We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Take action now… because choices will be made for you if you do not

If you do not hold the ‘correct views’, the time is rapidly approaching that you need to find alternative venues for expressing those views. So set up your own blog (& do NOT host it with a company owned by Big Tech) and/or set up accounts on alternative platforms that do not depend on the very worst of Big Tech.

It is only a matter of time before Twitter, Google & Amazon makes the decision for you, either kicking you off platforms they own directly or taking down other platforms they disapprove off by denying them hosting. Gab and Parler can be accessed via the web, and the Parler app can still be installed on Android devices. It’s a quick and easy process.

And if you are still using an iPhone and want the app… consider making your current iPhone your final iPhone.

Dissenting views are under attack and the people doing the attacks do not even need to hide the fact anymore.

65 comments to Take action now… because choices will be made for you if you do not

  • Natalie Solent (Essex)

    Just to mention that if you are setting up Parler for a UK mobile phone number, don’t forget to replace the international dialling code for the US (which is +1 and if I remember rightly is pre-written into the box you enter the number into) with the UK’s international dialling code +44, which replaces the initial zero of a UK mobile phone number.

    I expect that is obvious to most of you, but it wasn’t obvious to me. It took me several goes to get it right.

    After all that, I probably won’t make much use of my Parler account. Social media really does not appeal to me. I started a Twitter account merely so as to read other people’s tweets more easily, and I will probably keep it going for that purpose.

  • Schrodinger's Dog

    Perry,

    I’ve been thinking of joining Parler for a while, and this piece made me actually do so. I’ve also just joined the Mark Steyn Club, as he has done some truly sterling work defending free speech in Canada, and was one of the few people willing to defend Donald Trump to the end.

    I think you’re right and the right is now in very grave danger of being silenced. But joining organisations isn’t enough, is it? We need to do better. After all, we could hardly have done worse, having lost nearly every political and cultural battle since at least 1960.

    We need to make an appealing case for right-wing/libertarian philosophy: freedom, low taxes and a lack of regulation. Unfortunately, I fear that will not be easy. People may not much care for the left’s agenda and its authoritarianism, but they do love what the advertising people would call the left’s unique selling point: free stuff. Cash, or a benefit, is something very concrete, very real; liberty, on the other hand, is very abstract. And, given the ease with which most western governments have been able to lock down their populations these last few months, I now think it’s something about which people do not care much.

    Despite that, I am willing to do what I can to help preserve freedom. Unfortunately, I am in political limbo, as I am a British citizen living in the United States.

  • Andrew Douglas

    Except that Parler was reliant on big tech for its platform and is now being booted. It is crap anyway. Gab had the early experience of an attempted big tech shutdown and invested to be independent, is much better, and more robust. Donā€™t believe the conservative-lite commentators who have tried to smear Gab – itā€™s good and getting better. Subscriber numbers are rising, and it is now financially self sustaining.

  • APL

    PdH: “and the Parler app can still be installed on Android devices.”

    Isn’t Parler toast ?

    With hindsight it was a bit reckless to put their system right in the belly of the AWS beast, no?

  • Except that Parler was reliant on big tech for its platform and is now being booted

    Take a guess why I wrote this article šŸ˜€

  • Isnā€™t Parler toast ?

    No, they apparently have contingency plans to move hosting. They may suffer disruption, but they do not intend to disappear.

    With hindsight it was a bit reckless to put their system right in the belly of the AWS beast, no?

    Indeed.

  • Stonyground

    Once these people have eliminated all dissenting views from their media platforms, won’t they then become tedious echo chambers that hardly anyone wants to visit?

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Once these people have eliminated all dissenting views from their media platforms, wonā€™t they then become tedious echo chambers that hardly anyone wants to visit?

    Most people are like Alsadius – they mistake echoes for sophisticated, intellectual discussion.

  • Deep Lurker

    My preference is for Mastodon. It’s a “federated” system, and so avoids presenting a single throat to be slit.

  • James Fancher

    Dissenting views can still be voiced on many platforms. I believe the problem is using social media sites to organize rebellion.

  • bobby b

    Thank you, PdH.

    Step Two:

    We all need to get off Twitter. Completely. Don’t just set up an alternative – Parler or GAB or whatever – for effect and warm feelings. That’s like buying a flag decal.

    We need to reach a new point: Anyone who has a “follow me on Twitter” button? Shunned. Ignored. Reviled.

    “But, it’s marketing!” Well, yeah, that’s a choice. Just recognize what you’re choosing.

  • Snorri Godhi

    The Hungarians have just launched an alternative to Facebook.

    Would you have guessed that we can look to OrbĆ”n’s Hungary as a bastion of free speech?

    And the Poles are also getting in on the act.

  • I’ve never been on Twitter, and I was on Facebook for only a couple months before I ran screaming and quit. I erased all my data per their instructions (oh, yeah). I now operate on the good old-fashioned bulletin board model, which means, these days, finding blogs that are fairly harmonious.

    But above all, I try to avoid saying anything actionable on the Internet. Assorted companies and agencies surely know everything I do there, so why give them blackmail material?

  • Tedd

    It strikes me that he core problem is social media platforms that operate on centralized servers. Surely, there will always be censorship problems with such systems. I’m interested in thoughts, of Samizdatisters who are knowledgeable about such things, about whether social media platforms could be open source and peer to peer, so that they can’t (easily) be censored?

    For context, I’m an engineer who has worked in telecom so I’m somewhat familiar with the technological issues, but also over 15 years out of date and not an expert, even at the time.

  • bobby b

    Ellen
    January 10, 2021 at 6:20 pm

    ” . . . I was on Facebook for only a couple months before I ran screaming and quit.”

    FB is okay if you use it for the purposes for which it was originally marketed. I live a fairly itinerant life, and I get to reassure the friends and rels that I’m still alive, and show them pretty scenery pictures to prove it, and I get to see their kids pics. But you have to consciously avoid peoples’ sharing of their political confusions. If I read them, I’d probably end up shunning more than half of my contacts, and that really narrows life. Better to not know sometimes.

  • Tedd

    We need to make an appealing case for right-wing/libertarian philosophy: freedom, low taxes and a lack of regulation.

    I agree. But libertarians and conservatives have quite different ideas about “freedom” and “lack of regulation.” I come toward libertarianism from a classical liberal perspective, whereas others in my family come toward libertarianism from a conservative perspective. We end up disagreeing about a lot of things. I expect that’s a pretty common divide.

    At the present moment, it seems like there’s a natural alignment between conservatives and libertarians. But I don’t believe there’s a natural alignment between conservatism and libertarianism. At best, it’s a marriage of convenience that would probably fall apart if it succeeded even modestly.

  • bobby b

    Tedd
    January 10, 2021 at 6:30 pm

    “Iā€™m interested in thoughts, of Samizdatisters who are knowledgeable about such things, about whether social media platforms could be open source and peer to peer, so that they canā€™t (easily) be censored?”

    We could call it Libster! (The old P-to-P’s did distribute all the evil free files amongst the user base, but it still relied on a central index for direction, which turned out to be its vulnerability. I’ve thought about this, and I don’t see how you can have anything except a disconnected e-mail system without that central-command vulnerability. Turns out Vox Day was right about this.)

    “I come toward libertarianism from a classical liberal perspective, whereas others in my family come toward libertarianism from a conservative perspective.”

    Samizdata has had some of those same pains. I think that there is one socially-oriented conservative/progressive continuum, an economic-based conservative/progressive continuum, and another large-state/small-state continuum, and they’re not connected. There have been progressive small-staters – and to me the small-state part is libertarian – on here who have not fared well. The groups don’t play well together.

  • bobby b

    Sorry, I left out my last sentence on my comment at 6:30:

    This is why “libertarian” has to be a trend and never a party.

  • non servator

    Just remember, it’s a private company! If you don’t like it, just start your own hosting company internet provider payment processor government!

  • lucklucky

    One thing you should do is reject if possible every company that comes from USA and supports censorship and the violent riots that caused more than 20 deaths.

  • At the present moment, it seems like thereā€™s a natural alignment between conservatives and libertarians. But I donā€™t believe thereā€™s a natural alignment between conservatism and libertarianism. At best, itā€™s a marriage of convenience that would probably fall apart if it succeeded even modestly. (Tedd, January 10, 2021 at 6:43 pm)

    The good news is that if it succeeded, as modestly as to restore free speech (cancel culture and hate speech laws beaten back) then it could safely ‘fall apart’ – that is, conservatives could express conservatism and libertarians could express libertarianism and the many who are a mix of both could discuss the balance and noone would be afraid to disagree from a narrative.

  • Eric

    And if you are still using an iPhone and want the appā€¦ consider making your current iPhone your final iPhone.

    The writing was on the wall when Tim Cook said Apple had a duty to remove “hate speech” from its platform.

  • Eric

    Naill Kilmartin,

    As they say, the libertarians want to seize power… and aggressively leave you alone.

  • APL

    bobby b: “We all need to get off Twitter. Completely. “

    You all remember ‘the Arab Spring’ ? Twitter was one of the instruments of one of the first color revolutions. Which means it was part of the CIA toolkit.

    I’ve never been on it, so maybe I’ve been missing something [shrug].

    I’m considering dumping Facebook, although I’ve pretty much aliased my FB profile. Yes, I know once you’ve uploaded an image to FB, they’ve got it for ever.

    And I never, ever buy anything advertised on Facebook, how that company generates $6bn advertising revenue is beyond me ( I suppose Facebook is another tool in the CIA toolbox, so that might account for $3bn or so ).

  • One point to note is backups. Assume that really telling link could suddenly disappear – can you re-provide its content? You can never do enough, of course, but it is sometimes worth doing something.

    The walkaway movement spoke of Facebook vanishing two years of videos and stuff. They still have their own site, and I hope people will be able to reconnect, and I hope they had backups of the FB stuff.

  • bobby b

    Very good point, NK. Any time you don’t have one of your files on your own disc, you’re looking at a prog techie and asking “here, please hold this for me and give it back to me when I ask you for it.”

    They may not want to, and their TOS say they don’t have to.

  • Alsadius

    For all that Shlomo apparently feels the need to throw a drive-by smear at me, I’m closer to you guys on this than you might think. I think the modern right would be foolish to allow any single point of failure on the technical side. A service that wants to be robust should have fallback plans involving decentralized infrastructure. Samizdata.net is a lot harder to take down than twitter.com/samizdata would be. A Samizdata email list is harder still to block. These don’t need to be your primary interface with readers, but they should be existent backups that you occasionally remind people of.

    For example, I spend a lot of time on a conservative Facebook group. Nothing crazy – it started as a Megan McArdle fan group – but most conservatives these days are paranoid, and even paranoids have enemies. So we worry a lot about what happens if Facebook ever decides to ban us. And we have a private subreddit, and a MeWe page, and an email list, just in case we ever need them. And a monthly post reminding people about all three. I personally think that’s unlikely we’ll ever be banned, but I’m fully supportive of this effort. It’s a cheap cost to pay for hardening one of my major social groups against Big Tech’s interference.

    So get an RSS feed reader, and read posts unfiltered by other people’s algorithms. Get an email address, and let important contacts know what it is. Maybe even give them your phone number or mailing address. There’s a lot of tech out there for talking to other people, and most of it doesn’t go through San Francisco. Don’t forget about the other kind.

  • Eric

    I think non-progressives will eventually migrate to apps like Scuttlebut, which is 1) open source, 2) decentralized, and 3) encrypted. It’s not perfect on the technology side, but in terms of resilience it’s head and shoulders above Parler and Gab.

  • Kenneth C Mitchell

    However, Parler is currently down, taken offline because Amazon has gone full Stalinist and cut access to their AWS cloud.

    Which is an excellent warning to every OTHER AWS user, including the US Military; Amazon has become a combatant in the cyber-war against the United States. I can only HOPE that the courts will rule that it’s an illegal restraint of trade.

  • Mr Ed

    Parler has gone down this am, as predicted. Perhaps it will have to be hosted in Hungary.

  • Behind Enemy Lines

    And then all of a sudden we were declared enemies of the corporatocracy, made dissidents in our own countries while the nominal government slept, left reliant on secret meetings and concealed electronic samizdat to share ideas.

  • The Pedant-General

    “[Gab] is now financially self sustaining.”

    How are they doing for payment processing? VISA now won’t process payments for Parler.

  • APL

    Alsadius: “So we worry a lot about what happens if Facebook ever decides to ban us.”

    If you are representative of your Facebook group,( viz ‘NeverTrumpers‘ ), then it’s unlikely Facebook will every ban the group. Both your group and Facebook are philosophically aligned.

  • Eric

    Oh, nvm. That looks like old news. Looks like check and bitcoin.

    https://news.gab.com/2020/06/19/gab-blacklisted-by-visa/

  • Martin

    We need to make an appealing case for right-wing/libertarian philosophy: freedom, low taxes and a lack of regulation.

    This seems quite inadequate for current predicaments. Given that the large corporations are as leftist as the state now, are low taxes/less regulation really going to do much other than probably make it easier for the likes of Apple, Visa, Amazon, Twitter etc to do what they currently do.

    I suspect we need to tame these oligarchs, to put it mildly. Maybe consumer boycotts will do the trick. I’m not so sure that will be sufficient. Some kind of right-wing state action will probably be needed.

  • Joshua

    And if you are still using an iPhone and want the appā€¦ consider making your current iPhone your final iPhone.

    Done.

  • APL

    It looks like Parler is in the news again, and not in a good way.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes – people need to take what action the can against the Corporate State (Fascism – for that is what it is) that is emerging.

    The most depressing aspect of all this has been how some libertarians have made endless excuses for it – and even carried on attacking President Trump, when it is his opponents who are pushing Fascism, the end of Freedom of Speech and all other basic liberties.

    No one has a been a harsher critic of President Trump on government spending and-so-on than I have been – but things are massively beyond that now.

    Now there is a very simple question – “are you for Fascism or are you against it?”, are you for a Corporate State of Big Government and Big Business getting together (as with the Chinese “Social Credit” system) or are you against it?

    Astonishingly the answer of some libertarians has been, essentially, “yes I am for Fascism”.

    Just as some libertarians are now in support of the Covid lockdowns – in spite of their utter failure in the United Kingdom (one of the strictest lockdown countries) where more than 81 thousand people have died, and in such lockdown States as New York and New Jersey.

    I kept waiting for libertarians I admired and trusted to demand effective Early Treatment of people with Covid 19 – treatment has been understood since last March (almost a year ago). Yet they have not done so.

    And even a couple of days ago I still expected libertarians I admired and trusted to denounce the emerging Fascist Corporate State in the United States – instead some of them have supported it.

    I am astonished. I did not see this behaviour coming – not on Covid 19 (lockdowns, SMEARING of Early Treatment and-so-on) and not on the crushing of Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties in the United States. Some of the people I admired and trusted the most have proven to be totally different from how I believed them to be.

  • Paul Marks

    Betrayal – not just political betrayal, personal betrayal. Still at least things are out in the open now.

    Some of people who have been betrayed most are those treating Covid 19 – doctors who have stressed Early Treatment have been horribly smeared and persecuted, the only people who have been betrayed more than this have been the people SUFFERING from Covid 19 – very large numbers of whom could have been saved with Early Treatment, but were instead allowed to die (in order to further a Corporate State international political agenda) – that is just horrible.

    As for the destruction of the Freedom of Speech and general political and cultural dissent – under the mantra of “they are private companies, they can do anything they like” (as if they were not working hand in hand with the government bureaucracy), I do not know how to respond to those libertarians who just do not care about this.

    What is next? A statue to Herbert Marcuse – with the words “tolerance is repressive, tyranny is liberation!”? Is that the next project?

  • Exasperated

    Darkhorse Podcast (Heather and Bret Weinstein) has some useful things to say about the deplatforming. Long and dry, I know, but to evade the histrionics is a good thing. This used to be commonplace in the discussion of public issues. BTW, I have listened to Darkhorse almost from the beginning. They are the professors of Evolutionary Biology who were ousted from their positions at Evergreen State for not being Woke enough. Though they self identify as Leftists, a large percentage of their audience is center right. They incorporate enough of the principles of Classical Liberalism to get a lot of things right.
    That said, I do concede that they misread Trump and fail to resist stereotyping Trump supporters.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGlrjmIalJY

  • fromMaggiesFarmblog

    Aggie below reminds us that it goes far beyond Twitter, FB…..

    QUOTE:
    “It is notable that the left is so motivated to cancel speech, while conservatives seem to welcome differences of opinion.”

    Oh, is that what you think this is? Odd, after seeing this plus the targeting of companies to withhold their professional services from certain individuals (law firms, fr’instance), plus the removal of business services and cancellation of money-transacting accounts such as PayPal or credit cards or banking, plus getting people fired or demoted from their employment positions, plus the occasional violent assaults -even assassination- of the people practicing Free Speech/Free Association Wrong-Think, plus the selective prosecution of such individuals on charges that never seem to appear against certain political/social groups, plus the expulsion of people from their university education of choice (for Wrong-Think) ….. plus, plus, plus. I was thinking it might just be some other motivation at work. Just a hunch. “Annihilation via Balkanization” does seem to spring to mind as an adequate description.

    Remember, it’s not a conspiracy if everyone knows the plan and acts on their own.
    #12 Aggie on 2021-01-10 13:35

  • Alsadius

    Let’s not pretend that Parler was taken down for merely being conservative.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ellencarmichael/status/1348378825151963136

    If you want to make the argument that planning assassinations should be considered free speech, you can do that. (Nobody will agree, but you can). But the issue that Amazon, Apple, and Google had was that Parler didn’t seem to care that it was happening, and didn’t want to remove that stuff from their service.

    There are other cases of de-platforming that I’ll oppose, but this one seems legit. Planning assassinations isn’t exactly the sort of freedom that Hayek or Rand or Rothbard had in mind.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Letā€™s not pretend that Parler was taken down for merely being conservative.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ellencarmichael/status/1348378825151963136

    If you want to make the argument that planning assassinations should be considered free speech, you can do that. (Nobody will agree, but you can). But the issue that Amazon, Apple, and Google had was that Parler didnā€™t seem to care that it was happening, and didnā€™t want to remove that stuff from their service.

    There are other cases of de-platforming that Iā€™ll oppose, but this one seems legit. Planning assassinations isnā€™t exactly the sort of freedom that Hayek or Rand or Rothbard had in mind.

    1. You seem unable to fathom the most basic fallacy in your argument – that of “selective enforcement”. It’s done on Twitter all the time in banning right wing people who do X and not left wing people who do X. See the treatments of Milo Yiannopoulos vs Kathy Griffin for one of a zillion exmples (Tim Pool has documented this extensively, including in his direct discussion with Jack Dorsey himself on Joe Rogan’s podcast). And now the same double standard is done by Amazon with their AWS service – banning Parler but not Twitter when both have assassinations discussed on them and violence planned on both platforms.

    2. You imagine the motivations for the demonized side. “Parler didnā€™t seem to care that it was happening” “didnā€™t want to remove that stuff from their service” without any evidence. In fact – contrary to the evidence. Has it, for just one of a million possible explanations you overlook out of ignorance or stupidity, really never occurred to you that a recent surge in use of Parler may have rather temporarily overwhelmed the resources and staff there?

    3. You have the gall not only to side with the Corporate State Fascists Stifling Freedom of Speech but also to snidely remark that my side (diverse as it is) is fighting for something that “isn’t the sort of freedom that Hayek or Rand Or Rothbard had in mind”. Do you actually think that Hayek, Rand or Rothbard would be on your side, the side of the Corporate Fascists, Woke Virtue Signaling Mob, State Authorized Communication Networks Eliminating Alternative Networks, and Washington DC Bureaucracy? Do you really believe that Hayek or Rand or Rothbard or anyone else would have to be in favor of everything published on Parler in order to be against Parler’s banning from AWS?

    Overall, your perspective is disturbing to me. The reasons it is disturbing is not exclude the fact that you are wrong. One reason it is disturbing to me is because it is VERY common. Another reason it is disturbing is because it reveals a profound lack of critical thinking. Another reason it is disturbing is because it appears your brain is wired to find only information that supports, ignore any information that contradicts, and even invent information that is fake – all to fit and support your bullshit narrative – and your narrative, unique as it is, is just like all the other narratives is intent on ignoring the possibility that what we are witnessing the greatest exercise of Orwellian Corporate State Fascist Power to Shut Down Freedom of Speech In Human History.

  • Penseivat

    Shirley, by adding “allegedly” or “as I understand it”, your comments can not he considered offensive. Lawyers, especially in the UK, have made a decent living out of “allegedly” or “alleged”, which means they can say what they wish in a court or official correspondence without any form of punishment.
    As I understand it, Joe Biden is a paedophile whose crimes have been hidden by other Democrats for years. Kamala Harris, allegedly, owes her rise through political offices by willingly providing oral sex services to Governor Willie Brown.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Overall, your perspective is disturbing to me. The reasons it is disturbing is not exclude the fact that you are wrong. One reason it is disturbing to me is because it is VERY common. Another reason it is disturbing is because it reveals a profound lack of critical thinking. Another reason it is disturbing is because it appears your brain is wired to find only information that supports, ignore any information that contradicts, and even invent information that is fake ā€“ all to fit and support your bullshit narrative ā€“ and your narrative, unique as it is, is just like all the other narratives is intent on ignoring the possibility that what we are witnessing the greatest exercise of Orwellian Corporate State Fascist Power to Shut Down Freedom of Speech In Human History.

    Apologies. That should say:

    Overall, your perspective is disturbing to me. The reasons it is disturbing excludes the fact that you are wrong. One reason it is disturbing to me is because it is VERY common. Another reason it is disturbing to me is because it reveals a profound lack of critical thinking. Another reason it is disturbing to me is because it appears your brain is wired to find only information that supports your narrative, ignore any information that contradicts your narrative, and even invent information that is fake to support your bullshit narrative ā€“ and your narrative, unique in specific ways, is just like all the other Establishment narratives: desperately intent on ignoring the possibility that what we are witnessing is the greatest exercise of Orwellian Corporate State Fascist Power to Shut Down Freedom of Speech In Human History.

    I can’t say I’m surprised by your perspective, but I am disturbed. And your perspective is incredibly mainstream, common, even among conservatives and libertarians.

  • Sigivald

    iPhone users have options for sideloading, too, though they’re more involved.

    But frankly any service that depends on an app is a problem.

    (If you roll your own Android OS on your phone, you can get around anything, with enough effort.

    But I wouldn’t be surprised to see ones that are not jailbreakable and won’t let you install a different store app or do self-installs out of the store it comes with.

    It would take one single setting change to simply turn off letting people install APKs not signed by Someone The Seller Likes…)

  • Alsadius

    the same double standard is done by Amazon with their AWS service ā€“ banning Parler but not Twitter when both have assassinations discussed on them and violence planned on both platforms.

    Twitter generally removes posts that advocate violence when they get reported. I’ve reported a few and seen them get removed, most of which were on the left.

    Parler could get its AWS account back by removing those posts, and adding moderation that’d remove posts like them in future. They decided that they’d rather keep them up and move off AWS.

    You imagine the motivations for the demonized side. ā€œParler didnā€™t seem to care that it was happeningā€ ā€œdidnā€™t want to remove that stuff from their serviceā€ without any evidence. In fact ā€“ contrary to the evidence. Has it, for just one of a million possible explanations you overlook out of ignorance or stupidity, really never occurred to you that a recent surge in use of Parler may have rather temporarily overwhelmed the resources and staff there?

    I haven’t used Parler, but from friends who have, they’re rigorous about enforcement of certain laws – copyright violation, for example, will get your post removed. But apparently not assassination planning.

    Imagine if Parler had said “These posts are against our rules, and we oppose any form of political violence. These had not previously been reported, but now that they have been, we will be removing them. We’ve had a surge of users recently that has left our moderation team short-staffed, but we’re in the process of hiring more staff to deal with the additional need. We will commit to removing any post advocating violence as soon as we’re able.” Do you really think AWS would have dumped them? That’s not a reply that any CEO should feel bad about drafting – there’s no discussion of moderation for any legal content, just for advocating political violence.

    If Parler said something in that vein, point me to it – I could be wrong here. If they did, and they acted like they meant it, then that changes the meaning of Amazon’s boot substantially. But I’ve heard no mention of that, including from several Parler defenders(here and elsewhere). And if they haven’t even done a pro-forma announcement of that sort, then they clearly don’t think that their platform being used to advocate assassinations is a bad thing.

    Do you actually think that Hayek, Rand or Rothbard would be on your side, the side of the Corporate Fascists, Woke Virtue Signaling Mob, State Authorized Communication Networks Eliminating Alternative Networks, and Washington DC Bureaucracy

    Rand would certainly stand behind Amazon’s freedom to enforce the terms of their contract. She’d have some pungent things to say about some corporate leadership, but I’m not 100% sure which side she’d take aim at. Probably depends whether she thought Parler was actually pro-assassination or not.

    Rothbard is the one I’ve read the least of, but I think he would have very little sympathy for Parler. Not just on the assassination front, but also because what kind of fool whines about their infrastructure having a single point of failure? They clearly need to work harder at that.

    Hayek is the one you’d have the best chances with, I think. He was the softest of the three, and the softer strains of libertarianism find it easier to incorporate other arguments besides freedom of contract. He’s the only one of the three where supporting antitrust laws would even be imaginable, for example, so he seems the one most likely to be swayed by softer arguments like “yes, we can still publish, but the big publishers won’t let us use their resources”. That said, he’d have even less sympathy for the assassination posts than the already-low level of the other two. He’d be the one writing a long thinkpiece that boiled down to “This violence-posting should be purged, but let’s not take this as a precedent for anything less than major felonies”.

    Overall, your perspective is disturbing to me. The reasons it is disturbing is not exclude the fact that you are wrong. One reason it is disturbing to me is because it is VERY common. Another reason it is disturbing is because it reveals a profound lack of critical thinking. Another reason it is disturbing is because it appears your brain is wired to find only information that supports, ignore any information that contradicts, and even invent information that is fake ā€“ all to fit and support your bullshit narrative ā€“ and your narrative, unique as it is, is just like all the other narratives is intent on ignoring the possibility that what we are witnessing the greatest exercise of Orwellian Corporate State Fascist Power to Shut Down Freedom of Speech In Human History.

    Wrong: Disagree, but I won’t re-hash that here.

    Common: Fair enough.

    Critical thinking: Let me ask you this. What’s your favourite news source – the one you look at first when you want to get the real deal on a new story? Once you have a name, when was the last time you disagreed with that source on anything of substance? Or even went more than five seconds out of your way to double-check one of their claims?

    Confirmation bias: All of our brains are wired that way. I do try to fight it, more than most – I have a definite “Wait, I’m agreeing with this too much, let’s stop and make sure it’s not just bullshit aimed at me” streak. But I’m not perfect, any more than you are. Still, you don’t exactly make it difficult for me – I’m not sure you’ve given a second piece of supporting evidence for any claim you’ve made, in our recent discussions.

    Orwellian fascism: You’re basically just stringing together words here. Removal from a web hosting contract is hardly what Orwell warned us about. If you were to make Brave New World comparisons, that would at least be arguable, but Orwell was discussing societies that were orders of magnitude more totalitarian than Elizabeth Warren. And those regimes still exist, so this isn’t even the biggest speech shutdown today. China is far worse, never mind North Korea.

  • Apparently Gab is adding new servers & pretty much immediately maxing them out due to the tsunami of new users šŸ˜€

  • bobby b

    If you were on Parler before the shutdown, be aware of this:

    https://cybernews.com/news/70tb-of-parler-users-messages-videos-and-posts-leaked-by-security-researchers/

    Parler’s woke vendors bailed on them, and then released Parler’s data.

    Honestly, after talking to a lot of people lately who are not of the ruling elite, I can’t see this all ending peacefully over here. It’s hot. I’m getting offers to buy guns and ammo 3-4 times over their value of a month ago.

    And I’m turning them down.

  • GamecockJerry

    We need to make an appealing case for right-wing/libertarian philosophy: freedom, low taxes and a lack of regulation.

    So this has worked when talking to a liberal??

  • APL

    PdH: “tsunami of new users”

    Talking of tsunami’s, the tsunami of new regulations, or more accurately the source of the tsunami that perplexes me.

    All of the regulations we now are subject to ( in the UK ) seem to derive their authority from the ’84 Public Health control of infectious diseases act. I can’t believe that the sponsors of that Act ever considered that it would be used with the scope and to the extent it has been this last year. But what I find perplexing is that there is another act on the statute book ( The Civil Contingencies act – which in my naivety, when I thought writing to my MP would achieve anything, I wrote to my MP complain to him about. ) that gives the Administration of the day broader and more sweeping powers than the ’84 act.

    I can only assume the 2004 CCA required periodic scrutiny by the Parliament, and therefor our so called Tory government decided it didn’t want that bother?

  • So this has worked when talking to a liberal??

    Who cares about ‘liberals’ (by which you presumably mean illiberal lefties). The “appealing case for right-wing/libertarian philosophy: freedom, low taxes and a lack of regulation” needs to be made to the people in the middle, not our sworn enemies about whom we give not a single fuck šŸ˜‰

  • Alsadius

    I saw a great discussion of how to think about this some time ago, in the context of activist theory.

    Divide the population into five groups: your active allies (who are working for your goals), your passive allies (who’ll vote for your candidates or something, but not really work for it), neutrals, your passive enemies(inverse of passive allies), and your active enemies(ditto). The goal of an activist’s activity should be to move people one slot closer to you. Getting active enemies to give up fighting seriously, getting passive enemies to fall into neutrality, getting neutrals to vaguely support you, and getting passive supporters to step up and go active. If you try for any more than that, you’ll have very few successes, and almost always lose more from blowback than you actually gain. But people can be moved slowly, one slot at a time, with some decent chance of success.

    So these kinds of arguments are aimed at neutrals and passive allies. Maybe passive enemies, in some cases. Active enemies won’t be argued out of their activity or their views – for them, you want to do things like remove government funding of their NGOs, so that they need to go get day jobs instead of working against you all day.

  • Jon Eds

    Perry, could you reach us all if the site was taken down? (we have to put email addresses to post comments, but I don’t know if you save them down).

  • I wonder if there’s a directory (or an unofficial list) of services that have not been overrun by the woke?

    I self-host my blog on Digital Ocean, which stated recently that wouldn’t welcome Parler on their infrastructure. While I don’t post political content, I made a choice to move away from DO. They won’t cancel me, but I certainly want to cancel them : )

    Similar with newsletters: I’d like to make an occasional mailing to my readers but the market leader Mailchimp recently got into the business of content moderation. No way I am going to give them my money.

    The question today is, which of these providers that we do need, like web hosts, domain registrars, email providers, etc., have not gone guns ablaze into the current culture war? And which of those that haven’t can we trust long-term that they won’t change their minds?

    That’s also why I am lukewarm of joining Parler or Gab or whatever: Twitter once claimed to be the free speech wing of the free speech party, or something to that effect, and look where they are now. We need the decentralized web back, and we need it now.

  • Sam Duncan

    https://ipfs.io/
    https://getaether.net/
    https://zeronet.io/

    Among others. Seriously. I’ve had half an eye on this distributed stuff for years, but now is the time.

    And I’d remind everyone that four fifths of the British population has never had a Twitter account.

  • lucklucky

    “So this has worked when talking to a liberal??”

    Explain to me what is liberal about the left today?

  • lucklucky

    Ron Paul taken down from Facebook

    They already had a video censored by Youtube.

  • APL

    lucklucky: “Ron Paul taken down from Facebook”

    Huh! Looks like the Mega Capitalists are building their one party state.

    I wonder how long it will be before Hunter is on the Facebook Board.

  • Paul Marks

    Tony Heller (who had a role in helping design a lot of modern technology) censored – because he is opposed to the CO2-is-destroying-the-world theory.

    Many doctors who have spent their lives saving lives censored – because they dare suggest Early Treatment for Covid 19. How many hundreds of thousands of human lives has that censorship cost.

    Support Agenda 21 and you are and wise noble – but OPPOSE it and it is just a “Conspiracy Theory”, it exists if you support – but if you oppose it, it does not exist. That is the view that everyone MUST hold – according the education system and the media (including Wikipedia – “the reference work that anyone can edit” as long as they are a pro establishment lickspittle).

    And on and on – endlessly.

    The idea that this is just about President Trump is nonsense. “Sacrifice Trump and the Corporate State will let the rest of us alone” is the cry of the coward and the fool.

    They will spare none of us – not one. Those people who have betrayed President Trump will find that the left (who control the institutions – governmental and Corporate) will still come for them.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Ron Paul did more for the American liberty movement in in his 2008 Presidential campaign than the entire American Libertarian Party has in its entire history combined. And now he is off Facebook. I look forward to most libertarians defending the legal rights of companies to do whatever they want.

    This country is going to fucking hell.

    I’ve never been a big fan of democracy, but this is worse than even I imagined it would be.

    Joseph de Maistre was correct about everything. One quote from his phenomenal work “Considerations on France”

    But if it is intended that all the people should be represented, that they can be represented only by virtue of a mandate,* and that every citizen is capable of giving or receiving these mandates, with a few physically and morally inevitable exceptions; and if it is still more intended to add to such a system the abolition of all hereditary distinctions and offices, this representation is a thing that has never been seen and that will never be successful.

    America is often cited to us: I know nothing so provoking as the praise showered on this babe-in-arms: let it grow.

    My, how America has grown.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Alsadius,

    the same double standard is done by Amazon with their AWS service ā€“ banning Parler but not Twitter when both have assassinations discussed on them and violence planned on both platforms.

    Twitter generally removes posts that advocate violence when they get reported.

    “Generally”

    Anyway, excellent dodge. You just deflect and misdirect.

    Anyway, there IS a double standard – whether you wish to grapple with it or not. If you do wish to stop burying your head in the sand, I can suggest watching more Tim Pool – especially his conversation with Jack Dorsey on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

    Parler could get its AWS account back by removing those posts

    Link to source please?

    and adding moderation thatā€™d remove posts like them in future.

    It’s clear you didn’t read my comment. Have you considered the possibility that Parler experienced a sudden and huge spike in users and was struggling to quickly find the resources needed to identify and remove posts?

    They decided that theyā€™d rather keep them up and move off AWS.

    Link to source please?

    I havenā€™t used Parler, but from friends who have, theyā€™re rigorous about enforcement of certain laws ā€“ copyright violation, for example, will get your post removed. But apparently not assassination planning.

    You are simply wrong. Parler has much stricter rules about assassination planning than Twitter and Parler has much stricter enforcement against assassination-related posts than Twitter.

    Imagine if Parler had said ā€œThese posts are against our rules, and we oppose any form of political violence. These had not previously been reported, but now that they have been, we will be removing them. Weā€™ve had a surge of users recently that has left our moderation team short-staffed, but weā€™re in the process of hiring more staff to deal with the additional need. We will commit to removing any post advocating violence as soon as weā€™re able.ā€ Do you really think AWS would have dumped them? Thatā€™s not a reply that any CEO should feel bad about drafting ā€“ thereā€™s no discussion of moderation for any legal content, just for advocating political violence.

    Imagine if the girl had not been wearing such a short skirt. Imagine if they she had dressed in a modest, elegant manner instead of like a crude slut. Do you really think the guy would have raped her?

    Rand would certainly stand behind Amazonā€™s freedom to enforce the terms of their contract. Sheā€™d have some pungent things to say about some corporate leadership, but Iā€™m not 100% sure which side sheā€™d take aim at. Probably depends whether she thought Parler was actually pro-assassination or not.

    Rothbard is the one Iā€™ve read the least of, but I think he would have very little sympathy for Parler. Not just on the assassination front, but also because what kind of fool whines about their infrastructure having a single point of failure? They clearly need to work harder at that.

    Hayek is the one youā€™d have the best chances with, I think. He was the softest of the three, and the softer strains of libertarianism find it easier to incorporate other arguments besides freedom of contract. Heā€™s the only one of the three where supporting antitrust laws would even be imaginable, for example, so he seems the one most likely to be swayed by softer arguments like ā€œyes, we can still publish, but the big publishers wonā€™t let us use their resourcesā€. That said, heā€™d have even less sympathy for the assassination posts than the already-low level of the other two. Heā€™d be the one writing a long thinkpiece that boiled down to ā€œThis violence-posting should be purged, but letā€™s not take this as a precedent for anything less than major feloniesā€.

    You are wrong about Rand, Hayek, and Rothbard. Rand would have quickly identified the Woke Statist Thugs using Corporate Fascism to Stamp Out Dissenting Views phenomenon and opposed it wholeheartedly. Unlike you. Hayek and Rothbard would have come to similar conclusions, albeit somewhat differently.

    China is far worse, never mind North Korea.

    In China most of the people know that the government controls the major internet platforms and media and they know that the media routinely misleads them about BIG THINGS. In America it’s a different story. Alsadius – you are an excellent case in point.

  • […] of organs from Trump supporters or from those who vote for Republican candidates. Not yet. But dissenting views are under attack by the new tyrannical overlords, and there is no clear indication that these neo-tyrants have a […]