Almost none of my conservative friends used Parler. It really was a ghost town until Twitter banned President Trump and many signed up, hoping they could read posts from him there, but he was never on Parler.
As for the surge in encrypted messaging, yes, a lot of this is conservatives no longer willing to use Facebook and Twitter out of anger or fear. Of my conservative friends, I would say that at least half have moved to platforms like Wickr and Signal in the last week. They are using it to replace private Facebook Messenger chats.
> It really was a ghost town until Twitter banned President Trump and many signed up, hoping they could read posts from him there, but he was never on Parler.
All of my family and most of my in-laws as well as most of my friends here in Norway from outside work uses it since long time ago, but just the last few days two more Norwegians and one Pakistani friend of mine joined.
Parler's user base really started growing in mid-late 2020 as FB, Twitter etc. became stricter about political content, and started censoring the President and other conservatives much more frequently.
As for the surge in encrypted messaging, yes, a lot of this is conservatives no longer willing to use Facebook and Twitter out of anger or fear. Of my conservative friends, I would say that at least half have moved to platforms like Wickr and Signal in the last week. They are using it to replace private Facebook Messenger chats.