Thomas Lifson at American
Thinker reports (“The next stage in tech overlords' censorship: De-platformingun-PC blogs”):
It's no longer just Facebook, Twitter, and Google who are
censoring online content that offends political
correctness. Wordpress.com, a blog-hosting site that offers anyone
the opportunity to create and publish a blog at no cost, has decided to
de-platform — in other words, kill — a blog that has been operating for 15
years: Creeping Sharia.
As Pamela
Geller points out, this move by
Wordpress.com is itself an example of the blog's focus of creeping sharia
happening in real time. Shutting down a critic of creeping sharia is
an example of creeping sharia.
Related:
Newsbusters reports on a development (which may be a start, but doesn’t seem to
me to go far enough):
The
White House has announced a new system that gives Americans the power to call
out foul play by tech companies.
As
of May 15 it read, “SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF
SPEECH.”
“Too
many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently
reported for unclear ‘violations’ of user policies,” it continued before
delivering a bipartisan message that freedom of speech is a right held by all
Americans. “No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an
action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump.”
The
submission form begins with a survey asking users to submit their names and
confirm that they are citizens of the United States. It then asks whether they
were censored via major Big Tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube. It also listed an option for “Other” acknowledging that there are
plenty of other platforms which deplatform users.
It
then asks, if possible, for a link or screenshot of the restricted post.
In
a reversal of Trump’s earlier praise of Twitter as a way to reach his audience
free of being filtered by the media, this White House page asked users for
permission to send newsletters via email so that the administration “can update
you without relying on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.”
The
Trump administration said it was “fighting for free speech online,” while the
liberal Washington Post characterized the new system as part of Trump’s “war against Facebook,
Google and Twitter.”
Rest
of the report is here. Hmm. Either these companies need to be trust-busted, or they
need to be subject to regulation by the FCC.
# # #
