It's Germany and by extension EU's own fault for not developing alternative sources of energy. Note, I said alternative sources of energy not alternative fuels. How did Germany come to being so reliant on Russian energy? What were the Germans thinking when they were happily decommissioning their Nuclear and Coal power plants in favor of what was largely Russian Oil & Gas? Its not surprising that the west finds itself again in this situation.
FANGMULA holds tremendous power. No doubt about it. They can make or break any business very easily. This was known in theory and recently we saw this in practice. This doesn't mean that Parler cannot fight this out in court. They likely will. However, all SV companies have very deep pockets and can sustain a very lengthy legal challenge even if they're in the wrong. Small businesses just don't have that kind of cash to fight this out in court.
Some (non-US observers) would say that the incoming administration and SV companies have stifled civil liberties and free speech. In the past, this was the exact reason that US sanctioned (or at the very least criticized) several countries when they would ban certain groups for inflaming racial tensions, spreading hate speech and radicalizing people.
I am in no way a CCP supporter here but imagine if the CCP silenced a bunch of people because they did not agree with them, destroyed a platform where they gathered and then gloated about it, what would the US have to say? What would the world say?
I don't have all the facts here. However, there are accusations that Facebook, Google both facilitated planning of the Capitol riots. There are no consequences for these companies - yet. Just because they "moderate" their platform does not make them better than Parler. More importantly, Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter did not act while Trump supporters were actively spreading misinformation and lies. Trump has been indiscriminately lying and inflaming racial tensions for a long time on Twitter. Why wasn't he suspended before? Lots of Facebook groups, YouTube channel spread lies about many topics, why weren't they removed earlier?
These companies were emboldened when they saw that Trump is leaving office. They are acting opportunistically to drum up the new cycle. I could be totally wrong about this, but its a personal feeling.
It felt like a feeding frenzy starting with Twitter suspending Trump's handle and eventually banning his account permanently. Other companies had to jump in otherwise they would look weak and complicit.
I think Parler should've given a longer notice period to resolve whatever issues they had with moderation. 24 hours is very little notice for anybody to do anything meaningful.
Finally, I am shocked that not a single "civil liberties" supporter came out and criticized these tech companies for being Judges, Juries and Executioners.
These companies need to be treated like utilities because they are. They need to be regulated as such. The amount of monopolistic power that they have shown is unbelievable.
During the US-China trade war, China realized its dependence on US chips and software. The US government could effectively cripple Chinese companies. This was disconcerting in itself as there aren't effective alternatives for many tech related hardware and software.
However, the show of power post Jan 8th by these tech companies was several orders of magnitude worse than the trade war. Europe, Asia and rest of the world are watching and should take note of this event and build their own local competitors otherwise, SV and the US government can effectively control the whole world.
