Censorship of Conservatives Easier Than Blocking Smut

As the boiling pot of politics in the U.S. roils, Americans have been shown one more massive example of selective application of standards in the area of Big Tech and free speech. Parler, a social media app, was completely canceled based on its content and audience. Amazon, the multinational tech company known for online shopping and the “world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform,” announced on January 10 that Parler’s access to the AWS Internet server would be discontinued. Billed as “unbiased social media,” where users are able to “speak freely and express yourself openly without fear of being deplatformed for your views,” Parler was booted from the Internet entirely because Amazon, Apple, and Google colluded to kill a competitor.

Since the November 2020 federal election, Twitter and Facebook have fact-checked certain content, blocking any post they chose on the basis of the platforms’ terms of use. Because of this, the more engaged on the Right sought an outlet for free speech and turned to Parler, which first launched in 2018 but was the most-sought download at the Android and Apple stores post-election.  …