Protesters and rioters at the Capitol Building did more than shock the consciences of peaceful Americans on Wednesday, they gave Big Tech and the organized Left, but I repeat myself, an excuse to blame it all on President Trump and his voters and to cut off his social media voice.
None of the Big Tech firms cut off Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Ayanna Presley, and other Democrats when they fanned the flames of antifa, or BLM rioters as they burned down American cities, but within hours on Friday afternoon, Big Tech, knowing it would receive cover by a Biden administration, tried to silence Donald Trump. Now they’re going after the rest of the right.
On the same day that Twitter “permanently” cut off President Donald Trump from its platform, hours after Michelle Obama called on Facebook to ban the president from their platform, Big Tech is trying to cut off the platform that right-of-center Americans have been gravitating to because of censorship.
The Google Play store “suspended” the Parler app from its list of products, saying that the platform needed to censor content, blaming the social media site for Wednesday’s protest and riot.
For us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.
And now Apple has reportedly threatened to pull the Parler app from its store.
The word of that comes from opinion-maker and Parler investor Dan Bongino, who put out a “critical message” to his Parler followers on Friday afternoon.
Monopolist Apple is threatening to pull the Parler App from the App Store.
This is clearly an ideological decision, not a principled one. We are having a police state forced down our throats and the big/big-govt symbiotic is more than happy to crush free speech and any ideological opposition to the liberal agenda. Please spread the word and echo this post to spread the word about this destructive war on civil liberties.
I managed to get a screenshot of Bongino’s message before the platform went dead in the water, possibly from overuse, and suddenly went offline.
NEW: Parler is down, AND Apple just gave Parler 24 hours to ‘Improve Moderation’ or they are banned from App Store https://t.co/l8yMrxZFCO
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) January 9, 2021
It was frightening.
The platform eventually came back on, though Big Tech had sent the message.
And the marching orders appear to be from the Left’s own Media Matters, which celebrated President Trump being cut off from Twitter. The group’s president, Angelo Carusone, welcomed the censoring of his political opponents in a statement:
These actions are long past due and appropriate. But, Twitter (and other platforms) doing this now is a lot like senior administration officials resigning with only days left – too little too late. Trump has repeatedly broken Twitter rules. If only Twitter and other platforms had acted earlier, Wednesday’s awful events could have been avoided. It is time for Facebook and other platforms to follow suit.
MMFA also said in a press release that banning Trump would impact Big Tech’s business.
According to Media Matters research, daily interactions of right-leaning Facebook pages significantly dropped after Trump’s temporary Facebook suspension was implemented and that right-leaning, left-leaning, and nonaligned pages each earned roughly a third of total engagement during this time. Especially in light of Twitter’s announcement banning Trump, this data shows what the impact of removing him permanently from Facebook could be.
Colleague Jennifer Van Laar over at RedState put out a warning that many should heed before the country crawls into an Orwellian black hole:
To all the people who think it’s OK for Twitter, FB to be the content police b/c “it’s a private company, just create another one where you can do what you want,” what happens when Apple and Google Play don’t allow apps like Parler? You can’t create your own. Big Tech and their willing accomplices are leading this country down a terrible and dangerous path.
Big Tech and their willing accomplices are leading this country down a terrible and dangerous path.
— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) January 8, 2021
Apple let Parler know, in no uncertain terms, that the social media site must censor speech Apple finds offensive or be punished.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Parler failed to censor content that the speech police at Apple determined incited the Capitol siege by protesters.
Apple Inc. AAPL 0.86% has threatened to ban Parler, a free-speech focused social-media network favored by conservatives, for failing to moderate incitements to violence and illegal activity, according to a notice provided to The Wall Street Journal by John Matze, Parler’s chief executive.
“We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler App was used to plan, coordinate and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington DC on January 6,” the notice begins. The tech giant said in order for Parler to remain available in the App Store, it had to provide detailed information on its content-moderation plans and “what you will do to improve moderation and content filtering your service for this kind of objectionable content going forward.”
Launched in 2018, Parler has billed itself as a free-speech friendly and content-recommendation free alternative to larger social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. It has exploded in popularity in the run-up to and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Parler considers itself a free speech forum and doesn’t moderate comments, except for illegal acts.
Apple wants them to know that it’s in control of the speech content from now on, thank you very much.
Trump will be out of office in days. Big Tech couldn’t wait to send him a message on his way out. They sent the rest of Trump’s 74 million voters a big message, too.
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