The Apogee of Social Media
by Chris Farrell • April 17, 2021 at 5:00 am
Most famously, of course, is the banning of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. But there are many, many others.
Journalist friends from center-right outlets saw tens of thousands evaporate. Colleagues were suspended for reposting something they had said on multiple occasions for a year.
The social media giants are still flush with cash, convinced they are righteous and enlightened, and, most of all, are exceedingly arrogant. They believe they will continue to define and influence society – and they may – but only half.
The nearly consistent claim from established social media companies against their start-up competitors is that they are guilty of some "ism." Take your pick: racial, ethnic, political, religious, sexual, whatever. Some crime, syndrome, or deplorable belief – some "ism" – is usually attached to any platform other than themselves.
This is not the stuff of right-wing conspiracy theorists. It touches on press freedoms and landmark legal cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan. In that 1964 case, the Supreme Court established that a plaintiff in a defamation case concerning a public figure must prove "actual malice" in reporting false information. Actual malice is the publication of a false statement with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.
When a business turns on roughly half of its customers, treats them like criminal suspects or seeks to deprive them of their services, can they prosper? The answer is "No."
Social media is dying, they just don't know it yet. All the so-called "giants" of Silicon Valley: Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk cannot continue successfully "as is." In the lead-up to the 2020 election, and certainly in the aftermath of the January 6th Capitol riot, persons and organizations not subscribing to the new orthodox socialist ideology of the American Left have found themselves "de-platformed," suspended, erased, minimized and banned.
