Thanks to a well-coordinated attack from all sides, Parler has been taken down. I wonder if the “Just build your own alternative to Twitter” people are rethinking their myopic viewpoint.
Probably not.
If we’ve learned anything over the last several days, it’s that David French and the rest of the Cruise Ship “conservatives” who scoffed at us for years for raising the alarm about Big Tech were flat-out wrong.
“They’re a private company,” they sneered. “They can do what they want. If you don’t like how Twitter runs its business, just build your own social media platform.”
They really thought it was that simple.
Well, Parler did exactly what these myopic prats suggested. And how did that work out?
First Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores.
Then Amazon booted Parler off its web hosting service.
Then every vendor that worked with Parler – from the lawyers to payment processing services – dropped them as well.
JuSt bUiLd yOuR oWn LaW FiRm.
In a May 2019 column at Human Events, Will Chamberlain argued that platform access should be treated as a civil right.
Because you know what? Private property rights are great. But that does not mean that we, as a society, had to let private restaurant owners and private hotel managers turn away customers because they were black. We didn’t have to accept a world in which black people had to defecate on the side of the road because they weren’t allowed to use a privately-owned restroom.
We, as a society, do not have to allow private companies to violate Americans’ civil rights.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that those “Just build your own social media company” people scoffed Will’s column back in 2019.
I wonder if David French would have told the black people holding sit-ins at lunch counters “Just build your own lunch counter!”
Nothing was done to stop the Big Tech crackdown so many knew was coming.
Thanks to what happened to Parler, we know that Big Tech has no qualms about working together to completely squeeze out a company that took this useless “Just build your own social media platform” advice.
Now the problem with Big Tech goes far beyond censorship.
What happened to Parler was a coordinated hit-job to destroy a competitor.
JuSt bUiLd yOuR oWn.
That’s not letting the Free Market work.
There’s nothing Free Marketish about Tech companies colluding to destroy a competitor. Nothing at all.
And as I said on Saturday, Washington politicians are using Big Tech as their proxy to limit Freedom of Speech. Democrat members of Congress spent the weekend openly urging Apple, Google and Amazon to shut down Parler. And when Parler started getting squeezed, these elected Representatives cheered.
Aren’t you glad Senate Republicans held hearings? Wasn’t it helpful?
I mean, aside from providing video clips of these big talking Republicans smacking down Jack Dorsey or that Cylon Mark Zuckerberg that they could post on Twitter and Facebook, what the hell was the point of those stupid hearings?
Hahahahahaha!
Tough talk, Senator Day Late and Dollar Short.
At this point, Federal action has gone from unlikely to impossible. The Democrats now control both Houses of Congress and the White House. And since Big Tech is doing the Democrats’ dirty work, why would Democrats lift a finger to restrain them?
But individual states can and should act.
As Will Chamberlain said in his 2019 Human Events column:
Notice – I said *both* state and federal laws. It will be a very serious challenge to get a federal law passed protecting this civil right, given the current composition of Congress. But states with heavily Republican legislatures can pass laws that protect their state’s citizens from de-platforming.
And if they do so, Facebook, Twitter, and Google will have to comply if they want to keep doing business in that state.
What happened to Parler this weekend should chill you to the bone whether you use social media or not.
This is no longer about social media platforms.
When Parler can lose every single vendor they depend on to be a viable business – all in the span of 24 hours – this is no longer just about social media censorship.
This is about Big Tech, corporations, elected officials (with an assist from the media) working together to prevent certain Americans from participating, not just in free speech, but the Free Market as well.
And as they squeeze their political enemies out, what do these myopic “just build your own” idiots expect us to do?
Build our own country?