This is what you get if you try to access Parler today.
For those who don’t know about the why… Let me summarize.
Twitter, Facebook, and Google, have been blocking people that they deem undesirable. They’ve been doing this for years if they decided that what you said was controversial or to borrow Orwell’s term “Wrongthink”.
I myself have been in Twitter and Facebook Jail for asking questions or stating my opinion about events in politics such as, my opposition to the Russian uranium deal, or speaking out against Sharia law in America, and once for questioning why we were having all the discussion about bathrooms, I was also lamenting the loss of urinals.
This according to Twitter & Facebook is “Hate Speech“. Though I said nothing hateful in my posts. I used no derogatory language, or foul language. I simply posted my opinion and as we all know opinions are like assholes, we all have one. (Although I’m sure Twitter would ban even that statement as it might be offensive to those who are literally asshole challenged.)
Twitter and Facebook consistently banned conservative voices, they banned any voices that questioned the dominant politically correct narrative or liberal Democratic policies and these companies were blatant about it.
An Islamic American could say that a raped woman deserved what she got and should be stoned to death, An Average American could not say that those who thought the woman should be stoned had missed the point of being in America and perhaps they’d be happier in their countries of origin.
Eventually Twitter and Facebook started banning a ever increasing number of conservative politicians, then they started banning politicians who were running for office. That got the attention of Congress and the various companies executives were called to the Capitol to answer questions.
In those hearings, Twitter and Facebook told Congress that anyone could create a competitive service. Everyone shook hands and across the country several entrepreneurs did exactly that. Parler and Gab being among the two most prominent.
Gab was never allowed on the Apple App store. They existed as a web site only because Apple found fault with the basics of the Gab philosophy. Parler on the other hand was able to get Apple approval and has existed on the Apple and Google Play store until Saturday 1/9/2021. When Apple announced that they were removing Parler. Google Play beat Apple to the punch removing Parler from their app store about 24 hours ahead of Apple.
There are many articles about the reasons for Apple’s move. I’ve randomly linked one of them here. The articles all read pretty much the same. One consistent phrase seen in almost every article is “Popular with Trump Supporters”.
A.K.A. Conservatives.
I was on Parler, I guess technically I still am on Parler while the site reconfigures. There are a lot of good people there. They have values similar to my own, they are generally patriotic and at least once a day if someone’s rage about the election boiled over there were numerous kind and supportive people who would say things like, “I know you’re angry, but this is why we have the courts.”
In all cases I witnessed, having someone kindly listen and remind the angry individual about the rule of law and that conservatives peacefully protest, that our Constitution provided protections etc. would calm the angry person back to reason.
I’ve followed several threads wherein Veterans cut off from counseling services for PTSD (due to COVID lockdowns) found solace because someone would engage with them not with hateful rhetoric but with kindness. Sometimes it was Vets helping other Vets and in many cases Professional therapists freely gave of their time using direct messaging to help a Vet or anybody get through a rough patch.
This was a markedly different experience than what I witnessed on Twitter. Twitter in the last few years has become a place of pretty vile vitriol being spewed at anyone who was different. Don’t be a conservative leaning Gay person on Twitter. You’ll be canceled and labeled a pariah. Think of it as walking into the DNC and declaring you’re a Republican.
Parler provides a place of free thought, free expression, and since freedom of speech is the rule, a healthy adult outlet where people can legitimately question almost anything and generally speaking get healthy feedback, not hate filled condemnation.
The last thing someone who’s suicidal needs to hear is, “Sack up pussy!” which happens all too often on Twitter, with absolutely no pushback from anyone.
But Parler has been painted by the media as a place of hateful insurrectionists. Funny, I’ve seen calls for protests, I’ve seen Proud Boys delineating rules for attending protests. “No weapons, no aggression, no hate, no yelling at protestors counter to your views.” The adult an unspoken understanding, which is accepted in all cultures is, “defend yourself if you must.” Apparently this is what now passes for hate.
Pulling Parler off the app stores wasn’t enough for the rabid mob. Amazon Web Services which if I recall correctly is a service companies PAY for decided that Parler had to go.
So they denied their contracted services as of Midnight Sunday 1/10/2021. Effectively booting Parler from the internet. They provided Parler zero time to move the operation to alternate hosting providers.
This is nothing less than Draconian censorship and flies in the face of the Big Technology companies saying “If you don’t like our way of doing things build your own service.”
Well Parler did build a very popular alternative service which was growing rapidly, and the big tech companies Apple, Google, and Amazon colluded to take the alternative away. Surely this would be prosecuted under the rico act if we had a fair and impartial court system.
Gab is still up, but due to the shear volume of now disenfranchised users (750% uptick in new users last I read) they’re struggling mightily to bring new servers online to handle the volume. Kudos to them!
I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before they’re under siege from the technology companies.
Google will be the first I suspect to attempt to make Gab unfindable on the web. Other internet service providers will follow suit because Google will intimidate them by threatening to make them unfindable as well.
If you can’t be found on the web, you’ll have a tough time signing up new customers. So Google will be directly impacting the web hosting sites income.
The common theme here is that conservatives, and supporters of President Trump, or the Constitutional right to free speech, are in fact being targeted.
As I’ve said before in this blog, I didn’t particularly like Donald Trump when he was elected. But even then I respected the Man, and the Office of the President. As time progressed I actually came to like Trump because he was exactly what he appeared to be, for good or bad, he was consistent.
Contrary to the media, he was not a dictator. (As an aside, Dictators don’t get Censored.) He garnered support from millions of average Americans because he was straight talking and more like them, than the other politicians in Washington D.C. That’s his appeal.
He’s not asking you to like him, he didn’t overly pander to anyone and was a businessman running the largest corporation on the planet, The United States Government. Sure he made some questionable decisions, who hasn’t? We all make questionable decisions from time to time. I’d submit that even his obvious mistakes endeared him to 70 million average “work a day” Americans.
Americans who by the way would have accepted Trumps defeat in the election if their concerns about that election had been treated with seriousness instead of dismissed out of hand, like the concerns of an unruly child.
The FBI is arresting with breathtaking speed the folks who breached the Capitol. But where are the arrests of the perpetrators in Portland, Seattle, or Minneapolis? Where are the prosecutions for incitement of violence? Why have Twitter and Facebook remained beyond censorship when groups freely use their services to coordinate the violence seen in these cities?
What happened to Hunter Biden’s laptop, have we seen an investigation there? For four solid years, we heard nothing but Russia collusion over a single phone call, and a false dossier. It was Joe Biden who bragged on camera about withholding aid to the Ukraine resulting in the termination of a prosecutor looking into illegalities with Burisma.
These things are not conspiracy theories. They are facts, supported by video evidence, and congressional testimony and witnesses.
In this light, can you see how average Americans might feel that the scales of justice aren’t level anymore?
We are indeed in a dark Winter, as Joe Biden said. But that Winter is not the Fault of Trump, his followers, or conservatives.
That dark Winter is arguably the result of socialism, cancel culture, censorship, and our Constitutional rights being assaulted not from an outside force but from within.
“When all government …in little as in great things… shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”