Republican digital operatives are worrying about themselves and their customers after big tech companies cracked down on prominent conservative websites and organizations.
Why it matters: Amazon’s decision to remove the popular conservative social media site Parler from its hosting services, and President Trump’s Twitter suspensions and tens of thousands of his supporters, has made segments of the online right afraid to become “deplatform”.
What’s new: A handful of conservative digital professionals met virtually this week on an email list they share. The tone was discouraging as they tried, in a series of emails sent to Axios, to figure out how to stay on the right side of technology industry standards.
Between the lines: The crackdowns have mainly focused on platforms where conspiracy theories have proliferated since Trump’s electoral defeat and, in some cases, where last week’s Capitol violence has been fueled, encouraged and celebrated.
- But the digital strategists on that email list were convinced that they could soon be caught up in a seemingly imminent wave of online censorship.
- They see them as arbitrary and politically motivated.
- “What is the limit on whether a project is likely to be started and closed?” asked Colorado GOP strategist Allen Fuller. “Obviously, fomenting insurrection and violence is very clear … but the line from there is not.”
- “It all comes down to where the left wants to draw the line and they have no idea now where that line is and they don’t even seem to care,” wrote Thomas Peters, the founder and CEO of the point-to-point text messaging company RumbleUp .
Driving the news: Trump’s permanent suspension from Twitter on Friday was seismic. But it was far from being the only platform to exile him.
- Your supporters have flocked to rival social media platforms geared towards your political brand. The most popular of these, Parler, has been suspended by Amazon’s AWS cloud service and is now processing.
- GoDaddy started the web’s most popular firearms forum, AR15.com, from its domain registration system on Tuesday. The company told Axios that it discovered content on the site “that both promoted and encouraged violence”.
For some conservatives, the answer is to remain as technologically self-sufficient as possible.
- Tom Elliott, a former radio producer who founded the Grabien television and video clip service, said his decision to build his own digital infrastructure behind the company was paying off.
- “I specifically avoided outsourcing the functionality to external technology vendors who have shown a willingness to be used on behalf of ‘social justice’ fight sessions,” said Elliott in an email to Axios.
Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated with information from the email list, after being inadvertently cut during the editing process.