Troubling news coming out of Parler tonight as the now, former CEO and founder of the alternative platform, which holds its out to be a proponent of freedom of expression, has announced he was fired by the board.
The public recently learned that is the the Mercer family who was the money behind the app. The Mercers were very close with Trump during his first run at the Presidency but had distanced themselves from him going into 2020.
While Dan Bongino often referred to himself as the owner of Parler, Matze had been the face of the company, conducting many interviews while the company struggled in their battle with the Big Tech Left Speech Cartel.
Fox Business had the exclusive:
‘Parler has terminated CEO John Matze, according to a memo Matze sent to staffers that has been obtained by Fox News.
“On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision,” Matze wrote. “I understand that those who now control the company have made some communications to employees and other third parties that have unfortunately created confusion and prompted me to make this public statement.”
Matze wrote that over the past few months he has been met with “constant resistance” to his original vision for the social media platform following Amazon Web Services’ decision to shut Parler down for failure to moderate “egregious content” related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Over the past few months, I’ve met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler site should be managed. For example, I advocated for more product stability and what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation,” Matze wrote.
Parler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I have worked endless hours and fought constant battles to get the Parler site running but at this point, the future of Parler is no longer in my hands,” he continued. “I want to thank the Parler employees, the people on Parler and Parler supporters for their tireless work and devotion to the company. They are an amazing group of diverse, hardworking and talented individuals and I have the utmost respect for them. Many of them have become my second family.”‘
It should be interesting to see what becomes of the app now. I would guess they will be back in the app stores and on secure servers in no time.
The real question is what type of policies will they put in place to please the tech Gods enough to let Parler play on their field?
I have faith in Bongino and when I met Ms. Mercer a few decades ago she seemed to be genuine fighter for liberty, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will strike the right balance between freedom and security.
