Sparked by yet another F***book induced transgression, the mass migration to the abyss of the social network wastelands responding to yet another broken promise and UN weapons grade deflection by nepionic tycoon Mark Zuckerberg, briefly challenged the new world order of the digital hierarchy. For a frenetic and memorable twelve week period coinciding with the hysteria and polarization of the election, Parler evolved as the nexus for right-wing ideology and ardent enthusiasm as a the domain of a rust belt dilapidated warehouse was briefly transformed into the glitz and glamor of a secret society underground nightclub pulsating with a razor edgy ambiance, and absent from the presence of security. Welcome to the wild and wacky second tier of the social media footprint, where glorified message boards and duct-taped coding banks equate to a veritable wasteland of chaos. And then the wheels abruptly fell off the crazy trains, as Silicon Valley opted to impose its will.
In the aftermath of the Christmas Island radioactive fallout of a kiloton cobalt disassociation of basic matter, spurred by Amazon’s abrupt snarky decision to pull the plug on the platform’s servers, the perpetual wounds have been largely self-inflicted, and emphasize the need for redundant privacy security measures for all creatures great and small.
The Jeff Bezos empire facilitated a dizzying chain reaction, including the Parler app being banned from all major download nodes, highlighted by Google and Apple. Exacerbated by the grave sanctions, the company struggled desperately to find a host for its servers, and endure a deflating and eye-opening series of denials from vendors worldwide. The social network finally found reprieve in inking a contract with a controversial hosting firm located in Washington state, and various lawsuits have been filed or are pending against various compartments of the tech realm in attempting to sort out an extensive and ugly mess with a precedent tediously hanging in the balance.
The subsequent rollcall of IT firms who declined, or were shamed into not doing business with Parler reads like a guest list barraged by asterisks and headlined by Andy Dick, and is a microcosm to the trials and tribulations the average right leaning account holder faces on a daily basis. Over the last five years, evidence and documentation have pointed to the fact that at least F***book launched targeted measures to bury conservative news, and limit the reach of groups and posts that do not align with the viewpoint of the leadership. Type the term “gun” in an atypical benign post which immediately triggers a chain reaction of flashing lights and lights within the bot and human team of the global moderation node.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted on multiple occasions that the tech industry almost exclusively adheres to a liberal bias, and the ramifications of this unsettling prevalence are felt unilaterally. However, the malfunctioning Venn diagram oversight of quantifying all conservatives as radicals, and all terrorists as conservatives, exists as a glaring beacon of hypocrisy for the leftists foisting the Black Lives Matter movement, and other rhetoric into the vernacular of cultural warfare. Again, the “either/or” mentality of oversimplification is at the forefront of the dialogue, and prevents the propagation of worthwhile debate.
While Parler lacked the framework of a basic moderation policy, which attracted a group of users with checkered internet records composed of banishments or worse, the lack of institutional control on the social network was one of many similar issues and red flags, which paled in comparison to an egregious breach of judgement and basic ethics. Clearly the existence of a rogue oasis sanctuary for cyber-degenerates, was born out of the defiance and audacity of the brand name electronic communities to openly discriminate against certain political philosophies, the right of refusal afforded to businesses, however, under the diabolical circumstances and sketchy sales job of pawning open dialogue and transparency, a clear dichotomy of the Silicon Valley grand dream of a deregulated internet virtually free from the aspects of law enforcement, or code enforcers. Illustrated by a weird representation of mutualism, Parler is a direct bi-product of F***book’s underwhelming operational performance, and the enthusiasm generated by Parler’s core account holders base aids the steady growth of the social network behemoth.
In a nonsensical swarm of indiscretions and a slap in the face to users, the powers running Parler chose to not encrypt end user data, leaving profiles, posts, and assorted multimedia vulnerable to the insatiably judgmental discerning eyes of tech watchdog groups. Working against the clock in the wake of the storming of the Capitol building, and the reverberating cries of insurrection drowning out the sobering principles of reason and civility, teams of coders and computing enthusiasts labored frantically to harvest the treasure trove of the transparent underbelly of Parler.
Of the 57 terabytes of data scraped and captured in a damming snapshot of intrigue and disgrace, electronic custodian philanthropist hackers are already processing the results, and structuring a narrative that is sure to render indictments from a managerie of organizations, and the collected stratification of the digital expanse. While the lightspeed response to structuring the information is impressive, the frequency of related projects suggests that the world may never be the same as a result.
An entire geospatial model showing the exact locations of videos uploaded to the platform globally is innovatively disconcerting, as 64,000 out of 1 million of the multimedia productions shot with smartphones or various devices, appeared on the Parler site, without being stripped of geolocation specifics, a security protocol practiced by all the major social media players.
Each white dot represents specific GPS coordinates of where footage was shot, and as videos are matched up with the dots, those interested in finding out more, will simply be able to click on a single dot to view the related streaming content. Whether or not the motive will be simply to prod, dox, or hand on a platter to prosecutors does not nearly satisfy the context of a burgeoning dystopia. Curiously, the chief data harvesters of the glorified witch hunt revealing campaign have insinuated that they do not wish to have any of the mined accounts submitted a evidence in the criminal justice system, which is not a revelation considering that the hacking gaggle uses various derivations of “anarchy” when electronically defining their political leanings. While the data curators should be viewed with an reasonable magnitude of disdain, the decision makers at the rogue social media outlet have earned the brunt of criticism, ridicule and any fitting punishment, as it should never have reached this point in the first place.
The billion dollar question is why did the engineers at Parler fail to fulfill such a basic custodial privacy duty in needlessly exposing their users, or was this a blatant instance of a forgettable musical act at the amateur bar and grill?
F***book continuously faces a steady stream of justified criticism for the reckless handling of sensitive data, which corporate officials attribute to the intricate complexities which accompany a daunting infrastructure. Critics blame the known issues on a domain that was launched prematurely in lacking effective checks and balances, and the guileless insufferable egos of Zuckberg’s corporate leadership. The grand daddy of the social media tote board has redefined and reconfigured its famously ambiguous “Terms and Conditions” so regularly, and authored policy forwarding a specific political agenda, that the GIF of the boy who cried wolf is so corrupt, he may as well be Don Knotts ungraciously dislodged by the ornery capes of Jack Tripper from a flight of condo stairs and vertically inverted and blended with the stucco because of that wonderfully kitsch ice cream white leisure suit.
Parler CEO John Matze and his associates lack the mercy of comedy to mitigate the blow of what should be some fairly vile consequences over the coming weeks, as the nails from understandably incensed account holders protrude from one side of the medieval torture apparatus, and a stream of scorching acid is cued up and ready to go from the technocratic legion on the other end and incessant and cold-blooded thoroughness towards vaporizing anything to the right of center.
As F***book and Twitter struggle to exist as both free market entities and proponents of the liberal ideology, and the disjointed societal experiment of tinkering with the immersion of the electronic personality continues, the Parlers of the world have reached the threshold of extinction, as the glaring omission of a hundreds of billions of dollars in ad revenue, venture capital, and government dooms the diminutive social networks from gaining consistent toehold, barring an unprecedented controversy. Unfortunately for Parler, the firm committed a deliberate cardinal sin, or malicious negligence unforgiven to the hellfires of fatalism itself, nullifying the current controversy sparking record levels of online engagement.
At certain obscure instances of universal cohesion pairing the intersection of life and the idea of unfair like a fervent bonding session between two electrons, the reality from the disappointing series of election results, the perpetual existence of Covid-19, and the vastness of the internet incompatible with a social network conductive to conservatives, leads to the logical conclusion that the next four years may transcend the interesting, and pierce the surreal. In a world where Matze and cronies can warp and tarnish a suitable creation to the extent of literally handing out the pitchforks and torches to the dissenters, along with a rolodex of home addresses, justice stumbles and staggers through the dark brambles of obscurity spawned by irrelevance. A fate that a substantial percentage of social media participants endure.
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