Right-wing social media app Parler has raised $20 million in funding
According to an SEC filing signed and submitted on January 6, the anniversary of last year’s domestic attack on the Capitol, the conservative social media platform Parler has raised $20 million in funding.
The app, which claims to have more than 16 million registered users, describes its mission as defending “against the authoritarian powers of Big Tech, Big Government, and cancel culture.” The app also claims to be nonpartisan, but anti-hate groups and researchers such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have observed Parler’s influence in the far-right information ecosystem, from its role in the Capitol insurgency to spreading anti-vaccine misinformation.
Parler has not responded to a request for comment on who its new investors are, but the filing states that the offering includes 10 non-accredited investors. Rebekah Mercer, a major Republican political donor, led the previous angel round, which raised an undisclosed sum. On the filing, Mercer is listed as both an executive officer and a director. Seth Dillon, CEO of the conservative satire website the Babylon Bee, is also on the board.
The filing was discovered by Axios, which has yet to receive a response from Parler.
Parler rose to prominence last year, around the time of the January 6 insurgency, after social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook barred former President Donald Trump from using their platforms.
These bans, which were imposed after repeated warnings, were enacted in response to concerns that Trump was using his popularity to disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power.
Many of Trump’s supporters flocked to Parler, which had less stringent community guidelines, after Trump’s de-platforming from mainstream social platforms. Parler rose to No. 1 on the App Store just days after the attack on the United States Capitol, but it was removed from Google Play on January 8, 2021. Parler was quickly removed from Amazon and Apple’s platforms due to terms of service violations. According to the companies, Trump supporters and other far-right users used the app to call for violence and organize their plans to storm the Capitol.
“Parler has not taken sufficient steps to address the spread of these threats to people’s safety.” “We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues,” Apple said at the time of the ban, according to TechCrunch.
Parler’s then-CEO, John Matze, stated on his Parler account that the company would not comply with the App Store’s demands that it submit a content moderation improvement plan. However, on January 29, he was fired by Parler’s board, which was controlled by Mercer. By April, the app was back in the App Store under new CEO George Farmer’s leadership.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Farmer explained that when Parler was removed from the App Store before his tenure, the app didn’t have any AI moderation, and its human moderation mechanism — a jury system — was also in its early stages.
Farmer stated that under his leadership, Parler has implemented AI content moderation, which it did not have at the time of its app store removal. This additional $20 million could help the app continue to develop this filtering technology, which Parler uses in conjunction with human moderation. According to Parler’s community guidelines, the app will “not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts.”
According to Sensor Tower data, Parler’s mobile app has been downloaded approximately 11.3 million times worldwide since its launch. The app has only been downloaded 141,000 times since its return to the App Store in May 2021, according to the company. If Parler’s stated figure of 16 million+ registered users is correct, this would imply that the majority of users access Parler through its native mobile app.
Parler may soon face new competition in the form of TRUTH Social, Trump’s own social network, which is set to launch on President’s Day, February 21.
