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Parler is an American based microblogging and social networking service that was created in 2018. Parler promotes free speech, without fact checkers, and will not censor users unless they are promoting crime, violence, or copyright violations. Parler operates in a very similar fashion to Twitter in that you can follow and subscribe to user feeds, upvote their content, and echo (share) their posts.
Parler has gained popularity in recent months among right-leaning groups as a result of distrust in the major players in the social media space (Twitter, Facebook) and has grown its user base from 2.8 million to over 10 million from July 2020-November 2020.
Some areas of the platform require validation of your identity to gain access (direct messaging) and once users are validated they are given a badge to better identify them to other users (Verified, Influence, Media Partner to name a few).
While Parler does not censor users, each user can define keywords, accounts, and certain “spamming criteria” to limit the content they do not wish to see. Hashtags play a prominent role in the platform as you are unable to search by topic, unless it is done so via hashtag.
What can you find?
Parler contains valuable intel that can be used as a security tool for threat validation and investigation purposes.
- Extremist Groups
- Political Opinions
- Conspiracy theories
- Controversial topics
- Brand Sentiment
- Threats to Executives
- Spam or Phishing
How can Parler be a tool for digital security intelligence?
Like many other online social media platforms, Parler is a source for security analysts to detect threats, gather intelligence to understand context or validity, and gather pertinent business information to understand risk exposure.
When security teams are equipped with access to verified intelligence, they are able to effectively mitigate and potentially eliminate or avoid critical threats.
Parler provides a snapshot of trending topics and events ultimately supporting situational awareness and overall sentiment analysis for security operations.