Parler Was Pitched as a Conservative Twitter. It’s Now a Depository For Hunter Biden Political Porn.

Conservative meme-maker Benny Johnson took to Twitter in June with an announcement. After amassing hundreds of thousands of followers on the platform, he was done with it, having come to see Twitter as a “communist gulag dumpster fire.”

“10 years on Twitter,” Johnson tweeted. “I’m done. Disgusted with the censorship on this platform. Twitter is now so aggressively ANTI Free Speech, it’s not fun anymore.”

Having laid out his case, Johnson urged his fans to join Parler, the latest conservative social media network pitching itself as a “free speech” alternative for conservatives who feel the social media giants are biased against them.

A few months later, though, Johnson appears to be finished with Parler too. And, wouldn’t you know it, he’s back in the communist gulag dumpster fire that is Twitter dot com. Johnson, the chief creative officer of young conservative group Turning Point USA, hasn’t posted on Parler since August. But he still posts relentlessly on Twitter, tweeting eight times in just one hour on Tuesday alone.

Johnson’s abortive move to Parler took place amid an outcry from conservatives who alleged that Twitter was discriminating against them, citing a Twitter ban on self-proclaimed pro-Trump memesmith “Carpe Donktum” for copyright violations. Like Johnson, many of those conservative influencers threatened to take their social media talents elsewhere. And like Johnson again, many who touted Parler as their next stomping ground haven’t posted on the upstart social network in months.

Pugnacious former Trump director of national intelligence Ric Grenell posted on Twitter about his Parler account in June, declaring that he was joining the site because “I believe in free speech, diversity and tolerance.” But Grenell hasn’t posted on Parler since August. Instead, he’s stuck with Twitter to pursue his favorite hobby: admonishing reporters from various media outlets about the quality of their work.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a Trumpworld star, joined Parler in June amid conservative discontent with Twitter. But he hasn’t posted on Parler since Aug. 28. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who declared that Parler would help “end the Silicon Valley censorship” in June, hasn’t posted on the site in nearly two weeks.

Plenty of bold-faced names on the right, including Fox News host Sean Hannity and Reps. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) still do post regularly on Parler. And the site continues to attract new users. The Parler app ranked 10th in the Apple App Store on Tuesday.

But it’s hard not to see the failure of a mass movement of high-profile users to materialize as a lost opportunity for the site. Having actively tried to build itself as a free speech-loving social media mecca, Parler has instead been used as a dumping ground for some of the most lurid material the internet has to offer. With conservatives once more insistent—this time at the close of the election—that Twitter is biased against them, Parler is no longer talked about as a utopic alternative. Instead, it’s the place where people are currently swapping lewd pictures that are purportedly of Hunter Biden.

The potential problems with widespread conservative adoption of Parler were obvious even in the heady days of June, when Trump supporters were claiming the site could replace Twitter. The site was dogged by questions about its restrictive terms of service agreement, which Parler eventually changed. Before he was fired from the Trump campaign and tackled by police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, then-Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale spent much of his time on the site complaining about its lack of features, like an inability to repost comments and a requirement that people be logged into Parler before reading posts on the site.

As A-list internet conservatives lost interest in Parler, the site became a haven for conspiracy theorists. On Tuesday, a list of suggested topics on Parler included “#Pizzagate,” the conspiracy theory that has inspired two violent attacks on a Washington pizzeria. Promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which imagines Donald Trump violently purging his enemies in the Democratic Party, have flocked to the site.

When the election season hit its stretch run and conservative media began pushing lewd and potentially incriminating emails from Hunter Biden, Parler became a natural repository for those doing the pushing.

GNews, a Chinese-language website tied to billionaire Chinese dissident and Steve Bannon patron Guo Wengui, has posted the images for days. But they’ve struggled to get traction with the major social media outlets, with Twitter automatically issuing temporary suspensions for accounts that link to some GNews stories, citing rules against revenge porn. So GNews urged its fans to take the images to Parler.

“Fellow fighters are switching to new battlefield (sic) of platforms like Parler and Gab,” a Tuesday article on GNews read.

The posting of the images would seem to violate Parler CEO John Matze’s insistance—back in June—that Parler’s rules included a ban on pornography of all kinds. But the lewd images, some of which depict explicit sex acts, have flourished on the site. One GNews staffer closely tied to the pictures has amassed more than 60,000 followers there, while another account devoted to posting the pictures has 12,000 followers.

Matze didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Beyond some inconsistency in the rules, though, Parler may face larger issues. After November growing its user base may prove harder when some of its most famous members appear to quickly grow bored with the site.

Trump ally Tom Fitton, the head of pro-Trump group Judicial Watch, had joined Parler in June, declaring that the site was “trying to draw a line against leftist censorship.” But Fitton posted on Parler just five times in October.

By comparison, Fitton tweeted 18 times on Tuesday alone.

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