"Parler" and Catholic use of social media

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  1. As Facebook tightens, allegedly against some conservative speech, people have created this new medium. Is anyone familiar with it? I know almost nothing about it.
  2. I use Facebook partly for personal stuff, but also to express some (mildly conservative) views. I have a few hundred friends, half liberal. So I don’t comment on current affairs, or explicitly prolife, as that would cause half my friends to drop me. Instead I put in a quote by Chesterton, especially, or someone else from the past, to try to get people to think, preferably along Catholic compatible lines. GKC is good because he kinda sneaks up on people who would block “conservatives”.
I’ll look into non FB alternatives, but we have to get pro Christian ideas out into the marketplace.

Any thoughts on social media?
 
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They require a phone number? No thanks.
Seems like a discount Mastadon to me anyways.
 
It’s like World News 7/24, but you have to post a news article from a conservative source to comment…nothing particularly Catholic about it.
 
Facebook seems increasingly willing to either censor conservative and Christian views, or else to put silly disclaimers against conservative, but not liberal, controversial views.

Are there any alternatives to Facebook more moderate, that might be of interest to Catholics?

I’m not interested in Far Right politics, and I’m not equating Catholic to Conservative. But the reality is the Left is increasingly Secular, and aggressively so.
 
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - First Amendment, U.S. Constitution
 
If you’re comfortable seeing people like Fr. Pavone and Abby Johnson as representatives of our faith, enjoy Parler, as they’re apparently moving to that platform. Or if you like reading antisemitic content, enjoy Parler. Or if you like anti-Muslim content, or conspiratorial content, or alt-right content, enjoy Parler.

I’ll pass.

ETA: I attempted to add a link to an article in Forward but as the tag line for it contains an expletive, I’ve erased it. It’s easily accessible via Google, however. Its title is “White Supremacists Love Twitter Alternative Parler.”
 
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Facebook is a private company, and not a government entity. They have every right to censor what’s on their page, just as much as CAF does. The First Amendment has nothing to do with it.
 
edward_george1 said:
Facebook is a private company, and not a government entity. They have every right to censor what’s on their page, just as much as CAF does. The First Amendment has nothing to do with it.
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I was referring both to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. All private companies — including newspapers, television and radio stations, websites, and so on — can decide what they will publish, and what they will not publish.

I humbly submit that the First Amendment has quite a bit to do with it.
 
Okay, but you just contradicted yourself.

The government can’t make laws restricting the freedom of speech.

Private entities may restrict whatever speech they like.

So the First Amendment, which doesn’t apply to private entities, doesn’t really have anything to do with it.

Unless I’m missing something.
 
gracepoole said:
If you’re comfortable seeing people like Fr. Pavone and Abby Johnson as representatives of our faith, enjoy Parler, as they’re apparently moving to that platform. Or if you like reading antisemitic content, enjoy Parler. Or if you like anti-Muslim content, or conspiratorial content, or alt-right content, enjoy Parler.
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I made an account there. I’ve since deleted it.
Doesn’t strike me as a Christian site so much as a far-right site.
 
What is controversial about Abby Johnson? I’ve never heard her described as someone who does not represent Catholicism well.
 
edward_george1 said:
Okay, but you just contradicted yourself.

The government can’t make laws restricting the freedom of speech.

Private entities may restrict whatever speech they like.

So the First Amendment, which doesn’t apply to private entities, doesn’t really have anything to do with it.

Unless I’m missing something.
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OK, I see what you are saying. Anyone may set up a media outlet and, within very broad limits, say whatever they want, and prevent any views they want from being expressed. Nobody can “make” a media outlet echo their own point of view by invoking “freedom of speech”. Atheists can’t go to a Christian TV station or newspaper and demand “equal time”. No quarrel there.
 
ZemD said:
What is controversial about Abby Johnson? I’ve never heard her described as someone who does not represent Catholicism well.
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A slew of things, really. You can investigate further by researching the falsehoods in her story, her Twitter comments to a black pastor, her many ugly comments to followers, her recent statement that racial profiling of Black Americans is acceptable, her call for a priest who disagreed with her to be stripped of his canonical status…
 
It is perhaps not as simple as that; they are a publicly traded company for starters. Additionally, they may be and/or have been crossing over the line in terms of censorship, and it will be up to Congress, most likely, to determine what material, and to what extent on that material, they may censor. Given they are the elephant in the room ( I do not know if there are any viable alternatives to FB), they may find themselves becoming subject to regulation.

They and Twitter appear to have a clear bias to the liberal. Their control of what is stated via their platforms, and any government control are subject to further testing, presumably as long as there is not a Democratic House, Senate and Administration.

As noted, they have the appearance of being a quasi utility, if not an outright utility.
 
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gracepoole said:
her many ugly comments to followers, her recent statement that racial profiling of Black Americans is acceptable, her call for a priest who disagreed with her to be stripped of his canonical status…
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I was pretty horrified reading these tbh. Her racist beliefs were so blatant, and to see other Catholic women supporting these statements were very disheartening.
 
Thank you for posting those.

My mind was not changed though. For the sake of argument, even if everything she has said/ says about her pro-life conversion is fake - she literally used to kill babies as her profession at planned parenthood, and now she doesn’t and helps other abortion clinic workers to find new employment.

Even if she made some “offensive” statements, still not more offensive than abortion. Which she works to end.

No one is perfect, but I think publicly advocating for the most vulnerable among us is a good representation of Catholicism, again for the sake of argument, even if it’s just the pro-life values of Catholicism.
 
You believe she can commit all manner of sin because she’s pro-life? She damages the pro-life movement and its efficacy. But if you really like her, enjoy Parler.
 
We will likely have to agree to disagree. “All manner of sin” and “damaging to the pro-life movement” sounds hyperbolic to me based on what you provided me to read in the previous post.
 
She’s a grifter?

Do her pro-life profits go back to planned parenthood?

Is her charity, “and then there were none” just a way for her to embezzle money for herself or to funnel money back to the organization she publicly opposes?

Calling her that seems, again, hyperbolic. Thank you for the discussion but I can see now we won’t come to any agreement.
 
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