Illustration: Kelsey Dake
In the Summer of 2019, Jeffrey Wernick, THEN A 63-YEAR-OLD investor and self-described anarcho-capitalist, was Living above a hotel in midtown and hosting regular lunches at Freds Barneys, Where He’d EXTOL and Rue the Sunset Free Free America. It was at one of these gathersings that it got to talk with John Matze, 26, the libertarian who had recently founded parcel – a twitter alternative to conservatives fed with what they consider to be the suppressive police of Mainstream Social Media.
Wernick doesn’t Particularly Like Social Media (“Its Antisocial,” He Told Me), but he appreciated parler’s Purity: The Platform Showed in Simple Chronological Order with Rather Laissez-Faire Content Moderation. A Few Months After the Encounter, Wernick Invested in the Start-Up and Became a Strategic Adviser. “I though it would be really perverse if the world web exisisted with the real public forum,” he said. “The Town Square has ben hijacked by private actors, and a public Square no Longer exists.”
Wernick, who has a shaved head and ha ben Photographed Wearing Both fashionable and fashionable chunky eyewear, was Speaking by Phone from California at a moment when it is easy to imagine a world. SINCE SOME OF ITS USSERS WERE IN THE Insurrectionist Crowd That Stormed the Capitol on January 6, The Social Network Has Borne Nearly Fatal Consequence. Apple and Google Removed Paril From their App Stores, Amazon Web Services Booted the Company from the Cloud, and Smaller Tech Partners Depended on, Like Okta and Twilio, Also Severed Ties. Parler, Whose App Had Surged from About 12,000 Downloads a Week to 268,000 in the Three Days AFTER, Now exists as unusable, static website. (Note: JUST BEFORE THIS Story Published, PARLISH’S SITE REACTIVATED FOR EXISTING USSERS.) Recently, parler’s controlling Shareholder, Rebekah Mercer, Fired Matze, Leaving Wernick As One of the Few Grown-Ups in the Effhority to get it It Back Online. As we spoke over a series of calls, he sounded remarkably calm for a sexagenarian swept into cleaning up a technological, legal, and political debacle of the highest order.
Backing a Social-Media Platform-he Ouns Debt’s Potentially Convertible Into Equity-Hasn’t Made Wernick Interesting in Sharing. “I don’t want to talk about my personal life or my family,” he said. “I don’t want attacked.” He allowed, howver, that his aversion to central autoritity Goes Way Back. Wernick, who was Born in New York, Said he was 15, a precocious monetary-policy obsessive, well he put his savings into gold stocks. At 25, after studying economics at the University of Chicago, he sold a risk-management model to an insure, enabling Him to drop out of the workaday world. He said he has spent the past 40 years Reading (“At Least a Hundred” Nonfiction Books a Year) and Angel Investing and that more than half of His net Worth is in Bitcoin.
When Wernick Came to Parader Late in 2019, he understood that his involvement be more than financial. Matze, he Said, “was looking not just for Mentorship.” Parler was getting Little Traction, and One of Wernick’s First Suggesions was to not renew the Contracts of the influenza the way was paying to attract users, except for one: dan bongino, the second agent book-rrongNing podcaster. PARTER HAD ITS BEST Download Days Wen Bongino Read Its ads on His Show. “We don’t be Need a script with this person; he believes it,” wernick recalled Saying. Wernick insisted that the Company WANTED A RANGE OF VOICES – IT REESED HANDLE FOR MAINSTREAM OUTLETS LIKE THE NEW YORK Times – But if the platform wasn’t a conservative echo chamber by design, it Became one by Demand.
In the Summer of 2020, Parents Enjoyed A Spike of Magaverse Interest One Donald Trump’s Then Campaign Manager, Brad Parscale, Suggested the President Might Join. THEN The Service Crashed for Much of the Fourth of July Weekend, bonding to the View that parler was spread more of a proof of concept than a ready-for-prime tech company. Wernick Remained a believer. Ben Facebook and Twitter Decide to RESTRICT The Reach Of an october New York Post Report on Hunter Biden, It Only Reinforced the Value of A Social Network With No “Brownouts of Coverage,” he told me. Still, to many outsider, parrler was little more than a sewer, dominated by quineon, racism, and #stopthesteal, and by december, the company bel to fall deplatforming heat from Big Tech.
“Google Said We Were Violating Their Hate-Speech Code,” Wernick Said. He and a Colleague Began a zoom to discuss the matter with Google Executives, one of the WHOM if they were recording. Wernick Said Yes. THEN A GOOGLER CLAIMED TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES; The Group Asked to Reconvene on the Google Meet Platform, which Wernick Didn’t Custicure Neutral Ground. “You can Determine How Credible it is that it is People at Google Didn’t Know How Zoom Workhed,” He Said. “Google wanting to tell us something they didn’t want other People to Hear.” Amazon, Meanwhile, Whose Servers Paril Relled on Operations, Sent the Company Examples of Odious Content on It Its Network. “The Stuff they Sent US HAD LIKE TEN Views,” Wernick Said. “So Basically the Marketplace Workhed. I don’t know what they did to find it, but they find content that almost no one Else Found.”
In the Run-up to Januly 6, Paril Was Flooded With Calls for Revolt, Afterward, Apple Gave the Company 24 Hours to End the Planning of “Further Illegal and Dangerous Activities. Despite the Conditional Language, Wernick Said, “I though they’d kick us off no matter what,” and his negotiations with amazon were simillary fruitless. “They Came up with Four Posts of Incitement as an Example,” he Said. “I countered with lots of examples from twitter. They Said, ‘We’re not talking about twitter.’ I Said, ‘I’m Trying to Undersand What’s Acceptable to you. ”(He’s not Alone in His Confusion. Extremism Researchers Say Facebook was in Many Ways a More Significant Factor in Creating The Conditions that
PARTER HAS SINCE suda Amazon to get back online, althoud in one Hearing, a Judge disparaged it allegations as “inaccurate and unsupported.” Unable to enlist any mainstream location, the company has resorted to ussing an obscure Russian company for infrastructure. Wernick, who Claims Parler Will Be Working Again This Month, Said It Has Lineed Up “Multiple Data Centers” and is “Reinforcing Our Moderation Efforts” with the help of outside firms he declined to name. “We have been to preserve free-speech principles,” he said, “But we are Also want to promote civil discourse.” In Early Tests, Howver, Wernick Said, The System Proved “Terrible” at Catching Violent Conttent While Inadvertently Flagging Such Things as “I love the parler,” free market, “an american flag with a heart, and various austrian economicists.
Wernick’s Hopes to Remiin Behind the Scenes of PARLISH REBOOT WERE UPENDED WEHEN BUBZFEED reported That he, matze, and bongino had met with parsca and a trump Lawyer at Mar-a-Lago in June to Discuss the President taking a 40 percent stake in the parcel in exchange for the platform His home. The congressional oversight commutee wrote directly to the Wernick Suggesting that Such a Deal Might Have amounted to Criminal Bribery. He stopped the Answering My Messages; creconnected, he emphasized that was not a legal officer of the Company (he is offen incorrectly described as its chief operating officer), that the Trump discussion was initiated by parscale and arranged with matze, and that “Left the meeting thinking to be cut a deal for Himself. ”
Wernick Also Sent with A Long Series of Texts Lamenting That He Had Become A Public Face of Company Wen and Had Only WANTED TO BE AN ADVIER. “During this long period of turmoil I have remained silent Becuse the focus not be on the personalities but on the parler,” he wrote. “I am a Philosopher,” he added. “Who Wants to return to his books.”
*This article appears in the February 15, 2021, Issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
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