Parler CEO John Matze has been terminated from the social media company’s board, CNN reports.
What happened?
Fox Business reported Wednesday that Matze sent a memo out to staffers that said he had been fired by the owners of the company.
Parler investor and conservative commentator Dan Bongino said in a Facebook video on Wednesday that Matze had been terminated from the board.
- Bongino said he didn’t have any problems with Matze.
- “The relationship with Parler and the CEO did not work out because the CEO’s vision was not ours,” Bongino said, according to CNN.
Reaction
Matze said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that he “met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech and my view of how the Parler site should be managed. For example, I advocated for more product stability and what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation.”
Per The New York Times, Matze said he thought he had been fired because he didn’t have the same opinions as Republican political donor Rebekah Mercer, who has been a financial supporter of Parler.
- “I’ve always been about free speech and everyone being welcome. I’ve never been about conservative political activism,” Matze said, per The New York Times.
- However, he said he told Mercer that he thought Parler needed to possibly restrict domestic terrorists, white supremacists and QAnon members.
- “I got dead silence as a response, and I took that dead silence as disagreement,” he said, according to The New York Times.