by Frank Holmes, reporter
The Democrats and their allies in Big Tech are trying something that was long feared in America.
They accuse anyone who opposes their left-wing agenda of inciting “violence,” and they’re using that incendiary claim as leverage to shut down conservative dissent. They’ve permanently banned President Donald Trump from social media, suspended more than 70,0000 Trump supporters from Twitter, and shut down the conservative alternative, Parler.
Now, conservatives are fighting back—and the tech titans are already starting to feel the pain.
Right in their wallets.
Facebook and Twitter lost a combined $51.1 billion in value last week.
Business Insider reported that Facebook’s overall value fell $47.6 billion while Twitter plunged by $3.5 billion.
It turns out deleting thousands and thousands of your customers isn’t a good business move.
If Parler has its way, that will just be the beginning of Silicon Valley’s financial headaches. It sued Amazon for banning the right-leaning social media site from its servers just as Twitter began its crackdown.
Amazon claimed it had no choice but to block Parler, because the website didn’t ban incitements to violence—but Parler’s lawsuit says that Amazon left Twitter alone, despite a much worse history of dangerous rhetoric. For example, the hashtag “Hang Mike Pence” had 14,000 tweets.
Parler says Amazon’s talking out of both sides of its mouth, and it reneged at “a time when (Parler) is surging with the potential of even more explosive growth in the next few days.”
Now, it wants things made right—at Amazon’s expense.
Parler accuses Amazon of breach of contract…and that could cut into Jeff Bezos’ bottom line.
Even more economic pain will be coming Big Tech’s way in the state of Florida, where it’s about to get slapped by a huge Fine—State Rep. Randy Fine.
The Republican lawmaker wants his prosperous state to liquidate any investments it has in Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet (Google).
Fine wrote a letter asking Gov. Ron DeSantis to take executive action and, if he doesn’t, Fine plans to introduce a bill that would “forbid any state or local government from conducting any business with these companies, effective July 1st of this year.”
That means “no Facebook, Twitter, or Google advertising by Florida governments; no use of any Amazon services by any Florida government; no purchases of Apple or Android devices by any government agency.” He’s cutting all ties between the state and the tech oligarchs.
Fine says Twitter and Facebook brought the divestment on themselves, because they “engaged in one-sided viewpoint discrimination targeting conservatives.”
He’s not buying the Zuckerberg-Bezos-Dorsey line that this is all about “violence,” either
“These companies allow actual terrorists around the world to use their platforms to target America, Americans, and our allies, without as much as a peep,” Fine wrote in a letter, which he also posted on Twitter.
This morning I asked the Governor and Cabinet to divest the state from Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Google, and Facebook. They may get to decide who they do business with. So do we. @Fla_Pol pic.twitter.com/QfoUhghgnP
— Rep. Randy Fine (@VoteRandyFine) January 12, 2021
But Big Tech’s biggest challenge is coming from Big Texas.
Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, launched an official investigation into how social media companies moderate content, how they decide which accounts to shut down, and whether their coordination demands a legal response. Many have said the groups act like a monopoly and should be broken up.
Paxton’s office issued civil investigative demands (CIDs) to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Web Services, and Apple last week, investigating their anti-conservative policies—and especially how the companies worked together to kill Parler, a competitor.
“The seemingly coordinated de-platforming of the president of the United States and several leading voices not only chills free speech, it wholly silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies,” said Attorney General Paxton.
“The public deserves the truth about how these companies moderate and possibly eliminate speech they disagree with,” he said.
He also advised the companies to “cooperate” with the investigation in order “get to the bottom of this contention and ensure a truly free online community consistent with the highest American ideals.”
Paxton added that “every American,” regardless of his political views, “should be concerned about this large-scale silencing and the effects it will have on the future of free speech.”
Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google think Joe Biden’s inauguration this week means it’s open season on conservatives. But they’re finding out that conservatives strike back—and their shenanigans may cost them money, legal censure, and even anti-monopoly legal action to break them up.
Their algorithms hadn’t counted on that.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”