The new CEO of Parler called allegations that the social media platform was used to help coordinate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack a “political hit” job and said that Big Tech firms view his company as a “business threat.”
Interim CEO Mark Meckler pledged Parler’s “independence from the Big Tech oligarchy,” and that it would only work with vendors that are committed to “free speech” and that won’t come under attack from the “woke mob,” during an interview with the Epoch Times on Thursday.
Parler was founded in 2018 and billed itself as a platform that protects free speech. It has been popular with conservatives and jumped to the most downloaded app on Apple in November after the presidential election.
A handful of Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Google, moved to take down Parler in early January, citing its role in enabling the Capitol attack. Parler announced on Monday that its website has resumed operations on a new platform but that its phone app is not available on iPhone or Android devices yet.
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Meckler said Parler was being unfairly treated in comparison to its larger competitors Twitter and Facebook, who he said are far more responsible for helping coordinate the Jan. 6 violence.
“It was Facebook. It was YouTube. It was Twitter. That’s where the bad activity was taking place. For the most part, not much on Parler at all,” he said.
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Meckler claimed that Parler was taken down thanks to “a political hit and a business hit” by Big Tech companies who want to stifle free speech and are against Parler’s business model, which he said does not capture or monetize user data.
