I posted some short blurbs about the social media crackdown in a few places already and figured I should add a little more context to my take on things. This might be long and is likely to meander around a bit, so bear with me
A while back I wrote about the importance of Kamala Harris being on the Democratic ticket (https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/167162/the-importance-of-harris).
She is completely and entirely owned by the Big Tech. She is their candidate. She got the VP nomination because she has an umbilical cord to Big Tech money. It did not hurt that she fit the intersectional profile, but ultimately that did not matter all that much. She has value to the DNC because of her link to the Big Tech and value to the Big Tech because she has no principles or beliefs that can not be changed for a few bucks. She is the creature of the Big Tech as are many other cabinet members in the Biden team.
Everything that has been happening in the last year benefits Big Tech. I do not think they had anything to do with COVID leaking out of a Chinese lab, but they definitely took advantage of the opportunity. Big Tech wanted us glued to social media and they got what they wanted. Everyone was stuck at home binging on Netflix/Amazon Prime/Hulu/etc, glued to Facebook and Twitter and shopping on Amazon.
They definitely know how to take advantage of an opportunity.
They also know how to get what they want. If I were to identify what had the most impact on the election that resulted in Kamala Harris in the White House, I would put the Big Tech's control of information at the top of the list. Here is an example for you: depending on which poll you are looking at, around one sixth of the people who were undecided but voted for Biden, said that they would have changed their vote had they known about Hunter Biden being owned by China. That would have probably been enough to swing the election. That is one of the reasons they pushed so hard to get people to vote via mail-in ballots. Once you send your vote in early, you can not easily change it if new information comes out. Early voting is just a bad idea if you want a fair and free election.
Don't get me wrong, corrupt public employees definitely had their part. In a typical year, nationwide, a bit over 6% of absentee ballots are rejected due to various errors. In the 2020 election, despite the fact that there was a much larger number of mail in ballots, the rejection rate was less than 1%. That is preposterous on its face. Difficult to do anything about, but nonetheless preposterous. Mail-in votes generally favoured Biden, but it varied state by state. In Pennsylvania, for example, ~75% of mail-in votes were for Biden. Well, if extra 5% of those were rejected, it could swing the election in PA.
Big Tech suppressed information and convinced the gullible to mail in their votes early, while the election officials accepted everything without verification. Keep in mind, that close to 80% of unelected state bureaucrats vote Democrat. There may be a Republican somewhere in there to put in front of a camera, but the rest of them wanted Biden to win. The election was close and it does not take that much to nudge it over in the direction you want.
To be fair, we should not discard Trump's lack of self-control and propensity to mouth off in random directions. That alone was probably enough to loose re-election. He just would not let Biden sink himself. He had to be in the center of attention 100% of the time, so here we are. If the election was about Biden, Biden would lose. The election ended up being about Trump, so Trump lost and Biden will stop over for a few months in the White House as he relocates from his basement to a nursing home.
Despite all the other nonsense (and any one of the things I mention was probably enough to swing the election), Trump should take a long hard look in the mirror. Hell, he probably lost Arizona because he decided to pick on Senator McCain for some insane reason. I appreciate the man's fighting spirit, but you have to choose your battles.
Anyway, here is where we are now. Big Tech started their crackdown on competition earlier than I though thanks to some assholes storming the Capitol building. I know there is a lot of stuff floating around that there was Antifa involved and I have no way of knowing the veracity of that. The tactics of attacking the police were similar to what Antifa has been doing in Portland. We do know that plenty of Trump supporters were inside the Capitol. That resulted in two things:
1) we can no longer claim that political violence is the province of the Left
2) for the Left, this is the best New Year's gift possible. They will use this as a pretext for all sorts of insane stuff they want to push through and the first one, a crackdown on Big Tech's competitions has already started.

As I write this, Parler is already down. Apple, Google and Amazon came down on Parler all at the same time within 24 hours of each other. Keep me mind they all hate each other, and this is not the kind of stuff they can organize on the fly. This had to be in the works for a while. On top of it, they leaned on everyone who was doing business with Parler, so they will have a hell of a time getting back up.

Twitter banned Trump, allegedly for inciting violence. However, the Iranian Ayatollah has not been banned and he incites violence all the time. That's all he does on Twitter. Hell, he said that they will assassinate Trump once he is out of office. Twitter seems fine with that. For months Democrats and Democrat celebrities have been encouraging their supporters to vilence. They are all still there, not banned:
Madonna (Democrat): "Let's blow up the white house!"
Peter Fonda (Democrat): "Lock 10 year old Barren Trump in a cage with child molesters."
Johnny Depp (Democrat): "We need another John Wilks Booth!"
Tom Arnold (Democrat): "I fantasize about standing over Donald Trump Jr.'s dead body!"
Kathy Griffith (Democrat): Holds up a bloody, decapitated head of Donald Trump
Snoop Dog: (Democrat): Shoots a likeness of Trump in a music video, has Donald Trump in a body bag on his album cover
Joe Biden (Democratic presidential hopeful): "I'd like to take Trump behind a barn to beat him."
Corey Booker (Democratic presidential hopeful): "I dream of punching Trump in the face."
Maxine Waters (Sitting Democratic congresswoman) "Harass Trump's staff and supporters in public and refuse to serve them."

This is a pure and simple Soviet-style purge of dissenting voices and it will not stop with Trump and Parler. It has already touched many anti-Leftist organizations with a big voice (like the "Walk Away" movement) and it will eventually get to small fish like yours truly.

To be fair, these are private companies and they can ban anyone they want. However, they should not enjoy Section 230 protections if that is how they want to play. That's the reason they are doing this now, not a year ago. With Kamala Harris in the White House, they are confident that Section 230 will continue to apply to them.

As it is right now, this is an open assault on the 1st Amendment and an even stronger assault on the 2nd Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights is sure to follows.

The end result will be a further rise of 1st Amendment friendly media like Parler, Dailywire and many others, leading to an even further disconnect between the Left and the Right.

It will be interesting to see is Section 230 will apply to Parler when it is reborn. I bet they will find a way to work around it, so that the Leftist thugs can sue Parler out of existence.

But, I digress. Get ready for a few interesting years folks. I want to have a voice on any platform that is willing to have me. I will remain on Facebook and Youtube for as long as I can, but chances are my days there are numbered.

I want to be able to talk to both sides of the isle, but I fear that my ability to do so has an expiration date.