Ross: A possible downside to letting Parler go under
Jan 15, 2021, 6:34 AM | Updated: 10:27 am
(Christophe Gateau/dpa via AP)
(Christophe Gateau/dpa via AP)
Rick Manning is the president of a conservative group called Americans for Limited Government. He uses Parler – the conservative Twitter alternative, which Apple and Google have now banned from their app stores.
“The idea that there is this seditious insurrection conversation going on on Parler is completely false,” Manning claims.
He told me that he uses Parler for a very different purpose, like a video he posted the day after the attack on the Capitol, where he said the following:
“Let me be clear up front. The people who breached the Capitol – the people who were arrested; the people involved in looting the Capitol – they are not heroes.”
He is very critical of leftist influences in government, but says his objective is peaceful change.
“To fix a broken system, not to destroy it,” he clarifies in his video.
That video drew 100,000 impressions on Parler – and he told me that by dumping Parler, Apple and Google don’t just suppress the bad guys; it also suppresses voices like his – which only makes things worse.
“You take away a relief valve — that’s what’s stupid about this,” he opined. “How do I give them positive alternatives on how to do stuff, if I can’t reach them through platforms like Parler? The answer is I can’t.”
He’s got a point. If the idea is to defuse an angry conservative movement, posting more videos of Nancy Pelosi is probably not going to work.
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