Last night, I was alerted to an S.E.C. filing for a new company called Hedgehog Community Inc., registered to three very interesting names: John Matze, the co-founder and former C.E.O. of Parler; Jared Thomson, the conservative social media platform’s former C.T.O.; and Andrew Croxson, an executive at Fox Corporation listing his address as 1211 Avenue of the Americas—the News Corp building, for those in the know.
I wasn’t surprised: I’ve been hearing for months that Matze has been plotting a comeback after his libertarian dream of an anything-goes, free-speech social media platform fell apart. The site, which once had about 15 million users, was essentially deplatformed by its tech partners after reports surfaced that Parler had been used to help coordinate the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Matze, who said he had actually pushed for more robust moderation, was fired by the board, led by billionaire Rebekah Mercer, shortly thereafter.
