Parlermonium: A Data-Driven UX Design Evaluation of the Parler Platform
This work addresses the issue of misinformation spread on alternative social media platforms for researchers and policymakers, but it is incremental as it applies existing methods to a new case.
This paper tackles the problem of how Parler's user interface facilitates misinformation flow and free speech perception by evaluating it from UX design and data science perspectives, finding that the platform's design is conductive to spreading misinformation.
This paper evaluates Parler, the controversial social media platform, from two seemingly orthogonal perspectives: UX design perspective and data science. UX design researchers explore how users react to the interface/content of their social media feeds; Data science researchers analyze the misinformation flow in these feeds to detect alternative narratives and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. We took a critical look into the intersection of these approaches to understand how Parler's interface itself is conductive to the flow of misinformation and the perception of "free speech" among its audience. Parler drew widespread attention leading up to and after the 2020 U.S. elections as the "alternative" place for free speech, as a reaction to other mainstream social media platform which actively engaged in labeling misinformation with content warnings. Because platforms like Parler are disruptive to the social media landscape, we believe the evaluation uniquely uncovers the platform's conductivity to the spread of misinformation.