U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in Dalton, Georgia, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This week, the President was suspended from basically every mainstream social media app imaginable, which finally prevented him from engaging in his favorite pastime: Tweeting. It all came on the heels of the horned Qanon Shaman and the violent coup on Capitol Hill last week that killed five people, including a police officer beaten to death with a fire extinguisher and an Air Force veteran who was shot to death while breaking into the Capitol, which inevitably led to a dramatic week for social media.
Parler, the far-right’s social media app, was poised to be the landing spot for Trump after the president was booted from Twitter. But then every big Silicon Valley company, including Amazon’s Web Services, which knocked it completely offline). Parler then sued Amazon in a dizzying lawsuit that likely won't hold up in court.
Gab, another fringe site with a far-right crowd, was taken over by Qanon followers looking for a safe haven from the wrath of “Big Tech” deplatforming. In between, Republican congresspeople claimed there was a vast conspiracy against free speech in this country and Telegram (another app extremists fled to) exceeded 500 million users.
To make sense of this mess, Motherboard Editor-In-Chief Jason Koebler is on CYBER to discuss just what this all means for the fate of American democracy.
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Parler, the far-right’s social media app, was poised to be the landing spot for Trump after the president was booted from Twitter. But then every big Silicon Valley company, including Amazon’s Web Services, which knocked it completely offline). Parler then sued Amazon in a dizzying lawsuit that likely won't hold up in court.
Gab, another fringe site with a far-right crowd, was taken over by Qanon followers looking for a safe haven from the wrath of “Big Tech” deplatforming. In between, Republican congresspeople claimed there was a vast conspiracy against free speech in this country and Telegram (another app extremists fled to) exceeded 500 million users.
To make sense of this mess, Motherboard Editor-In-Chief Jason Koebler is on CYBER to discuss just what this all means for the fate of American democracy.