Sunday, January 10, 2021

Chronicles Of The Cleansing, 2021-01-10

To all Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch:

     Keep an eye on Cold Fury for news about our relocation away from Blogger. Proprietor Mike Hendrix assures me that his host will not terminate him – or us – for our content. It’s become imperative that we move, for a reason you’re about to learn.

     Here it is, just in case you haven’t yet heard:

     Amazon notified Parler that it would be cutting off the social network favored by conservatives and extremists from its cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News. The suspension, which will go into effect on Sunday just before midnight, means that Parler will be unable to operate and will go offline unless it can find another hosting service.

     Like that “conservatives and extremists,” don’t you?

     In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an AWS Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across the social network violated its terms of service. Amazon said it was unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate calls for violence and hate speech would be effective.

     I’ve been on Parler for more than a year. I haven’t seen any of these “calls for violence and hate speech.” (Just what is “hate speech,” anyway? The definition seems a bit...fluid.)

     Mind you, Facebook and Twitter are chock full of leftists proclaiming their hatred for us in the Right, slandering us in every imaginable way, and wishing us all sorts of harm and death. Outcries against Facebook or Twitter from the other tech barons? None. Yet there are people scoffing at my concerns about Blogger. I must be some sort of crackpot, eh what?

     Why Parler first? Because President Trump just joined it. The Left feels he must be silenced above all things. A man with 74 million supporters could be dangerous. He must be kept from inciting the masses to resistance!

     The tragedy of Amazon is staggering in its breadth and depth. While a multitude of conventional businesses have been forbidden to operate because of the Wuhan Flu, Amazon has allowed ordinary persons access to innumerable goods and services from the security of their homes. It’s been of immense use to millions. (As I reside in the Vampire State, I could hardly have done without it.) Amazon has profited hugely from the pandemic. The pandemic was Amazon’s biggest friend! But its masters cannot allow us to speak freely to one another through its servers. And there’s essentially nothing to be done about it.

     Worse for me personally, Amazon is how I sell my books. I have no other outlet. No other channel to the market means anything much to an indie writer. How much longer that channel will be open to me – or to any other indie who refuses to kowtow to the Left – I cannot say.

     It’s become painfully obvious that no organization of any size can be trusted to remain free and open. The antidote is non-organization: a system that, like TCP/IP itself, requires only that the user conform to its communication protocol. Such an arrangement is usually called a peer-to-peer network. We need such a network, independent of any central control, and we need it now. Something like Kazaa. (Remember Kazaa?)

     Stay tuned.

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