deserved Medal of Freedom.
The circular firing squad is very busy here this morning.
You just made me laugh, JDIN. Meh, Levin. Melvin
Mr. Bongino’s video is like those people in the movies, re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I believe Dan is an honorable and truthful man.
Now it’s time for a Mercer family representative or member to explain what their intentions are regarding sundance’s comment:
“Protect the front-end users from exploitation by locking down the privacy issues and everything else will fall into place.
And for all this time the owners (directors?) were completely clueless about how Parler was being structured? And the CEO just went off on his own for years with a different goal? I have a difficult time believing that. Sorry, Dan. I don’t buy it. How much did you pay Matze to parachute out and be the fall guy.
Did no one ever see the glitz of the ‘parlar’ start?
employed by twitter
Been on Gab since 2016, the first time Jack suspended me.
Never used it much because there was no one on the platform.
There’s certainly more people on it now, very few of any name recognition or import but lots of nutters.
Parler was (is?) definitely more of what you’d expect from a name brand micro-blogging platform, with enough cross pollination from Twitter to make it worth sticking around.
Gab claims to be 100% funded by users so it’s assumed you’re info isn’t being sold to the highest bidder.
As for Parler what’s in it for the Mercers if they can’t monetize the user’s info?
The final chapter of Parler has yet to be written.
I don’t envy the position Mr. Bongino finds himself in.
FWIW there are Trumps on Telegram.
Very thoughtful insight and not surprisingly Dbongino never addresses the issue of data ownership. I do not like that Oligarchs like mercer, adleson and others seek and obtain control the meta data of conservative thinkers. Mercer is a genius and billonaire, but so is Koch (last brother) and several others begining with the Rockelfellers who become politicians AFTER they made their fortunes.
Rockefellers wanted to own Alcoholics Anonymous but by some miracle the founders sidestepped their generous offer that was to subsidize the nascent group who had obvious success and decided to maintain themselves only as a ‘self supporting’ movement.
I believe that AA was founded through Divine Intervention.
This simple program has saved the lives of millions of sick and suffering alcoholics, myself included.
Why dont I give a rat’s ass about Parler? It’s about as important to me as used toilet paper. Get over to Gab, a Christian based platform and no Pedos allowed which infuriates the Pedocrats.
Not a Bongino fan.
All his insider tips only made him money.
Didnt do a damn thing for MAGA.
Id rather listen to Levin, if I want the conservative flavored propaganda.
it’s easy to tell who is in it for the money, nowadays
Do not cry for Parler. Parler did this to themselves. All well and good that the CEO is gone but the rest of the leadership needs to be sent packing too imo. Mounting Parler on Amazon’s cloud servers was a group decision, one man did not make it.
As for those who are opining about Gab: look, you’ve found a nice new shiny platform to play with, I get it, but you don’t have the experience with Torba that I do. The man has been running Gab into the ground for years. He pushes out new code and new patches right before Christmas and then leaves the site broken until the engineers come back from Christmas break. This is not old news, this happened a few months ago in 2020. You can’t load Gab because they are not optimizing the servers and because their relays are completely non-functional. They’re too incompetent to code them properly.
If you really want to set up a right wing network then more work should be put into the fediverse and making Pleroma viable for normies. Torba is a moron and Gab is a complete mess of spaghetti code, Bongino and Co. clearly have no idea what the hell they’re doing, it’s all a big mess. And these right wing bigheads, who think setting up a social media website is simple, are completely to blame.
You must understand what the scope of your project is. You have to institute good practices. You need to have a plan and not just wing it and hope. This kind of lazy stupidity is why conservatives keep losing and the losing will continue unless something changes.
Yes, Gab can be a hot mess. It still exists, though, and has survived all efforts to take it down.
Sometimes waiting for perfect can be counter-productive.
This is a foolish point of view. I am not asking for perfection, I am asking for a site that consistently loads (comments in this very comment section are noting that they are completely unable to load the site at all) and can display information. Even something as barebones as neocities can do that, and that is technology from the 1990s run by a handful of technology enthusiasts out of their basements.
Look, if you want to love the platform that sat and stared while a neonazi posted about his plans to mass murder a bunch of Jews because he hated Donald Trump, go ahead. If you want to love a platform that is so stupid they put out code pushes and then leave for vacation for a week while the site is broken, go ahead. If you want to love a platform that is run by an incompetent that does all of these things and is enabled by the desperate, go ahead. But I’m not going to shut up about it because Torba is taking all of you for a ride and someone needs to talk about this stuff.
They have 5 employees abd you expect miracles. Spare us from your bile.
Grow up. Gab was established in 2016, they have had 5 years to iron out the kinks and establish good working procedure when working with technology. They tolerate neonazis (the guy who shot up a synagogue posted about his plans on Gab) but do moronic code pushes right before a holiday and leave the site completely unusable for days at a time. You can cry and scream about how unfair it is for us to want a website that actually works but Gab’s website will never be baseline functional so long as enablers make pathetic excuses. It is not supposed to be a miracle to ask for a functioning website that actually loads.
Sounds like Matze was never really a conservative, just a tech guy. The idea of making Parler into the conservative alternative to Twitter came later, like midway through 2020, as it became clear the Twitter and FaceBook were going to censor the hell out of conservatives.
“conservative alternative to Twitter”
In that premise, lies the root of our demise.
Why do we accept that we must choose a software application based on the ideological criteria it uses to censor some users and not others?
Would we ever even entertain the idea of a “Marxist” cellphone company .vs. a “conservative” cellphone company?
But the reality is that FB and Twitter are bent to the Left, whether we “accept it” or not, and there’s nothing we can do about that except use a more conservative or free speech alternative. Congress isn’t going to helps us because the Dems love that the largest players back them. You think Justice might launch an antitrust investigation? Ummm, no, the deep state is not going to help us.
You fail to grasp the alternative to censored speech is free speech. Thanjs for playing.
According to wikipedia, in 2012, Bongino & wife operated 3 businesses from their home. 2 out of the 3 are relevant.
Designing websites, and consulting on security and risk management.
Bongino obviously should have known better.
He never gives credit to where it’s due.
Rush, Dobbs, a few others have mentioned this site a bunch. You never get that from Bongino who has gotten material from here, used it… to make listeners think he’s the smartest person in the world. TRUST is a word I would never use in a sentence with Bongino.
Personally, I’ve never liked, nor followed him on any platforms, including Twitter. He tends to exaggerate. Something about him has always rubbed the wrong way.
Citizen, you said it well. Always a voice of reason. Ocelot should note that fellow agents did not think him as trustworthy as Ocelot. From SS agent to runs for a Congress in Maryland, (Senate and House), then a political attempt after moving to Florida…………who was financially backing him? Then part-owner of Parler?
I am all for kepping a weather eye towarfs Bongino, Inc., but to say he has never (in his parlance) given a “hat-tip” to CTH during his podcast is not true.
Agree with that. I have heard him give credit to CTH a few times over the last few years – and, at the same time, he was very honest that he and CTH “don’t get along.”
As for the hints here that his original run for office was somehow “secretly funded,” I don’t believe that at all – instead it seems like RolCon “piling on” simply to divide PDJT supporters in any way possible.
As for the Mercer question – yes, that is a big one, and I am watching. Thanks to sundance for uncovering the real issues, always.
On the topic of big data, I don’t think it is necessary that no data harvesting ever take place. I’m glad that Sundance is committed to data privacy for this site, more power to him, but I see no reason why no one should ever help, say, Trump running for President in 2016 find potential conservative voters by data mining sites like Breitbart.
Intent.
There is a fine but critical line between mining data to expand/inform/market to an individual or group .vs. mining data to destroy/target/censor the group or individual. Big tech was enabled for the latter. Amazon hosting is but one example.
The Mercers aren’t going to mine data to destroy conservatives. They are conservatives. They are doing it to help conservative campaigns in the future, just as Trump was helped tremendously in 2016 by data on potential conservative voters. Now if Amazon Web Hosting is collecting data to destroy/target/censor conservatives that is a security issue, and maybe Matze should have been fired a long time ago. But the vibe I’m getting from Sundance is that the Mercers are bad people just because they collect data to help conservative causes and candidates, and I disagree with that premise.
beautiful, Sundance . . . reminds me again about being grateful for what you were able to do here through the Automattic thing . . .
Thank you for your analysis Sundance
Test
Thank you for the analysis Sundance
I’m a little late to this discussion, but wanted to remind all the folks here that You Tube is Google/Alphabet.
I deleted my You Tube account, my Disqus account (they are some kind of deep state agent. You can call me paranoid but I stand by that.) quit Fakebook years ago, have a twit account which I never used and am looking for a phone/cellular provide free of Android or Apple. They siphon your data any which way they can and sell or use it for their own purposes. None of it benefits you.
Quit feeding the beast.
Your phone alternative ia tin cans.
What needs to happen is Android be spun out of Google. They ripped off the Java platform and Oracle has to be made whole by Google. They should get a big chunk of Android.
There are potential options but I’m not sure I would characterize the platforms as mature:
https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
You’d also have to check for compatibility with your carrier.
Thank you Sundance for the massive care you’ve given to this Treehouse and our community. It is truly the last refuge, more than ever.
Parler might return but I did not like it very much. Gab is the best alternative to Fakebook but it will take time to shine.
How do we know that John Matze chose Amazon? Or, was it chosen for him? Also, why do we trust Mercer and Bongino? I am not defending Matze; don’t know anything about him or Mercer for that matter. Bongino used to be all over Fox when I used to watch Fox. That’s it; before someone gets their panties in a wad, I am just asking questions.
This is what I also see in regards to starting a third party; as my grandmother used to say,
Too many cooks spoil the broth”.
When they start employing the IP blocks…..we’ll need a whole separate internet.
Ah. The same ‘conservatives’ that block all mention of the Dark Lord’s name, Soros…
“Instead it was the backside operation, the user data, that held the value from the Mercer perspective.”
Unless we return to a model where we pay for applications and own our data, we continue to exchange our privacy and liberty for peanuts.
Free apps are not free. In the early days of PC and hosted/shared software applications, consumers and businesses paid for applications and we owned our data. The data, whether personal or proprietary was the most valuable asset. If the owner of the data did not have complete control and protection of the data collected by the app, the software and/or hosting company was ruined.
At the same time, open interchange standards allowed a competitive application market because we could move and exchange data as we needed. The “cloud” and free app model takes all of our data, allowing big tech and corporate monopolies the grow exponentially in size and scope.
So now, central monopolies own, control, exchange and analyze every minute detail of our lives. Insane what we give away every time we turn on that phone. A typical iphone application like navigation or facebook might cost 5 or 10 dollars, yet we take the free one and give away thousands of dollars of our information, not to mention our priceless privacy.
We exchange the crown jewels for trinkets.
Good points. This is why I recently changed my email from GoogEvil to a paid service. I figure it’s worth a yearly amount for independence.
I would love to know what exactly the deal is with the Mercers’s.
A few years ago they started a really good Taxpayers advocacy group in NY to try and push back against the corrupt DemonRats who run my state. That organization was Reclaim NY.
They had the money and the organization so it looked like finally people like me who had been working on the grassroots level, would have a chance to make a difference.
They started out doing some really good work. I was pleasantly surprised.
They invested a fair amount of money and seemed to be gaining momentum.
They weren’t in business very long- maybe a few years, then abruptly shut down and left.
I never did find out the truth about what happened.
Telegram has many ppl on it. GAB will improve with time, under tremendous load from influx of new users and also targeted by tech lords. Another newer player is gitmo.life which was kreator. Not many there yet but nice user interface.
Choice of application is determined by what you are looking for. Find those who protect and support their users liberties and are truth tellers. support them. So far CTH is best on all counts
By the way, CTH’s very own friend Joe Dan Gorman of Intellectual Froglegs also has a social media site advertised, one called Spreely.
I recently joined it out of curiosity, did not see much action.
Wonder whether anyone has the story on that little seed?
Bongino is arranging deck chairs. He made poor decisions as a board member and his investment has suffered as a direct result. I deleted Parler regardless of “who struck John” and I joined Gab with a lifetime contribution. Sorry for your loss Dan
the last post from @realdonaldtrump on GAB is Jan 8th-Is PDJT still posting on GAB? or did he change his @realdonaldtrump user name? I can usually get on GAB-I use Brave and DDG…
I suspect he’s laying low until after the Pelosi/Biden/Obama inspired impeachment
I think there are a fair number of PDJT spoofers around right now.
I won’t trust that any of them are real until I hear it confirmed from sundance, or Rush, or Devin, or some other reliable source…
The posts you have seen on Gab are recreations of his T posts as I understand it.
Not clear what the “free speech” battle between the two supposed “wings” has to do with protecting user privacy.
Seems like Matze wanted to censor legal speech on the site, and the “Bongino” wing (which this article seems to say includes Mercer) didn’t.
Or is that backwards?
Or does anyone really know?
Meanwhile – does anybody have ANY info on whatever happened to the supposed Parler lawsuit against Amazon?
In it, Parler mainly claimed breach of contract. That AWS had to give 30 days notice of termination, and only gave 30 hours.
Searching turns up NOTHING on this.
The Parler suit sought an immediate, temporary injunctive relief, which was denied. Last I heard, Amazon asked the court to throw out the case.
Thanks.
“… the front end of Parler was not the priority. If it were, the decision to make Amazon the server host would never have been made. Instead, it was the backside operation, the user data, that held the value from the Mercer perspective.”
Sundance’s analysis is correct and spot-on, as SD so often is. Mercer’s business is data analytics. They love to capture contact, profile, and usage data essentially for free and market and monetize a perceived gold mine of information to both political parties and their candidates. They are much more than influencers; they are election-focused, political power brokers.