Social media app Parler tops charts, sparks controversy

MINOT, N.D. – The political divide in 2020 has spilled over into social media.

More and more people are leaving “mainstream” social media apps for something different amid concerns of censorship.

Parler is the latest app to be making an impact in the social media realm. Launched in 2018, the app claims to promote free speech and unbiased social media, something Alexandria Splonskowski said she felt very strongly about.

“I was just sick of being censored for just posting different opinions nothing hurtful, nothing harmful, just having a different view point then the far left,” said Splonskowski.

She is not alone. Many Facebook users creating events promising to leave the app to the new “unbiased” app, Parler.

“So many of my friends are talking about just leaving Facebook because they are so tired of what they have been doing with all this censorship,” said Parler user, Gwendolyn Rappuhn.

The chairman of the North Dakota Young Republicans group says that regardless of political affiliation, it’s always good to have different media options.

“Anytime you have a monopoly like Facebook or Twitter, or I guess Instagram was bought by Facebook, anytime you have this monopoly it’s always good to have competition especially in this marketplace of ideas,” said Reed Christensen, NDYR chairman.

Minot State communications professor Alison MacFee has studied media for a while. She said that censorship and misinformation in media is nothing new.

“The idea of rumors and hoaxes and fake news has been around just as long as the establishment of media,” said MacFee.

Changing the face of how we interact over social media.

MeWe, a similar app to Parler promoting unbiased media, is also currently popular in the app stores.

To understand how and why Facebook and Twitter censor posts and tweets, their privacy and user guidelines are public and easily accessible.

Here is Facebook’s policy on misinformation can be found here.

Twitter’s misinformation policy can be found here.

Copyright 2020 KFYR. All rights reserved.