In recent days we have seen the left, in a variety of different situations and contexts, use its power for the purpose of silencing dissenting voices across the Internet. If we had any doubt that modern corporations had been converged into leftist strongholds, at least at the top management level, that doubt has been removed. Companies such as Facebook, YouTube and Google already have a reputation for censoring Wrongthink™ whenever they can do so without negative repercussions. Now we are seeing the same Stalinist tactics used to remove offending thought from the Internet so that we, the rubes out in Fly-Over-Country will not be able to see it.
This is being accomplished by the process of denying platforms to those who hold different or dissenting views. The first case in point is Gab, the free speech alternative to Twitter. Gab has been offering an app that can be loaded on a smart phone allowing the user to post content as one would do with other social media outlets. But the powers that be decided to remove the app from Google Play Store and Apple so that ordinary non-elites would no longer have access to it.
Breaking news: Google has removed Gab’s Android app from the Google Play Store for “hate speech.” pic.twitter.com/jPqeEx1ID1
— Gab (@getongab) August 17, 2017
“This should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. The Silicon Valley ideological echo chamber is real,” Gab CEO Andrew Torba wrote in an email to Breitbart Tech. “They have chosen to not support a free and open internet.”
“The alt tech revolution has begun,” he continued. “We ask developers who believe in our mission of free speech and individual liberty for all to rise up, speak out, and build free speech friendly products against the totalitarianism occurring in the tech industry.”
The social network previously extended a job offer to James Damore, a former Google employee who was fired from the company after he published a viewpoint diversity manifesto.
Gab has also been rejected from the Apple App Store on numerous occasions, with the company citing “objectionable” user content, despite the fact that flagged posts could also be found on social networks such as Twitter, which are readily available on the store.
On Thursday, Gab raised over $1 million in public investments, hitting the maximum amount allowed by regulations.
Meanwhile, over at Return of Kings, Matt Forney has posted this article that details some of the groups and individuals who have been ousted by the mandarins of Silicon Valley.
Over the next few days, PayPal and Facebook announced a major crackdown on right-wingers. Facebook has banned the pages and personal accounts of numerous right-wing personalities and sites, including American Renaissance, Christopher Cantwell, Pax Dickinson, and the Traditionalist Worker Party. PayPal has also banned Cantwell, Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler, American Renaissance, VDARE, and countless others from using their services, cutting them off from a vital source of funds. In the latter two cases, AmRen and VDARE were banned even though neither they nor their leadership had any involvement with Unite the Right.
In an age of social media and the internet as our primary medium of communication, the denial of a platform is effectively the newest form of censorship. The fact that it does not come from the government does not render it less harmful or less a violation of one’s civil rights. If a baker can be required to bake a cake for a gay wedding, the mandarins of Silicon Valley should have no right to censor views of conservatives just because they don’t like them.
Sadly, this attack on the right will likely continue because the left does not know when to stop and because the left has always opted for silencing their opponents rather than having a real debate. The left does not debate anyone really since they believe they are in sole possession of the truth and that all others are not simply mistaken but evil. And one does not deign to debate with such sub-humans as us.
