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As someone who has lived in both fascist regimes (South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s) and Communist ones (off and on in China during that past two decades), I h
by tatrajim 6y ago
As someone who has lived in both fascist regimes (South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s) and Communist ones (off and on in China during that past two decades), I have witnessed close at hand supposedly private businesses eager to curry favor with the government by silencing their political opponents. Could it just be that the tech titans sense a means of fending off imminent antitrust action by the DoJ, through tacitly coordinated purges of conservative platforms? Surely not!
On a related note, as a longtime defender of free speech, I am nauseated at the visage of tech mavens here rhetorically frothing at the mouth to silence those with whom they disagree. This has been a slippery slope indeed, starting with Alex Jones and now extending to platforms used by 10s of millions of people, whose views are now deemed heretical.
- camel_Snake 6y agoI can't help but wonder if the opposite isn't at play here. It's reasonable that these companies have wanted to dissociate with Parler or other specific extremist groups but were afraid of political retribution from Mr. Trump. In your experience, did those same private businesses curry favor with governments by giving their allies preferential treatment? As 'slippery slope' as this all feels, I'd personally rather the government not get involved in these private business dealings unless they feel there is a monopoly/oligopoly at foot.
- tatrajim 6y agoThen in that case they will surely be desirous of de-platforming the toxic content on Twitter, which advocates, among other things, the destruction of Israel By Iran and the internment of Uyghurs in Sinjiang. Who would want their corporate identity sullied by such content? As for the slippery slope, in my opinion we're headed with accelerating pace toward Kotkin's Neo-feudalism. The suppression of dissent is one important piece of the process. https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Neo-Feudalism-Warning-Global-Middle-ebook/dp/B07VCG8RPF/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Neofeudalism&qid=1610250470&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Neo-Feudalism-Warning-Global-M...