It gets frustrating repeatedly hearing from conservative leaders that everyday conservatives, who are being suppressed on Twitter and Facebook, should just use the free market to find another platform.
Sean Duffy, a Republican congressman, was on Outnumbered today. His position is that Trump knew about Twitter’s bias for over a year and that he had that time to find and move his base to another platform.
The idea that someone, anyone, could create an alternate to Facebook or Twitter in a four year period, much less a year, is so absurd it is mind-numbing. Gab tried but they were labeled “Racist” by the press who is – along with 90% of our politicians – in bed with Big Tech.
Alternatives sites become mere echo chambers for those, knowingly or unknowingly, seeking conformation bias.
It is terrifying when you realize the enormity of the grip these companies have on public communications. A grip that could only be maintained with the help of our complicit Media.
Both Twitter and Facebook, platforms that were introduced in the infancy of the smartphone. Back in the new 24/7 Wi-Fi saturated wild west of having an app for anything, they were marketed as a place to write about daily life, exchange ideas, post pictures and interact with family and friends. Thereby creating an extended network of people, through your friends’ friends or by commenting or interacting on posts you found interesting. They touted features allowing you to join groups you found interest in; to follow reporters or organizations you trusted – and to follow celebrities you enjoyed. It was a user platform that allowed one to create online connections with family and friends that would be otherwise easily lost in our hectic everyday lives.
Here a just a few of the many factors that make accomplishing what Congressman Duffy – among others’ – blithe suggestions exceedingly difficult:
- Twitter drives the news cycle, even though 92% of political tweets come from 10% of the users (70% of whom identify as Democrat), an intentional choice the MSM are not interested in changing.
- The whole world outside of China (more or less) is established on these networks and any company that grows big enough to challenge them is immediately bought out or chased out of their own market. They do this by matching the features of the new company and devoting more resources to software engineering those features to outperform newbies at what makes them special in the first place. Facebook did this to Instagram; Instagram did it with Snapchat. Google tried, but failed, doing this to Facebook with Google Plus.
Today’s conservative leaders must understand that the public square has evolved.
A life without software to share your ideas and thoughts is hard to live without having to lower what is acceptable for today’s standards of living. In addition it has become how we talk to each other since the societal norms are moving further from traditional phone calls and in person meets to completely remote communication via text. Censoring how we share our thoughts is a dangerous and slippery slope. Social media companies are hosts, platforms, vessels.
If our words are vitamins, they are the capsules that simply help us deliver them and nothing more. NOR should they be.
They exist to silently give us a platform to deliver our free speech and the dependency that we have formed on them worldwide leaves us no choice but to deem this an absolute, nonnegotiable necessity. Their very definition – not only in legislation – but also within their ethical responsibilities, to be transparent as that vessel.
I’m sure Zuckyboo has said something or another on the magnitude of any choices he makes or how seriously they take what they do since it affects so many people. Ethically, he should be following those very words and not socially engineering and subtly manipulating us.
The threat presented should be treated on a scale relevant to the offense being imposed upon us.
Ask yourself, do Oxford, Five Star or other notebook manufacturers have special employees who walk up to you while you’re in the café, writing your thoughts down, just to suddenly tell you that you are too controversial and take your pen from your hands? Do they burn your paper or tell you to rip the page out or they won’t allow you to have your notebook back? No, of course not. The question is, what is different between that, and what is happening virtually? Suddenly because it’s virtual we no longer feel the same disrespect? Censorship and disenfranchisement are dangerous to the free thinker but safe to the hive mind. Perhaps there is some detachment, but again, the threat should be treated equal to the scale of the offense.
This, my dear reader, is no bueno.
This is why we absolutely must as a society condemn what they are doing and explore all legal options available to us, else we find ourselves silenced in the medium of political discourse of our times!
Heather Tappel
NationWatch 