Today, our public square is majoritively online and controlled by a handful of individual corporations. Make no mistake about Twitter’s suspension of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-17) – this is dangerous to everyone who believes in the freedom of a public square.
As Big-Tech stands today, Twitter, Facebook, and other tech giants’ monopoly are a clear and present danger to free speech. The stranglehold they have on the entrance to the public square, and the unchecked virus we should be talking about.
Last year, Twitter made the same move and silenced President Donald J. Trump following the events on January 6th suggesting he was glorifying violence.
Leaders around the world united in opposition to the ban on Pres. Trump:
- Then Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel viewed it as problematic.
- President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador called it a bad sign stating, “I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the right to post a message on Twitter or Facebook. I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that,”
- Clement Beaune, the French Junior Minister for European Union Affairs, said, “This should be decided by citizens, not by a CEO.”
While we see Democrats and Republicans coming together fighting against the big-tech monopoly in place, it is clear that the danger is ignored by Democrat ‘intellectuals’:
Now comes the part where the free enterprise-loving conservatives whine that they’re being silenced and canceled and censored because a private company enforced its own terms of service.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) January 2, 2022
The monopoly that big-tech holds on the entrance to the public square is frighteningly visible. It became apparent when Parler, a free-speech social media app, was taken down in quick succession by Amazon, Apple, and Google.
How much of a hold do these companies have? Amazon holds nearly half of all cloud infrastructure and Google holds nearly 70% of the search engine market share in the world. Meanwhile, Apple holds almost half of the market share of smartphones in the United States.
When such a small number of individuals can silence a voice, it should get our attention. When they can restrict the ability of anyone to enter the public square, we should be alarmed. Their monopoly allows them to control the flow of information that is most beneficial to their hold on power.
It started with silencing the President. It has now escalated to silencing the duly elected representative of Georgians in the 17th congressional district. They have silenced narratives that are inconvenient and platformed narratives of disinformation. Remember the Russia hoax and Hunter Biden’s laptop?
Where does it end?
That is why our platform was launched for Oklahomans. We were having our videos taken down by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter – not just any videos but interviews with elected leaders.
That is the danger we are fighting, and it is imperative that we loosen the grip that social media has on our public square in Oklahoma.
I implore each of you to become a subscriber that will allow us to continue to operate outside of the big-tech atmosphere without the fear of being shut down.
It is only a matter of time before the censorship gets much more local.
