It may have been General Michael Flynn who first coined the term "digital soldiers," back in the early days of the Trump administration. Perhaps Flynn knew what was coming, and perhaps many others knew it too – but now the digital war on conservatism has begun in earnest. The campaign of censorship waged by tech giants, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter has been rumbling along for some time. Up until now, their de-platforming of prominent conservative voices – serious though these attempts to suppress freedom of speech have been – represented little more than scuffles. When Twitter permanently deactivated President Donald Trump's account on the afternoon of January 7th, the first shot in the real digital war was fired.
A Coordinated Attack
Make no mistake; Big Tech's renewed assault on conservative voices has been coordinated. Facebook shut down Brandon Straka's Walk Away page that had 500,000 followers. Apple has threatened to remove Parler, the free speech social media platform, from its mobile operating system, and Google has erased Parler from Android.
Flynn himself, along with pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, have both also been suspended by Twitter. These moves out of Silicon Valley all came within some 24 hours of each other. The fix was in. It was a pre-planned agenda of crushing the free-speech of those who stood with Trump.
In response to the president's banishment from Twitter, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh announced that he had deactivated his own Twitter account. Trump himself responded to the microblogging site's decision:
"As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me."
The president's final tweet-storm, posted on his @POTUS account to circumvent his personal account's deactivation, was deleted within ten minutes of being posted. And so it seems the great exodus of conservatives from the prominent social media platforms has begun in earnest, where before it was perhaps only a trickle.
So Much For Healing
Of course, all of this demonstrates just how hollow and meaningless the Democrats' recent calls for unity and healing really are. Silicon Valley is lavishing money upon a new breed of Democrats such as Jon Ossoff, senator-elect from Georgia, and it looks as though there will be a revolving door that connects the Biden administration to the massive corporations that collectively dominate the Internet. Interestingly enough, that relationship is the very definition of fascism – a word often thrown around by the left when faced with any opinions with which it disagrees. The digital soldiers of the right will have to find new homes and new ways to connect.
Perhaps Trump himself may yet have a hand in those efforts. He left this parting gift for his supporters: "We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!"
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
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