The censorship of big technologies is coming to conservative voices and it is coming fast. In their actions to remove conservative voices from the public sphere, the large technology companies that collectively control the flow of information to billions of people have announced that they are in control of the American political system.
We cannot meet in person because of restrictions inspired by COVID, and now we cannot meet online for fear of being silenced.
With the support of influencers like Michelle Obama, as well as many congressmen and the media, social media sites are banning conservatives from their user base. It is happening with alarming speed.
The government has forced people not to meet in person. All life has come online. And now the spaces that almost everyone uses to interact with friends, work, family, strangers, to meet, to exchange ideas, are being purged from those who do not adhere to progressive or democratic ideas.
Facebook, Google, Twitter and Apple seem to have come together to take action against conservative accounts, and are doing it blatantly and without any carelessness. Great technology has made us your dog and we can do nothing but obey or be silenced.
There is no real way to make this not happen. Great technology has received the keys to the kingdom and does not return them. They have the tools and the power to block dissent and are using them.
We are not allowed to leave. We are not allowed to be together. And now we are not allowed to speak online. If the goal of corporate America, the establishment and progressive politicians, is to crush dissent, to stop those who simply disagree with saying what they think, they are doing stellar work.
We willingly offer these big tech companies access to our most personal details, hopes, dreams, thoughts and ideas. We share our deepest pains and our most ecstatic joys. On Twitter, we share quick takes and intense ideas, it has been a forum for many to express indignation, but also to get involved with each other in a humanizing way.
Social media is often ridiculed as a dump, a cesspool, a wasteland, but it is also an incredible tool for creating a new city square, incredibly inclusive, diverse and open. With this latest crackdown, social media undermines its own usefulness.
Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Google, YouTube and other platforms have made a lot of money from their brilliant inventions. As users migrated to these platforms, their CEOs and shareholders were able to sell advertising to virtually all large, small and independent companies.
They liked their money, but they don’t like how people used what they created. As such, they changed this week with their corporate weight to block, ban, suspend and remove users from their platforms. While people claim that this is in opposition to the First Amendment, others say that because social media companies are private, they are under no obligation to defend our laws and rights. But at a time when the interface is not optional, those who control it must be accountable to the public.
We submit to your terms of use. We submit to blockades. We willingly court the subjugation of our freedoms. We allow this to happen to our society. And we need to get it out. Get together. Speaks. Don’t be silenced.