The Issue: Google, Apple and Amazon banning right-wing social-media app Parler from their stores.
Many of my left-leaning friends are overjoyed with Amazon, Google and Apple combining their powers to pull the plug on their ideological rival, Parler (“Big Tech Goes Full Cartel,” Editorial, Jan. 11).
Parler is not the cause of the Jan. 6 insurrection any more than Facebook or Twitter were the cause of the property destruction during the George Floyd protests. The culprit for both is suppression. Disenfranchisement leads to dissent, and suppressing dissent leads to violence. Sadly, the latest example is Jan. 6.
If the disenfranchised are no longer heard or have a platform to air their grievances, no matter how radical, their frustrations will metastasize to terror.
I can only conclude that we need more Parlers and more social contact because we need to talk more and listen better.
Craig Baker
Richmond, Va.
The ban of Parler is another sign that fascism, like a nest of rats, is spreading throughout the country.
It will not be long before conservative publications, radio and TV stations will be silenced, along with any politician or citizen who dissents from the progressive movement.
It is not President Trump but the vile and corrupt left, led by a fanatical Rep. Nancy Pelosi, that will cause unrest in America.
Nicholas Maffei
Yonkers
What Twitter, Apple and Google are doing to Parler should horrify every American regardless of political persuasion.
This is the kind of thing that takes place in some of the worst communist dictatorships in the world.
While it benefits the Democrats right now, it may prove to be a pyrrhic victory. This kind of political attack on the free speech of half the people of the country can only result in more polarization of an already divided society.
Robert DiNardo
Farmingdale
While Big Tech companies blitzkrieg conservative voices and outlets like Parler, shutting them down, they are all in with Democrats, who cheer them on as they do it.
This should not be allowed to happen — monopolies that are all left-leaning, unaccountable and unelected, having such control over a vital communication that most Americans enjoy.
Mike Pedano
South Farmingdale
In the wake of the DC protest and violence at the Capitol building, Google has banned Parler from its store in an overt attempt to abort the social-media platform.
Google has defended its unprecedented action by claiming Parler, because it does not censor its content, promotes violence and civil unrest.
By that reasoning, Google phones should be banned because the company doesn’t censor what is being said over them.
Google’s action is nothing less than communist-style stifling of free speech and, if left unchecked, will promote the very civil unrest it professes to avoid.
Jack Kaufman
Naples, Fla.
As if Twitter’s indefinite lockdown of President Trump’s account — along with its (and Facebook’s) interference in the 2020 election by their suppression of the The Post’s bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story — wasn’t bad enough, we now have three of its Big Brother corporate compatriots (Apple, Google and Amazon) dropping the hammer on Parler.
It’s clearly time for Congress to strip these information barons of their Section 230 protection, and perhaps federal antitrust action is also in order.
But since Big Tech is part and parcel of the Democrat-media complex, I’m afraid I’m whistling in the wind here.
James Hyland
Beechhurst