A new social media platform that has the potential to be damaging: [View all]

[essme]

Parler.

I signed up for it because I am a librarian, and try to stay up on social media/ semantic web platforms. It is billed as a non-partisan, free speech platform. Right now, I don't like the user interface, but that could be because I am in my late fifties, and do have technostress over new platforms. I have not played around with it.

However, upon signing up, the first thing I encountered was lists of folks to follow. ALL of them that I encountered in the first few pages, bar none, were right wing.

This looks very much like a great platform for the Qanon followers to land, and congregate. It "feels" less "icky" than shady Qanon websites- and seems to be designed to appeal to disgruntled Facebook users.

I am seriously considering getting some of my librarian friends together and attempting to lead classes there on "how to recognize fake news," "US government," and "US history."

I don't know yet- I would need a pretty big group of volunteers. Also, if you do sign up, be aware that it does not look secure in terms of hiding your identity.