Is Big Tech Really Our Enemy?

With the rise of shadow banning and outright censorship, many people, especially but not exclusively conservatives and the far right, have come to view  Big Tech as our enemy, but is this perception warranted? The answer is an uncategorical no, but as usual things are not that simple.

Big Tech is made up of many platforms but the main ones – not necessarily the largest – for our purposes are Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube.

Amazon is on this list because in addition to a major retailer and film service it is a hosting company which currently hosts around 11% of all websites, making it number 2 in the world. Two years ago it cut off Parler on a spurious pretext, more about this shortly. 

Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 but nobody seems to have noticed, and it continues to be called Facebook in the real world. Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter but claims now it is worth only $20 billion; it is a relatively small company (among giants) but extremely influential. That leaves Google and YouTube. Apple and Micro$oft need not concern us here, nor large hosts, ISPs, Chinese Internet companies, etc.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two men who were and hopefully still are committed Libertarians. YouTube was founded by three former Paypal employees in 2005 and has long been the video hub of the world. It was acquired by Google the following year, and Google is now owned by a holding company known as Alphabet.

In recent years, YouTube especially has been restricting videos more and more on a number of pretexts including harassment – which means what exactly? Hate speech – anything the left hates, and most recently, misinformation. Although this is a trend, the Covid-19 pandemic and the misnamed January 6, 2021 insurrection are central to this clampdown. Even the merest suggestion in a YouTube video that the 2020 election may have been stolen can result in a channel strike or in extreme cases termination.

The Covid-19 situation is more serious. Bad medical advice can lead to people making bad decisions which may have life-changing or even life-ending effects. In the mainstream media, especially advertising, there are all sorts of restrictions on financial advice, legal advice, etc. Anyone can give legal, financial or medical advice to a friend, whether or not it is solicited, but the finance industry, lawyers and especially medical professionals, are strictly regulated. Even so, there are countless of all these and more offering advice on YouTube, usually with a disclaimer.

Having said that, it is clear that the American shadow government was doing things it did not ought to have been doing. The recent and ongoing  oversight hearings have exposed extensive censorship and the promotion of disinformation by numerous agencies, and whatever one believes about “conspiracy theories” concerning the 2020 election, it is clear that without this interference including the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump would have been re-elected.

Returning to Parler, this was founded in August 2018, but after January 6, BuzzFeed reported: 

“Amazon notified Parler that it would be cutting off the social network favored by conservatives and extremists from its cloud hosting service Amazon Web Services, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News. The suspension, which will go into effect on Sunday just before midnight, means that Parler will be unable to operate and will go offline unless it can find another hosting service.”

The article continues:

“People on Parler used the social network to stoke fear, spread hate, and allegedly coordinate the insurrection at the Capitol building on Wednesday. The app has recently been overrun with death threats, celebrations of violence, and posts encouraging ‘Patriots’ to march on Washington, DC, with weapons on Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.”

It quotes from an e-mail:

“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms…It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”

Prior to this, the biggest removal of “right wing extremists” from the Internet was the co-ordinated effort to ban Alex Jones. A case can be made and has been made that Jones was the author of his own misfortune, but Big Tech’s reaction was disturbing nevertheless. 

Big Tech has its own problems with “woke” employees; Elon Musk cleared out a veritable rats’ nest of them at Twitter. A lot more could be written in this vein about pressure from the Deep State and the well-funded extreme left, but let us look at the positive side instead with especial reference to YouTube.

There is a lot of content on YouTube that the enemies of freedom would like to see removed, but in spite of many channels being demonetised, this content is likely to remain. 

 It is possible to make a comfortable living on YouTube alone. Here are a few examples:

Lawtube (not to be confused with LawTube) is a generic name for mostly American lawyers who comment and vlog on the platform. The Depp v Heard trial attracted a lot of live coverage by lawyers. 

Cultural and political pundits host their own channels; these embrace the entire political spectrum, some, like Tim Pool, have enormous followings and feature big name guests. 

Popular YouTubers (for want of a better phrase) includes all channels which have at least a thousand members. Subject to the usual terms and conditions, YouTube channels, including channels run by individuals, may offer memberships in addition to free subscriptions. Then there are superchats; YouTube takes a cut, of course, but some people can bring in massive income from superchats and cash apps. When Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull told her audience she was being charged £3,000 by a solicitor for attending a police station with her, one anonymous viewer dumped the entire sum in her account while she was livestreaming.

Away from anything remotely controversial, you will find a world of knowledge and wonder on YouTube, everything from plays and concerts to lectures, exhibitions and sports.

Livestreaming has now come of age enabling people to record direct to YouTube or Facebook from professional cameras or phones. The uses of this are endless. 

A lot more could be written in this vein but it will suffice to point out that most attempts to drive people off especially YouTube and to censor information our unelected and sometimes our elected rulers would prefer to remain hidden are unsuccessful. We are all now aware of the threat posed by central bank digital currencies and other methods of surveillance thanks primarily to YouTube. The enemies of freedom can continue peddling their false narratives, but as long as we have people like Elon Musk, Tim Pool and Joe Rogan, they will not succeed in their ultimate goal of enslaving us all.