Parler is a United States-based microblogging and social networking service launched in August 2018. Parler has a significant user base of Trump supporters, conservatives, and Saudi nationalists. Posts on the website often contain far-right content, antisemitism, and conspiracy theories. The site has been described as an alternative to Twitter, and is popular among people who have been banned from mainstream social networks or oppose their moderation policies. The site markets itself as a "free speech" and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. However, journalists and users have criticized the service for content policies that are more restrictive than the company portrays, and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors.

Parler’s current community guidelines are more specific and less permissive, and it’s unclear why the company’s rules were changed. Whereas it once allowed “fake news,” it now advises users to “not purposefully share rumors about other users/people you know are false.” Parler previously discouraged fighting words; it now clarifies that rule as “a personal assault with the intention of inviting the other party to fisticuffs.” (Fisticuffs being a somewhat outdated word for fistfight.) The platform prohibits nudity, including female nipples, specifically, and any form of genitalia. Parler does note, however, that “buttock is acceptable.”

For comparison, Twitter forbids images of female breasts, with the exception of breastfeeding. Twitter allows parody or satire accounts but similarly draws the line at impersonation. Much like Twitter’s policy that resulted in the labeling of President Trump’s tweet last month — “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump wrote of protests in Minneapolis — Parler also discourages content that incites violence or produces a clear and present danger.