As Twitter flags Trump tweets, Republicans look for social media alternatives

As twitter goes strict on flagging tweets which violate its policies, including US President Donald Trump’s tweets, several Republican leaders have started pushing the social media platform Parler as an alternative.

Parler was launched by computer scientist John Matze in 2018.

Many politicians including Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik, and Nikki Haley have already joined the platform. Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, has joined Parler in 2018 only.

According to a report published in CNBC, Parscale has even made some suggestions to make Parler emerge as an alternative to Twitter. These recommendations included spending money on luring more people from the media and hiring a designer.

Parler calls itself "an unbiased social media focused on real user experiences and engagement."

The number of users on the platform increased from 1 million to more than 1.5 million over the course of one week after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is in search of alternatives to Facebook and Twitter over fears that these two platforms could flag or remove more content as the election approaches.

However, this sudden growth has also put the 27-year-old Matze, in a peculiar position as he does not want the platform to be seen as an echo chamber for conservatives.

In a bid to attract liberals to the platform, Parler even announced a $20,000 "progressive bounty" to some progressive pundits, commentators or writers with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook for opening a Parler account and engaging in an open debate..