Parlement Technologies have implemented job cuts that affected the majority of its staff, accounting for around 75% in total. This includes staff and most of the company's chief executives in the last few weeks.
What Happens to Parlement Technologies Now?
It's still unclear what the future for the company is down the line, but they have already laid off executives that are vital to keeping the company running smoothly. Some of them were marketing officers, operations, and chief technology.
Layoffs began around November and continued through December until only around 20 employees were left at the company, according to The Verge. This calls into question what happens to Parler, especially after the bumps it has gone through last year.
George Farmer is the current CEO of Parlement Technologies, taking over as soon as the Parler app was unbanned from the app stores. It was previously headed by its former CEO John Matze who was fired for his ideas to reshape Parler's moderation policies.
The Parler App
The Parler app was meant to be an alternative to the other platforms that have more strict moderation policies. Founded in 2018, it was used by a lot of Donald Trump's supporters, following his disagreements with mainstream social media platforms.
It presented itself as an app that allows "free speech," much like Twitter is now. The 2020 presidential election period saw a surge in users within the platform, gaining over 7,000 new users per minute in November.
Both the Play Store and App Store removed the app after rumors emerged stating that it was used to organize the US Capitol riot. This prevented users from downloading the app, thus stopping user growth.
Even its return did not do much, seeing as more apps such as Gettr and Rumble joined the market for social media "censorship-free" alternatives. Former President Trump's platform was also set to launch, pulling his supporters from the app.
The company tried to revive the app by announcing Parlement Technologies and its cloud services. The company will hold the platform within the business, preventing it from being taken down again as it was previously.
It was still faring well with only 50,000 daily active users in October of 2022. There was hope for the app when news of it being bought by Kanye West hit the headlines, but that also fell through as Ye went through the issue that took his reputation apart.
Parler was just one of the many business partnerships with the rapper that was terminated, following his antisemitic comments in an interview. The company claims to have a mutual agreement with Ye to terminate the sale, according to CNBC.
Parler also expressed that they will still pursue future opportunities for the growth and evolution of the platform. Seeing as the company holding Parler has been dialing back on hiring and firing more employees, it's not looking good for the platform alternative.
