Here is a WONDERFUL consequence of the Parler shutdown
And no, it’s not what you probably think.
I got a Facebook account as a necessary evil, about nine years ago. If your goal is to increase awareness that rights depend on software is used around you, you cannot avoid such moves. Know your enemy, and all that.
Reminder 1: why I never cancel “friends” on Facebook. Or Twitter, or…
A key personal policy of mine on Facebook (or any other social network) is to never remove any contact I make, no matter how, or how much I disagree with them. I need reminders, straight from the sources, of what people with different, or opposite opinions really say and think. And so do you, of course. Life is too short to waste it on what you assume the “other” side says and does.
Reminder 2: What on Earth is Parler, anyway?
Parler is the alternative social network launched that was explicitly built as a haven for absolute free speech, and consequently gained, quoting Wikipedia “a significant user base of Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists."
In case you missed it, Parler was the main choice of many of my “Trump-friendly” contacts on Facebook right after the US 2020 election, when major social media, together with most TV networks and “mainstream media” labeled as totally false the claims that Trump had won, and the election had been stolen.
But in early January 2021, after being banished by Amazon, Apple, Google and others, Parler shut down, remaining online only by name, at least for now.
Hopefully, this may have had one wonderful consequence for everybody, whatever they think of Parler and of its main user base.
That WONDERFUL consequence of the Parler shutdown
When Parler was effectively neutered by its service providers, some of the Facebook contacts who had been planning to go there were mightily frustrated. On one of their walls, two of them commented:
Contact 1: I finally took my Parler app off my iPhone and iPad. I guess I’ll get a new password if they resolve their case.
Contact 2: “Apple took mine off my iPhone. Now that is scary that they can do that remotely."
NOW, it is scary that “they can do that” and much more, remotely? Now? It really took Parler to make people see that? OK, then. Fine with me.
Whatever you think of Parler and of political conservatives… if this shut down makes the masses finally realize how we are all heavily controlled, and limited, by an extremely limited number of 100% for-profit companies who market feudalism + tax havens as “innovation” it will have been extremely beneficial.
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!