WEST VIRGINIA (WOAY) – Since the election, a new social media app has taken off, but not everyone is excited about what Parler has to offer.
“I think a lot of people who have a lot of strong opinions and feel like they’re being filtered are moving onto that app,” said Brandon Hays.
Two years after its initial launch, Parler is finally drawing attention and jumping to the top of the app store’s popular downloads.
“The only things I’ve really seen on it are a lot of political stuff,” said Trevor Hays.
One of the features many users find attractive is the app being free of fact checking or censorship.
“If you threaten people on Facebook, they’ll take your post down and stop you,” said Brandon. “People are looking for an outlet for that anger, which I understand, but hopefully it fizzles out.”
When you check out Affiliates on the app, you most likely won’t see articles by well known outlets like ABC News or even The AP. Instead, you’ll see articles by sites like conservative magazine The Federalist and even satirical website Babylon Bee.
“Some people are talking about how ‘we need to filter out the democrats,’ and ‘we’ve been controlled for too long,’ or ‘if we have to take the corruption out with physicality, we will,'” said Brandon.
When it comes to using any social media app, it’s a good idea to keep an eye out for false information. Be sure the source can be trusted and try verifying the information from a second website.
“I think eventually it will fizzle out,” said Trevor. “There’s always this kind of tension right around elections. It’s kind of a high-emotion time, especially with coronavirus. The more we move on through the holidays, it will draw people’s attention away from it and it will die out a little bit.”
In user reviews, some people have reported problems when attempting to make an account. other reviews say users are happy the app doesn’t censor their posts.
