Parler CEO and co-founder John Matze says he has been fired

John Matze, chief executive and co-founder of social media platform Parler, said on Wednesday that he was fired from the social media company.

Matze, 27 in an interview said the news came unexpectedly as he wasn’t given any prior notice or an explanation. However, he strongly believes that he was fired for holding a different opinion with renowned Republican political donor Rebekah Mercer, a strong investor in Parler.

The fired Parler CEO said Mercer was hesitant in imposing restrictions on what users could say on the platform. Although Parler has tagged itself as a “free speech” social networking platform, it has also gotten into trouble for hate speeches and untrue statements. Parler’s apps were kicked off Google and Apple app stores, and removed from Amazon’s web-hosting platform, for allowing violence and crime inciting posts and comments.

“I’ve always been about free speech and everyone being welcome. I’ve never been about conservative political activism,” Matze said.

During his conversation with Mercer, Matze said he pointed out that there was a need to consider restricting certain conversations on the Platform that promotes domestic terrorism, white supremacy, QAnon conspiracy theories, and pointless pro-Trump conspiracy theories. In response, Matze said he got “dead silence” and he took it as “disagreement.”

In a memo to employees, Matze stated that he was fired on January 29 by the Parler board controlled by Mercer.

“The Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler,” Matze said. “I did not participate in this decision. Over the past few months, I’ve met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech, and my view of how the Parler site should be managed.”

While Matze is uncertain of the actual reason for firing him, Parler’s chief policy officer Amy Peikoff disputed Matze’s account.

“Mr. Matze’s characterizations of the events and circumstances surrounding his termination from the Parler CEO position have been inaccurate and misleading,” Peikoff said in a statement on Thursday. “The owners and managers of the company worked tirelessly to build a resilient, nonpartisan platform dedicated to freedom of expression, civil discourse and user privacy.”

Parler co-founder Dan Bongino also disputed Matze’s account, describing his assertions of being a strong advocate of free speech and product stability as misleading.

“That’s not accurate we were the ones in fact fighting to get Parler back up. There were some really bad decisions made by people on the inside. And listen, this isn’t us airing dirty laundry. This is protecting a company that is absolutely committed to free speech,” Bongino said.

“… The relationship with Parler and the CEO did not work out because the CEO’s vision was not ours. … Our vision was crystal clear. We needed to get up and fight back. Some terrible decisions were made in the past that lead … us to getting pulled down by Amazon and others. It was me ... and the two other owners that were constantly on the side of this site was gonna be a free speech platform or it was gonna be nothing.”

Parler, a social network similar to Twitter saw an influx of millions of new users after major social networking platforms like Facebook and began curtailing misinformation and hate speech aggressively after the November election.

The social media site has been down since Jan. 11 due to its lack of policing its platform. Its leadership has been working tirelessly to get Parler back online. It has requested help from Russian internet security company DDoS-Guard to have at least a basic webpage up.