Big week for tech platforms & free speech!
- Twitter & FB banned Trump
- Apple & Google banned Parler
- Amazon kicked Parler off AWS
- Stripe stopped handling payments for Trump campaign
I just wrote a 4,000 word piece on these issues.
Here's a thread with my 10 takeaways...
1. Contrary to what many people have been claiming, no, Big Tech is not more powerful than the government.
The government can tax you, imprison you, and kill you. It can even nationalize private companies.
Tech companies can delete your free account.
2. Trump may be banned from Facebook and Twitter, but he’s still the president of the United States and he has not been silenced.
As @ModeledBehavior reminded us, only 22% of adults use Twitter. (And only 10% are daily active users).
Twitter is not real life.
3. Banning right-wing extremists or those who incite violence is not a slippery slope toward an Orwellian dystopia, and it’s certainly not a civil rights issue (contrary to what @willchamberlain might claim).
Every platform bans some users for speech issues, including Parler.
4. Repealing Section 230 would not solve any of these issues (and might make them worse).
People who claim "this is why we need to repeal 230" are lying to you (or severely misinformed).
Follow experts like @jkosseff & @mmasnick to learn what Section 230 actually says and does.