Banning Parler Won’t Save Us from Conspiracy Theorists
America was shocked and horrified by the recent assault on our democracy. In early January, a violent, far-right mob stormed the Capitol Building and violently assaulted police officers. Armed with lead pipes, glass bottles, and even Molotov cocktails, these terrorists broke their way into Congress, destroyed federal property, and incited such panic that the police shot into the crowd, killing a young woman. The motivation for the insurgency was clear: the mob were pro-Trump conspiracy theorists who had been convinced that Joe Biden and the Democrats had stolen the election from Trump, the rightful winner of the presidency, through widespread voter fraud and election hacking. The Trump administration has filed multiple lawsuits in order to stop Biden’s inauguration, which to date have yielded zero proof of his allegations. But that has deterred neither Trump nor his followers: his most fervent supporters continue to believe that the election was stolen, and even congressional Republicans are joining in this unprecedented attack on our democratic system.
Following the violent siege of the Capitol, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, made the executive decision to ban Donald Trump from his platform, citing multiple tweets from the president that seemed to incite violence. Dorsey was correct in stating that Trump’s tweets played a significant role in the attack, as many of the president’s most unhinged allegations of voter fraud did occur on the website. However, many Trump critics, including congressional Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have encouraged Big Tech giants to go further in limiting MAGA access to social media. She and many others have urged Google and Apple to ban Parler, a free speech-oriented platform that has become a favorite of Trump supporters banned from other social media sites, from their app stores.
This instinct to ban dangerous conspiracy theories from public platforms is understandable. After all, there is significant power in having a large social media following, and the wider a far-right lunatic’s reach, the greater the odds are that they will convince the masses of their disturbing and anti-democratic ideas. But banning Parler is not the answer. Forcing bad actors into the shadows and eliminating the paper trail of their radicalization will not solve our problems, and will in fact likely only make them worse.
An intrinsic element of conspiracy theories is a persecution complex — a belief that the conspiracists have tapped into a truth they aren’t supposed to know, so those in power will go to great lengths to keep other people from learning it too. The election fraud conspiracy theory, as well as its sister conspiracy QAnon, are no different. QAnon believers and other Trumpists believe in something called the Deep State, governmental and political forces that work against Trump and his voters. By taking away their social media access, we will not convince them that they are wrong; we will validate their belief that they have discovered a hidden truth, and that the “elites,” their catch-all word to describe the powerful people they disagree with, of Big Tech are trying to silence them to keep them from spreading the truth.
The takeover of the Capitol was not the first far-right attack on American soil, and it will not be the last. Horrifying as this was, it will happen again, and when it does we will desperately need information on the perpetrators. We will need to know who they are, what they believe, where they were radicalized, and who their associates are. This is where Parler comes in handy. When far-right goons congregate on their unrestricted platforms, they post their inane conspiracy theories and manifestos for all to see. This paper trail gives us insight into their ideas and provides evidence that will later be used to convict them, as they are often stupid enough to post confessions online. It also gives the authorities something to monitor. If Parler becomes the official platform of alt-right radicals, the FBI can surveil it for terrorist threats, and hopefully thwart attacks before they occur.
Allowing this coalescence of far-right lunacy to exist in the open may seem counterintuitive, and indeed requires significant trade-offs. But the alternative is worse. If we ban them from all social media, the radicals will not just renounce their beliefs. They will retreat into the shadows, swapping dangerous ideas on encrypted forums where authorities cannot find them, where they are free to call explicitly for violence without fear of retribution, where illegal materials like bomb-making instructions can be accessed by truly nefarious people. If these goons say horrible things where you can hear them, imagine what they will say when you can’t.
Parler is one of the darkest corners of the internet, and should be readily avoided by those of us who are of sound mind. But banning it won’t convince conspiracy theorists to embrace rational thought. It will validate their persecution complex, accelerate the viral spread of dangerous ideas, and prevent us from collecting evidence about potential terrorist attacks until it’s too late.
