Category Archives: Free speech

As Big Tech Continues to Censor, Here are Some Good Alt Platforms

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By Simon Black at Sovereign Man

What Has Happened?  A Continuing Assault on Free Speech

By now you’re probably aware of the various purges taking place across tech platforms and social media. Major companies have used the events of January 6th at the US Capitol as an excuse to delete users and deplatform businesses. But the scope of the purge has gone much further than removing calls for violence.

For example, 147 members of Congress are being blacklisted by banks, insurance providers, and hotel companies because they objected to certifying the results of the election. The entire social media company Parler was shut down when Amazon banned it from its servers, while Apple and Google dropped the app from their stores.

Twitter executed over 70,000 accounts.

PayPal cut ties with the US President, as well as a Christian website that raised funds to send protesters to DC. Shopify removed accounts “associated” with Trump, and payment processor Stripe joined in the purge as well.

Facebook even suspended Ron Paul’s account for a time, before claiming it was a mistake. Ron Paul, keep in mind, has been an outspoken critic of this administration’s defense and monetary policies.

The message is clear: your access, your data, and potentially your livelihood
is not safe in the hands of the biggest tech companies, which we have been conditioned to rely on. Express the wrong opinion, and you may be the next casualty.

What Can You Do?

First, Get Off the Big Tech Platforms that Restrict / Ban Free Speech:

  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Meanwhile, Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s downloads were down about 20% week on week.

Facebook and Twitter just voluntarily handed market share to their competitors. From January 5-14, Facebook lost over $70 billion of valuation. Twitter lost over $5 billion during the same period. Don’t go where you aren’t wanted.

Spy-apps that repeatedly censor and abuse their customers have faced calls for an exodus for some time now. But now a critical mass is actually moving, which makes it more likely that the amount of content and users will keep people engaged in social media alternatives. In that sense, you could consider the purge a good thing.

Next, Migrate to Alternative Platforms that Support your Privacy and Free Speech

Alternative Platforms

The good news is there are alternatives, and the purge has been a major driving force for people to move to alternative platforms.

Private Messaging Alternatives to WhatsApp

  • Signal – This messaging app is end-to-end encrypted so no one can snoop on your communications. And its technology is open source, so anyone who knows the coding language can check that it’s truly secure. Signal does require your phone number to use, but that’s about all the information it collects.
  • Telegram – Plenty of Whatsapp groups are migrating to Telegram for privacy reasons. But it is important to note that only private messages can be encrypted, and even then you have to specifically select the “secret chat” feature.

Social Networks Alternatives to Facebook and Twitter

  • Gab.com – Similar to Twitter, Gab bills itself as a champion of free speech. It owns and operates its own servers, which means it can’t simply be shut down like Parler. But that also means the website is a little stressed at the moment, as so many new users flock to it.
  • MeWe.com – As a Facebook alternative, MeWe’s main draw is that it does not share or sell user data. But it does state in the user agreement that it reserves the right to terminate users who post “hateful, threatening, harmful” content.
  • Minds.com – This is a blockchain-based social media website which rewards engagement with tokens. Tokens can be used to boost your own content, fund other users, or redeemed for other currency. The website’s code is open source for transparency and accountability, and the content moderation policy is based on the First Amendment

Video Posting and Viewing Alternatives to YouTube

  • LBRY.com – This is an open source, blockchain-based, decentralized digital content sharing protocol. That means anyone can use it to build apps that allow peer to peer sharing of digital content. But the main selling feature is LBRY.tv or Odysee.com which facilitate the video sharing and viewing portions of the platform. Unlike Youtube, you have ultimate control over your own content.
  • Brighteon.com – Mike Adams, the creator of Natural News, started this video hosting website as a free speech alternative after he was repeatedly censored on YouTube and other social media.
  • Rumble.com – video posting and sharing site

Then there is Brave Browser to replace Chrome, Protonmail to replace Gmail, and plenty of methods to accept cryptocurrency, instead of using typical payment processors.

Clearly, this list is not exhaustive. And in the future we will be talking about more alternatives, and doing a deeper dive on their privacy and accountability. The point is you don’t have to allow these tech giants to have power over you.

Big Tech Colluding to Silence a Competitor They Don’t Agree With

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This past week Parler, an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, was pulled from Google Playstore and Apple App Store. Following that, AWS decided to revoke their contract as of last Sunday night, and take the app off their servers. Read the link for more info: https://www.toolbox.com/tech/tech-general/news/parler-goes-offline-after-aws-shuts-down-its-servers/?mailingcontentid=187673&utm_medium=email&utm_source=toolbox&utm_campaign=toolbox-tech

Parler, an alternative to Twitter, was thus silenced by big tech companies colluding together to get this done. This is not free speech. This is not free enterprise.  These huge infrastructure companies and social networking platforms are now effectively the “town square” where people share thoughts, ideas and opinions.  

Although they are not technically governmental institutions, they technically are not responsible for protecting 1st amendment rights.  However, they are practically a monopoly that runs the new electronic “town square”. They SHOULD be regulated so that freedom of speech – a first amendment – is protected.  Currently there is little or no oversight over these huge social media platforms.  

Here is the statement from AWS:

Amazon’s email to Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff, first obtained by BuzzFeed News notes, “We cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others. Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST.”

This is just so much nonsense. Twitter continues to host users who use that platform to plan violent demonstrations, and incite violence across the country. They, and AWS, do not “pull the plug” on Twitter to stifle BLM activists and antifa thugs. 

Yet when a small, tiny competitor by comparison – Parler – is launched, they collude to crush it. I joined Parler, because they allow free speech, a 1st amendment  right. Its NOT TRUE that they do not monitor, or censor people if the truly promote violence or hate. They just don’t censor you if you have a different view from others, or that the view of the platform.

What has happened to Parler is censorship based on political alignment. The question is: who is next?

Go read Parler guidelines (if and when the site comes back up).

Here is Ben Shapiro’s analysis of this dangerous situation:

https://fb.watch/2ZD_weL_n8/

Why are these companies collaborating to silence this tiny free speech platform? Because Parler is not censoring the way Twitter, Google and Facebook would like them to censoring, They are not supporting the official “narrative”.  They are allowing a free exchange of ideas.

But wait – I thought this was America, the “land of the free and the home of the brave”?