With the Democratic takeover of the executive and legislative branches a few days away, Big Tech has swung into action in a big way to suppress conservative speech. The treatment of President Trump is of course the leading indicator. Here is a compilation of the developing stories as of this morning:
• Ebony Bowden, New York Post: “Trump permanently suspended from Twitter account”
• Salvador Rodriguez, CNBC: “Trump tweets from POTUS handle account, says looking ‘at the possibilities of building out our own platform’”
Key points:
President Donald Trump continued tweeting Friday evening using the government-owned @POTUS account, despite having his @realDonaldTrump account permanently suspended by Twitter earlier in the day.
The tweets were removed from the service almost immediately. It’s unclear what steps Twitter took in the handling of the @POTUS account.
• Kelly Tyko, USA Today: “President Trump blocked from posting to Facebook, Instagram ‘indefinitely,’ at least through end of term”
• Ahiza Garcia-Hodges, MSN: “Google Play suspends Parler until app develops moderation policies”
• Elizabeth Culliford & Stephen Nellis, Reuters: “Google suspends Parler social networking app from Play Store; Apple gives 24-hour warning”
• Rachel Sharp, Daily Mail: “Steve Bannon’s podcast is REMOVED from YouTube hours after Rudy Giuliani’s appearance where he blamed deadly MAGA riot at Congress on the DEMOCRATS for ‘censoring and suppressing’ Trump supporters”
• Andrew Mark Miller, Washington Examiner: “Conservative #WalkAway Facebook page removed along with hundreds of thousands of videos and followers”
🚨🚨🚨FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!!
Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE. Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway. pic.twitter.com/WxoKu1HpSb— Brandon Straka (@BrandonStraka) January 8, 2021
• Nick Arama, RedState: “The Purge Is Here: Twitter Banning Influencers on Right, Removing Followers”
• Andrea Widburg, American Thinker, “The tech monopolies have swung into action”
• Tucker Carlson, FOX News: “From Twitter to CNN, the left is coming for your speech”
• Caroline Glick, “Trump rings in the era of ‘total political correctness'”
• Brendan O’Neill, Spiked: “The woke purge”
And a blast from the past for mood music:
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