New rightwing free speech site Parler gets in a tangle over … free speech

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has started having his tweets fact-checked and published with disclaimers when they contain misleading information. Katie Hopkins, the woman who once compared migrants to cockroaches and called for a “final solution” in relation to Muslims, has been banned from Twitter. And a subreddit called r/The_Donald has been banned after Reddit updated its hate speech guidelines – Reddit said in a statement that “mocking people with physical disabilities” and “describing a racial minority as sub-human and inferior to the racial majority” will not be allowed.

Related: Twitter closes Graham Linehan account after trans comment

And so, naturally, people are asking where on earth they are supposed to go to get their daily dose of “free speech”.

Enter Parler, the new, supposedly unbiased free-speech social network that suggests, when you join, you follow people such as Rand Paul, Hopkins and Rudy Giuliani. Other rightwing politicians such as Ted Cruz and Devin Nunes are on it. So too are the much-overlooked members of the Trump family Eric and Lara, commentators such as Candace Owens, and Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale.

A glance at Parler might lead you to think that the platform is just a benign, more boring version of Twitter. Megyn Kelly is on Parler telling you she doesn’t like Mary Trump’s new book; Eric Trump is posting boring statements such as “Another great day for the market (amazing how the media and left have been very quiet about this incredible recovery)” – which reminds you of why Don Jr is the more popular brother; the Daily Caller is retweeting (re-parlering?) a bunch of articles that look like they belong on the Onion.

But since the platform’s selling point is that it provides a safe space for people who want to use hate speech, the ugliness is there if you want to find it: Hopkins is equating Black Lives Matter protests with “thuggery” and posting comments such “Our white girls pay the price. Every time” in a post about illegal immigration in Scotland.

Andrew Torba – who tried to make his own alternative free-speech network for those exiled from Twitter – has called it a magnet for “Z-list Maga celebrities.” His website, Gab, quickly became popular with extremists including antisemites and neo-Nazis – including the Pittsburgh synagogue suspect Robert Bowers, who announced his intentions for mass murder on the platform.

Torba’s experience shows that regulating free speech on a platform that allows hate speech to run rampant is rife with its own challenges. After attack in Pittsburgh, Gab was forced offline for a brief period after being dropped by its server, GoDaddy, who said that encouraging violence was in breach of its terms of service.

“GAB IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE,” Torba posted, adding: “I don’t care what we have to do, I don’t care what it takes. Keep fighting for freedom. We sure will be. Please pray for the victims and their families. I know many of you are upset at what is happening to Gab, but the focus should be on them.”

While Parler does not seem to be put off by the issue of allowing hate speech, it has already had problems over what constitutes free speech.

On Tuesday, Parler’s 26-year-old chief executive John Matze put out a list of “basic rules” for the platform. Those include a blanket ban on pastimes that seem important to its audience, such as: posting photos of fecal matter whenever you disagree with someone; threatening to kill people; or repeatedly spamming people with “fuck you” in every comment.

“It’s pointless. Grow up,” Matze said in his statement.

So much for the website that espoused “if you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler” just days ago.