The riot at the Capitol Building was less than three weeks ago, but it’s never too soon to start assigning blame. A bunch of those cuck RINO traitors want to blame Trump just because he held a rally to complain that the election was being stolen from him and then, purely by coincidence, it turned into a deadly riot. (We still don’t know who murdered Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick by smashing him in the head with a fire extinguisher. Probably an Antifa infiltrator, right?) And the media and their fellow Democrats want to blame the same people they always blame whenever something goes wrong: anybody who disagrees with them about anything, ever.
Social media has given millions of Americans a chance to make their voices heard, but those voices often annoy Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter. So, what’s to be done? In the case of the purportedly right-wing social media service Parler, our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters all agree that we’re all better off without it. They say it’s good that Parler has been shut down in the wake of the Capitol riot, because the wrong sorts of people were gathering there. Undesirables. Deplorables. Nobodies, or at least nobody who would ever even want a job at CNN or the New York Times.
But is it really fair to lay all the blame on Parler?
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee said any potential FBI investigation into the “role” Parler played in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “should include” Facebook and Twitter, calling the recent request for an FBI probe from committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney “evidence” of the “growing alliance between Big Tech and Democrats.”
Committee Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., and GOP Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., penned a letter to Maloney, D-N.Y., on Monday after she requested that the FBI investigate Parler’s “role” as a “potential facilitator” of planning or inciting the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Like you, we were disturbed and angered by the riot and we believe those responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law,” they wrote. “But casting blame on a single social media company known for its conservative username while simply ignoring other social media companies known for sympathizing with liberal causes is blatantly and overtly partisan…”
“A cursory search of other social media platforms yields identical, disturbing posts, from across the political spectrum, advocating for a wide swathe of positions, demonizing an equally diverse group of people,” they wrote, pointing to posts found on Facebook and Twitter.
Of course, accusing the Democrats of being blatantly and overtly partisan is like complaining that a creature that has fins and breathes water is blatantly and overtly piscatory. It’s just part of the package.
If you’ve ever spent more than five minutes on any social media platform ever created, you’ve probably seen something you didn’t like. I sure have! That’s why social media created functions like “muting” and “blocking” and “scrolling past stuff that makes you angry.” If you see something that offends you, then you can take some personal responsibility and do something about it. If you see something that you know is false, you can tell the truth about it. Which is almost always futile, but you have that option. You can control your online experience. You don’t need somebody else to do it for you.
Did people use Parler to communicate with each other during the Capitol riot? Probably. It’s tough to tell now, because the whole thing has been taken down. Did people use Twitter and Facebook and other social media platforms to do the same thing, on January 6 and many times before? Definitely. Hell, people have been livestreaming themselves committing violent crimes for years now. Is that Facebook’s fault?
Taking down an entire platform just because some people misused it… where does that end?
The same way it always ends, of course. The wealthy and powerful get away with it, and the rest of us don’t. Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey will be just fine. The guys who run Parler? Not so much.
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