Does online hate end with the end of Parler? Ed Bracho-Polanco speaks to the Media Diversity Institute

Ed Bracho-Polanco, was interviewed this week by the Media Diversity Institute (MDI) about hate speech and the end of Parler. In the article by Mikhail Yakovlev, Bracho-Polanco, tells MDI, that despite AWS and numerous other tech companies ending their relationships with Parler,  that it is likely to get back online. At the time of writing, the site has already made a partial come-back with help from DDoS-Guard, a Russian digital infrastructure company, although users remain locked out.

Despite this potential return, Bracho-Polanco maintains that “Parler’s banning by the major tech corporations became a point of no return in terms of Parler’s potential to become a mainstream social media platform that could compete with Twitter or Facebook” even if Parler can regain “its status as a niche and fringe site for specific ideologically-driven groups – namely the very same right-wing and hyper conservative groups and militias.”

Bracho-Polanco also suggests that government regulation is needed to curb online extremism and hate speech. He notes that “self-expression and freedom of opinion are indeed essential democratic values, but not when these disrespect or put at risk the freedom of others – and this is what we saw with much content uploaded on Parler,”

The full article can be read on the pages on the Media Diversity Institute.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash