Don’t complain about being deplatformed, build your own damn platforms!
Facebook has started banning both individual accounts and pages, as well as associated groups, that are affiliated with the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. The news was first reported today by Business Insider, which noted that members of the Proud Boys and adjacent online communities had begun complaining about the takedowns on Twitter.
The removals come in response to an act of violence in New York City earlier this month, in which members of the Proud Boys assaulted anti-fascist protestors outside a Republican club in Manhattan where Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, also an original co-founder of Vice Media, was speaking. Facebook confirmed to The Verge that it was banning Proud Boys members and affiliated groups and pages from both its main social network and from Instagram. McInnes’ personal page is still active, but a number of high-profile groups, pages, and accounts have begun to disappear today.
“Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it. We will continue to review content, Pages, and people that violate our policies, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to help keep our community safe.” The company is citing violations of its rules on hate speech and the organizing of groups that spread hate both online and offline as the reason for the bans and removals.
The social media giants need conservatives and other right-wingers on their sites more than we need to be on them. We have repeatedly demonstrated that. The Darkstream has become popular enough that YouTube is now throttling recommended videos there and it is probably only a matter of time before that channel is deplatformed, which is why it has been on BitChute for the last few months.
People follow content, not platforms. Platforms are worthless without content. Yes, a change of platform will reduce one’s audience, but the part of the audience lost, the part that can’t bother to follow you to the new platform, is the trivial and largely irrelevant part. I’d rather have 2,500 staunch followers than 250,000 casual fans. Being deplatformed from Twitter and losing my 33k followers there did not harm me or slow me down in the slightest. I’ve never used Facebook for anything important. This blog is already backed up in multiple locations and we will not even break stride if Google forces Blogger to shut it down… although you should subscribe to either Castalia Book Club or the Daily Meme Wars to be alerted to the new site when the time comes.
When, not if.
Everyone needs to stop expecting fairness from their self-declared enemies or thinking that cucking just a little will cause them to spare you. If the next wave of deplatformings doesn’t affect you, then the one that follows the social media giants’ fury and despair when the Blue Wave fails to appear very well may.