People and sites are being shut down left and right. Actually, I take that back: just right.
But seriously. This problem is getting over-the-top, unbelievably bad. Now these are nominally private companies doing the de-platforming. So we're supposed to be all for it, yadda yadda yadda. But practical reality has to matter, too. If it doesn't, if your principles have no connection with and no bearing on practical reality, what good are they?
Seriously, tell me that. What good are they?
This is the practical reality of the situation: to communicate ideas effectively in the modern age requires the internet. It requires, specifically, a Facebook and Twitter presence. If these companies lock you out, you're dead in the water. It also requires that people be able to find you. If Google delists you from their search results: that's it. You're dead in the water. Super dead.
"But, but!" you say. But you can still have a website! Anyone can have a website and say anything they choose. Google's a private company and doesn't have to show your site. Facebook's a private company and doesn't have to let you on their network. That's fine if they lock you out: just have your own website. Phew! Problem solved! The internet is still free! Sounds great, but this is not true in this day and age. You cannot have your own website. You most certainly cannot have a website and say anything you choose. In today's day and age, the threats and infrastructure of the internet have evolved such to require the assistance and cooperation of mega-corporations.
There exists today on the internet a threat called the DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack. It is easy and cheap to launch such an attack. But to defend against it is extremely difficult and expensive. This asymmetry means that to have a website that can survive unpopularity, one requires the assistance of a big company that specialized in defending against DDOS attacks. If you just set up a server in your closet, the first time someone decides they don't like your views, or even just randomly decides to attack you: you're hosed.
So you can't even have a website.
There is no such thing as an independent web presence.
This is a fundamental problem rooted in the infrastructure of the internet, and one that we are currently working on solving via an ambitious project called Urbit. It's a technical problem, and so it can be solved technically.
But it is also a social and cultural problem. The power to whine to people's employers about their views to attempt to get them fired has always existed. That is not a new power. It was always there -- in theory. It's just that nobody used it because it's obviously stinking despicable! Nobody was so deeply and rabidly r-selected that those biological drives overcame their basic decency and humanity. Nobody was willing to go destroy someone's life and take away their livelihood in service of their r-selected mania, because they wouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror if they did that. Well, no one but Saul Alinsky & disciples (e.g. Hillary Clinton).
Now, we've progressed much further. An eighth of the population is Saul Alinsky. Theleftiststhird-worldists cannot disagree with someone's opinions and still have sympathy for them as a fellow human being. That is over. Long gone. They've forked into a different sub-species.
At the same time, keep in mind theleftthird-worldists have all the power. They control all or virtually all the institutions of power and import. So here you have the ruling group of society, and they've gone biologically haywire and are attacking large -- very large -- portions of the society they rule.
What happens next?
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