The tech oligarchs accused of banning free speech

 Washington Examiner:

President Trump condemned Twitter shortly after the social media platform banned him permanently.

"As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated 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," the president said in a message on Friday night from his presidential Twitter account. "Twitter may be a private company, but without the government's gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long."

Trump circumvented Twitter's ban of his personal account, posting the message briefly from his @POTUS handle before the tweet disappeared. His message was then released in an official statement.

"As we’ve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules," a Twitter spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Friday night. "We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account. For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts permanently but will take action to limit their use."

...

"I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!" the president added. "Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely. STAY TUNED!"

...

There also appears to be an attempt to get Google and Apple to cut off access to the free speech site, Parler.

A liberal censorship group that hunts down conservatives wants Apple and Google to remove Parler from their stores.

The group Sleeping Giants is similar to Media Matters. It started in 2016 when it demanded companies remove advertisements from Breitbart, but quickly slithered its way around to eliminate other conservative voices.

They don’t call out hypocrisy or double standards. They want to *litrally* censor and shut down conservatives.

Conservatives have fled Twitter for Parler. Therefore, Sleeping Giants is now targeting Parler.

Because we all know liberals never ever say such horrible things.

...

 From CBS8 (emphasis mine):

“Words have meaning and calls for violence and incitement on these platforms creates real world problems. And that’s what we’re dealing with now,” said Matt Rivitz, Sleeping Giants Co-Founder.

He is part of an organization that helped create the Stop the Hate For Profit campaign persuading companies to stop buying online ads on social media platforms. He says social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube have relied on free speech.

“It brings in more ad dollars for them and more engagement. And what also brings in more engagement is hate and conspiracy theories and disinformation,” said Rivitz.

I am so glad that Rivitz made it clear through actions and words that the only speech he cares about is leftist speech.

Such a move against Parler might result in an antitrust suit against those pushing a move as a restraint of trade. It would certainly look like collusion of the big tech giants to destroy access to a smaller competitor.