RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/parler-is-silenced_3651255.html

The social media company Parler—which is a French word meaning “to speak”—was mugged and left for dead by Big Tech last week in what appears to be the start of a cultural offensive aimed at stifling conservative advocacy in our country’s public discourse.

I am shocked but not surprised. In my last column in these pages, I warned of a looming and authoritarian “corporatocracy” that threatened to stifle freedom in a way that our government never could. Little did I know that within a week of writing, behemoth social media companies would prove my words prophetic.

Here’s the story: After the godawful Capitol Hill riot of Jan. 6, Twitter and Facebook launched a cyber jack-booted crackdown on conservative advocacy. Not only did the social media giants cancel President Trump’s accounts, but Twitter appears to have launched a great purge.

Washington Examiner columnist Byron York, actor and conservative icon James Woods, and Fox News pundit Brett Hume, among many others, announced that they had each lost tens of thousands of followers on Twitter in just a few days. Similarly, less famous voices reported the loss of hundreds of followers.

Whatever is going on—Twitter hasn’t said—the company seems hellbent on stifling conservatives’ ability to communicate across the width and breadth of the social media public square.

Attacking a Competitor

The subsequent attack on Parler was even more egregious. Parler is a direct competitor of Twitter and operates in almost the exact manner; members post their thoughts or news articles, with “followers” able to comment and add the original posts to their own timelines.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/09/the-woke-purge/

Cancel culture doesn’t exist, they say. And yet with the flick of a switch, billionaire capitalists voted for by precisely nobody have just silenced a man who is still the democratically elected president of the United States. With the push of a button in their vast temples to technology, the new capitalist oligarchs of Silicon Valley have prevented a man who won the second largest vote in the history of the American republic just two months ago — 74million votes — from engaging with his supporters (and critics) in the new public square of the internet age.

Not only does cancel culture exist — it is the means through which the powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era and their clueless cheerleaders in the liberal elites interfere in the democratic process and purge voices they disapprove of. That’s what Twitter’s permanent suspension of Donald Trump confirms.

The new capitalists’ cancellation of the democratically elected president of the United States is a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world. We underestimate the significance of this act of unilateral purging at our peril. It demonstrates that the greatest threat to freedom and democracy comes not from the oafs and hard-right clowns who stormed the Capitol this week, but from the technocratic elites who spy in the breaching of the Capitol an opportunity to consolidate their cultural power and their political dominance.

Twitter’s ban on Trump is extraordinary for many reasons. First, there’s the arrogance of it. Make no mistake: this is the bosses vs democracy; corporates vs the people; exceptionally wealthy and aloof elites determining which elected politicians may engage in online discussion, which is where most political and public debate takes place in the 21st century. Those who cannot see how concerning and sinister it is that a handful of Big Tech companies have secured a virtual monopoly over the social side of the internet, and are now exploiting their monopolistic power to dictate what political opinions it is acceptable to hold and express in these forums, urgently needs a wake-up call.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/nikki-haley-likens-trump-twitter-ban-to-act-of-chine

Social media companies banning President Donald Trump is something the Chinese Communist Party would do, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Friday.

“Silencing people, not to mention the President of the U.S., is what happens in China not our country,” Haley wrote in a tweet.

Twitter announced earlier in the day that it was permanently removing Trump’s account, which had been active since before he took office in 2016. The company claimed his recent tweets were inciting violence.

Trump in response accused Twitter of “banning free speech” and coordinating “with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me—and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me.”

Trump said his team has been negotiating with competitors to Twitter and is looking into building their own platform in the near future.

Facebook also banned Trump, at least for the remainder of his term.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dershowitz-230-trump-facebook/2021/01/09/

Legal expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV on Saturday morning that Facebook and Twitter should lose their exemptions under the Communications Decency Act as a result of banning President Donald Trump.

Section 230 of the act protects social media companies from liability for content their users post.

“Two thirty [230] basically exempts Twitter and other social media from being held responsible for their content and the content others put on because they’re supposed to be just a platform where anything goes on,” Dershowitz told host Carl Higbie on “Saturday Report.”

“But once they become a publisher, once they decide, ‘No, we don’t like this president, we like the other president,’ then they lose their exemption under Section 230, and I think there will be Congressional action to limit Section 230 to actual platforms.”

Both Facebook and Twitter have banned President Trump from posting on their platforms. Twitter did so permanently. Facebook said it’s suspension will last until the president’s term is over.

“Anybody who censors selectively should lose their 230 exemption,” Dershowitz said.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/08/media-outrage-over-capitol-riot-isnt-about-defending-democracy-its-about-wielding-power/

For our political and media elites, the capitol riot on Wednesday is the perfect excuse to ‘cleanse’ the country of Trump supporters.

After the pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Twitter blue-checks, politicians, and elite corporate journalists wailed and rent their garments in outrage. But they weren’t really outraged.

Yes, the breach of the capitol was appalling and disturbing. Most people didn’t see it coming and were understandably shocked when images of MAGA bros fighting capitol police began popping up on social media (although the authorities should have been better prepared, most of all D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who had earlier rejected offers of additional law enforcement.) There’s no question the protesters who decided to riot should be prosecuted, as all rioters everywhere should be.

But elite outrage is not really about what happened at the capitol—about the “sacred citadel of our democracy being defiled” and so on. The outrage, like almost all expressions of righteous indignation from our elites in the Trump era, is performative. It is in service of a larger purpose that has nothing to do with the peaceful transfer of power and everything to do with the wielding of power.

Specifically, it’s about punishing supporters of President Trump. If the pro-Trump mob can be depicted as “terrorists” and “traitors,” then there’s almost nothing we shouldn’t do to silence them. Right? Rick Klein, the political director at ABC News, said the quiet part out loud on Thursday when he mused (in a now-deleted tweet) that getting rid of Trump is “the easy part” and the more difficult task will be “cleansing the movement he commands.”

That’s not the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of reporting the news. It’s the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of social control.

Mitch McConnell’s Finest Hour

By The Editors

The Senate majority leader’s statesmanlike actions were worthy of his long and distinguished career.

Who Says A Must Say B

By Richard Brookhiser

He should be impeached and removed from office.

End This Republican Nightmare

By Kyle Smith

The Constitution is clear about the remedy for a president who has become politically untenable: impeachment and removal.

James Lankford’s Abdication of Responsibility

By Mark Antonio Wright

James Lankford had a duty to tell the truth, the whole truth, to Oklahomans, not pander to them.

Ted Cruz Fails the Moment

By Isaac Schorr

This hour was made to be Cruz’s finest, but instead it was his most dishonorable.

Elaine Chao Resigns as Transportation Secretary over Trump’s Handling of Capitol Riots

By Mairead McArdle

Several other high-ranking officials have tendered their resignations in the 24 hours since chaos descended on Washington.

Remove, Impeach, Convict

By Michael R. Strain

This is another all-hands-on-deck moment.

Schumer Says Trump ‘Should Not Hold Office One Day Longer,’ Calls for 25th Amendment or Impeachment

By Tobias Hoonhout

He added that the Capitol breach on Wednesday, “was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president.”