The Verge reported yesterday that Parler’s owners have laid off most of their staff and executives in recent weeks. Parlement Technologies, owner of the self-proclaimed “free speech” social network, began mass layoffs in late November, according to sources at The Verge.
“These layoffs lasted through at least the end of December, with about 75% of employees laid off overall, leaving about 20 employees working at both Parler and parent company’s cloud services venture,” the report said. Says. “Most of the company’s executives, including the chief technology officer, the chief operations officer and the chief marketing officer, have also been laid off, according to a source familiar with the matter.”
According to the Verge’s report, it’s not clear “how many employees are currently employed to work on the Parler social media platform, or where they are headed.” I contacted Parler today. If we get a response, we will update this article.
Based on the timeline reported by The Verge, the layoffs began about two weeks after Parlement Technologies ended its deal to sell Parler to Ye (formerly Kanye West). Ye and Parlement announced the deal on Oct. 17, saying Ye will protect “conservative opinions” on the site. Ye signed a deal with Parler after being banned from his Twitter and Instagram for his anti-Semitic posts.
But Congress announced the end of the deal after Ye praised the Nazis and said “I like Hitler” during an appearance on Alex Jones’ Infowars show. Parlement issued a statement saying the “mutual” decision to terminate the transaction was “made in the interest of both parties in mid-November.”
Parlor user base is small and shrinking
At the time, Parler said, “We will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and evolving our platform for a vibrant community.” But Parler has fewer users than his Twitter, and clearly lags far behind Donald his Trump-backed Truth social network.
After the attacks on the US Capitol in January 2021, Parler was kicked out of Amazon Web Services and took the service offline until alternative hosting could be secured. Apple and Google also launched his Parler from their respective app stores, but eventually allowed it to resume after Parler agreed to changes to their content moderation approach.
Parler says it has about 16.5 million registered users. Website analytics firm SimilarWeb reports that Parler’s total monthly site visits fell from 2.3 million in September 2022 to 1.2 million in November, while Truth Social’s monthly visits fell short of the last three. It ranged from 8 million to 10.9 million in a month. Also, Truth Social visitors spent more time on the site and viewed more pages than Parler visitors.
In September 2022, Parler announced that it would reorganize as Parlement Technologies. The company also announced $16 million in funding and the acquisition of cloud company Dynascale, with CEO George Farmer saying Parler said, “We want to be a business that powers what I call the irreversible economy. We are not canceling people for their opinions.”
