Search Results for: shapes of things
February 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Roger Kimball is the learned publisher of Encounter Books. He writes to alert us to the statement Encounter has just posted on the suppression of one of its titles by Amazon: Yesterday, we learned that Ryan T. Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, which Encounter Books originally published in 2018, was removed without explanation from Amazon.com and from its subsidiary Audible. Encounter Books is
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February 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Thanks to the coordinated efforts of Big Tech, the social media platform Parler has been offline for the past few months. It seemed to have something to do with the election of the gentleman from Madame Tussauds. News of Parler’s return is all over per the announcement we received this morning (in its entirety below): Parler Relaunches on New Platform With Over 20 Million Users, World’s #1 Free Speech Social
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January 27, 2021 — Scott Johnson
John Tierney takes up the subject of the current campaign to suppress speech in his City Journal essay “The new censors.” Here is an excerpt: It wasn’t enough to ban Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter if he and his followers could move to Parler—so Parler had to be shut down, too. Big Tech obliged, succumbing to pressure from the media and their Democratic allies in Congress. (Google and Apple
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January 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
You may have heard that “Amazon is seeking reconsideration of a ruling by an NLRB Hearing Officer that 6000 workers at an Amazon facility in Alabama will be allowed eight weeks time to vote by mail on whether to unionize the workforce. Amazon — owned by Jeff Bezos, also the owner of the Washington Post — opposes the use of mail-in only balloting in the union election on the basis
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January 25, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Victor Davis Hanson takes up the theme of this series in the American Greatness column “River of forgetfulness.” Among other things, he observes: Serious Big Brother was never coming to America kicking and screaming in a suit and in a mile-long tie, but rather eagerly welcomed in with jeans and sneakers without socks. The First Amendment could always survive a crude, inebriated Joe McCarthy, but not so easily a social
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January 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Federal Judge Barbara Rothstein has denied Parler’s motion for a preliminary injunction ordering Amazon to reinstate it. Judge Rothstein’s order was posted online here by NPR. NPR’s story collects quotes from the players. Judge Rothstein isn’t a judge friendly to Parler, but this result is otherwise unsurprising. A plaintiff has to meet a high bar to obtain preliminary injunctive relief. That’s just the way it is. Judge Rothstein herself notes
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January 17, 2021 — Scott Johnson
With a quizzical message asking if “this thing is on,” Parler CEO John Matze has just has announced that Parler is returning soon (screenshot below). This is the message posted under Technical Difficulties: Now seems like the right time to remind you all — both lovers and haters — why we started this platform,” the status update said. “We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social
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January 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
A reader working for a global tech company writes to offer the following speculation on the meaning of “full retro” in Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s comments here: [I]t is possible that Dorsey is referring to a part of the “agile” software development methodology called a retrospective or “retro.” A retro is a meeting or series of meetings that look back on a project or portion of a project in order
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January 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The suppression of Parler by the coordinated action of Google, Apple, and Amazon was the inspiration for this series. Parler is a leading indicator of what what Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey calls the “full retro” in the adjacent post. In the annals of Orwellian neologism, that is one for the books. Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff appeared for an interview in medias res last night on Tucker Carlson’s FOX
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January 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Last night Project Veritas gave us a look inside the sausage factory at Twitter with a secretly recorded video of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey talking about his censorship plans beyond President Donald Trump. If I understand Dorsey’s preview of coming attractions correctly — it depends in part on the meaning of “full retro” — we ain’t seen nothing yet. Never go full retro. According to Project Veritas President James O’Keefe,
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January 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Classicist and historian Victor Davis Hanson, now of the Hoover Institution, takes up the subject of this series in his column “Assault on the Capitol has let loose the electronic octopus.” Seeking to suss out the new standards, he considers the contradictions: After all, the Vicki Osterweil book “In Defense of Looting,” a justification for theft and property destruction, came out last summer amidst the antifa and Black Lives Matter
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January 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I missed David Marcus’s useful New York Post column “The threats and violence Twitter won’t police.” As we have noted, Amazon, Apple, and Google acted in concert to shut Parler down “supposedly because it hosts calls for violence,” as Marcus puts it, “but a simple search of Twitter shows that it regularly allows such calls itself.” For example: Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag. In all of the glorious English language
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January 12, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Parler has gone dark as a result of the combination of Big Tech giants Amazon, Apple, and Google. Parler’s current extinction is an incredibly important sign of our path toward the new dystopia. Parler chief executive officer John Matze appeared to tell his story in media res on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Matze discussed the steps Parler has taken following its suspension by the Big Tech Goliaths. He is an effective
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January 12, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal seems to have stirred up an interesting and important lawsuit brought by video-sharing service Rumble against the Google/YouTube prong of Big Tech. The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Schechner reports on the lawsuit in “Google Sued by YouTube Rival Over Search Rankings.” Subhead: “Video-sharing site Rumble, citing a Wall Street Journal investigation, alleges Google diverted traffic away from it toward YouTube.” Schechner reports: Video-sharing site Rumble Inc.
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January 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Parler is seeking legal recourse against Amazon under the Sherman Antitrust Act for putting it to sleep. That is the latest in the ongoing saga. Evie Fordham’s current story at FOXBusiness is “Parler sues Amazon for suspending app from cloud service, claims antitrust violation and breach of contract.” Parler chief executive officer John Matze offered much more to support his claim and evidence Amazon’s bad faith in his interview with
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January 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Parler is down. The most recent report I am able to find on the state of play is Evie Fordham’s FOXBusiness story “Social media platform Parler goes dark after Amazon cloud suspension.” The story includes video of Maria Bartiromo’s interview with Parler chief executive officer John Matze yesterday morning. Matze is trying to get Parler back up and running online following the termination of hosting services provided by Amazon. The
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January 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
In what is a continuing story, Apple, Amazon, and Google have booted Parler. Parler may be going offline temporarily. Not the Babylon Bee quotes the CNN story here, thus sparing us the pain of clicking on CNN here. Amazon will remove Parler from its host tonight at midnight (Pacific time), shutting down Parler’s website and app until it can find a new hosting provider. BuzzFeed broke the story here. Tom
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