Gab vs Parler: Who owns these social media platforms? Find out

Recently the popularity of the social media platform, Parler is growing rapidly. In the wake to the US, Election results many original Twitter and Facebook users have migrated on to Parler. Similarly, there is another social media website called Gab, which has also risen in popularity in 2020 and especially due to the US Elections. Both these platforms have been created by conservative programmers, and there describes themselves as a “free speech” microblogging alternative to platforms like Twitter. Read on to find out more about Gab and Parler. 

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Gab vs Parler

Who owns Parler?

A report in vox.com reveals that Parler is a social network founded by John Matze and Jared Thomson, two Nevada-based conservative programmers, in 2018. Parler has been around for some time now, but the website’s popularity grew in the summer of 2020 when Parler became particularly popular with conservative Americans and Trump supporters. Named after the French world ‘Parler,’ which means to speak or talk, according to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, Parler began growing in July 2020 and has reportedly acquired 2.8 million new users since then.

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Who owns Gab?

Gab.com is perhaps one of the most controversial social media platforms of our times, second to only OnlyFans perhaps. The Vox report reveals that this a controversial social media website and app founded on the premise of promoting free speech by Andrew Torba, a conservative programmer. Gab app is slightly older than Parler as it was founded in 2016. The social media platform "champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online without any fact-checking.”

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Why are Gab app and Parler receiving so many users?

Gab’s content policies and algorithms differ from its competitors, Twitter and Facebook, due to its focus on free speech. The website's trending section recently featured articles from websites like National File, The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart. While the interface of Gab and Parler is similar to that of Twitter, the content policies are extremely liberal. Many conservative Twitter and Facebook users have left the platform and migrated to either Gab or Parler in recent months.

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According to a report on Vox, one of the major reasons behind this is that big social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter cracked down on misinformation and began banning users for spreading ‘Fake News.’ In the process, many users claimed that new rules were targeting conservatives and that they'd been silenced on both Facebook and Twitter. In fact, right before the 2020 US elections, many of President Trump’s tweets were slapped with misinformation warning labels by Twitter. Hence, many right-wing personalities looking to practice free speech, meaning, publish without fact-checks, found solace on Parler and Gab. 

However, in recent times, Gab has received a lot of backlashes. It has been accused of providing a safe haven to terrorists and anti-Semitics. The website came under fire in 2018 after an assailant led an anti-Semitic attack in a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The man’s Gab profile was investigated and it was littered with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and rants about Jews. Gab reportedly defended itself as being on the mission “to defend free expression and individual liberty online for all people.”