John Matze, the CEO of the rising social media platform Parler, told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday the app has experienced a “massive explosion in growth” throughout the year as more users bail on bigger rivals “where moderation seems to be the norm.”

“We are seeing a massive explosion in growth because people trust that Parler is going to do the right thing,” Matze told Carlson.

Matze’s comments came after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with Twitter founder and boss Jack Dorsey, provided remote testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee over allegations that the social media giants coordinate with big tech rival Google, to make content moderation decisions.

“So, as opposed to these other companies where moderation seems to be the norm, on Parler we have a community jury,” Matze explained. “This is where the people decide what is allowed and what’s not allowed.”

Facebook, and especially Twitter, are coming under renewed fire following fresh allegations of censorship ahead of the 2020 election. In particular, Twitter is facing backlash from President Donald Trump’s supporters after the platform labeled or removed more than 50 of his tweets since Election Day.

The labeling by both platforms who largely employ left-leaning workers has reignited charges of overt censorship from conservatives. But Matze says Parler is different because the user community decides what they do and do not support.

“You are judged by your peers just like our government allows for people,” he said. “You are innocent before proven guilty, unlike these other platforms that are colluding to, I guess, find things to find you guilty for.”

He said that users on Parler are “liberated from restrictions” and free to post their views and ideas.

“We just want to sit back and say ‘social media was supposed to be about the people. It was supposed to be about people having a free voice, being able to be, you know, liberated from restrictions,'” Matze told Carlson. “And so that’s what we are here to offer is a community town square for people to have discussions.”

His platform became the most downloaded app during the week of Election Day on Apple’s App Store. It was No. 2 on Google Play as conservatives and supporters of President Trump bailed on the bigger social media platforms.

What’s more, Parler’s user-base is continuing to expand quickly as prominent conservatives and Republicans like Dan Bongino, presidential adviser Ivanka Trump, and others flock to the platform while encouraging their followers to join them.

BizPac Review has also joined Parler — click here to follow us.

“You mention that Parler was a little bit smaller than Twitter but you know we do have people that have comparable if not larger followings on Parler than they do on Twitter and they are seeing far more engagement,” Matze said.

“There’s a mutual algorithm here you get what you sign up for. That’s it. You get what you expect. That’s why we are seeing such great engagement because it’s not being curated like publishers would do is unlike they are on these other platforms,” he added.

Carlson went on to ask Matze how he planned to keep his “posture” and deal with the inevitable pressure from the left to conform to the similar standards of censorship used by the other social media giants.

“Well, when you go out in public, people say crazy things all the time,” Matze said. “Everybody has opinions and some of them might not be the norm, right? It’s not against the law to have those opinions. It’s not against the law to express yourself, you know.”

“And if you like one political candidate or another or you believe or don’t believe in climate change or whatever it might be, you know, you shouldn’t be taken offline because of it,” he said.

Matze also addressed his critics.

“Do you believe that we should have somebody in, you know, New York, let’s say in the middle of Times Square telling you what you can and cannot say? Because that’s what these companies are doing,” he said.

On Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) grilled Zuckerberg over a newly-revealed whistleblower complaint alleging that staffers at Facebook, Twitter, and Google coordinated censorship policies targeting certain users and content.

.@Facebook whistleblower tells me FB uses its internal project management system, “Tasks,” to coordinate censorship with @Twitter and @Google. Pic of example Task page below pic.twitter.com/TR2qbFawpl

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 17, 2020

Hawley said the whistleblower is a former Facebook employee “with direct knowledge of the company’s content moderation practices” who contacted his office regarding an “internal platform called Tasks that Facebook uses to coordinate projects, including censorship.”

Zuckerberg said platforms cooperate on security-related issues but not content moderation.

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Jon Dougherty

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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.

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