Thread by @jlakely

Let's be clear about what @Google, @Apple & @amazon instantly destroying #Parler's ability to be the free-speech version of Twitter is. At its core, this is about the ability to freely communicate one’s thoughts to others — once considered a hallmark of "The American Way." 1/13

What Big Tech is doing is as if Ma Bell in 1973 (ask grandpa) decided what you're saying to a friend on a landline phone was “dangerous." So they cut off the line in the middle of the talk and then sent someone over to physically cut your phone line. That's Stasi shit. 2/13

I realize that a personal conversation is not the same as a public tweet, but the principle is the same. The company that "owns the wires" for your speec — and has special govt rules protecting them due to their position — cuts off your call due to what you are saying. 3/13

If this analogy doesn't work for you, imagine someone tackling and punching you for speaking on a soap box in a public park and then setting your soap box on fire. And the govt being OK with that in a country that has a First Amendment. Moving on ... 4/13

Big Tech shadow banned people for years to just do it "halfway." That way, they could continue to paint an increasingly thin patina on their original govt-protected pledge to promote the free exchange of thought. #freespeech 5/13

But as we saw in @BreitbartNews & @Project_Veritas vids, the election of Trump in 2016 shook them to the core. They cried, "How could Trump be elected!" Then they got ANGRY and FOCUSED on making sure it would never happen again. 6/13

What happened at the Capitol made them go full Stasi. Saying Trump, and his rhetoric, led to the events at the Capitol is like the French in 1939 wishing they had never installed Philippe Pétain as their leader. 7/13

Trump for his entire four-year presidency only clarified things faster than the French did in 1939. Pétain tried to negotiate a peace deal with the Nazis so they wouldn’t invade. He offered up France to be part of the Axis. That didn't work out so great for France. 8/13

Trump was the opposite. He resisted, and he and all his supporters are now being punished for it. Maybe a President Ted Cruz in 2016 would have negotiated a settlement of shadow bans on our speech while allowing actual free speech for people the left likes. 9/13

But I think the modern-day Speech Nazis/Stasi would not have settled because they wanted more. Big Tech wants what they have now: the ability to defy their government-granted "platform" status and act as the Stasi for the left. 10/13

Listening carefully to what we say, and cutting off all "wrong speak" while the government endorses it in the name of "safety." Mind you, this is done after FB allowed Portland Antifa to use its platform to organize violent "uprisings" all summer with no interference. 11/13

That endgame is not to allow #freespeech. It's to suppress all speech that does not adhere to the whims of an increasingly radical left. Trump's rhetoric and the events at the Capitol were horrible. But it served to accelerate the end game of the Big Tech/left nexus. 12/13

I prefer the clarity of what we've seen in the last week. The pretend shit we saw in those farcical hearings in Congress that brought the likes of @jack and Mark Zuckerberg "to account" look even more ridiculous. At least more people know where they stand now. 13/13

@Google @Apple @amazon @threadreaderapp Please unroll.