Last night I could not log into Parler with either Chrome or Edge. Having heard about the widespread banning of people and organizations by lots of Big Tech platforms, I suspected the browsers were blocking access to Parler. Then I learned that the problem was that Parler was overwhelmed with web traffic. I was relieved — for a moment.
Then I saw that Apple had sent a message to Parler: “Moderate violent threats or face ban.” Whatever Apple meant by the term “threat” is entirely within Apple’s discretion, i.e., Parler is at the mercy of doing what Apple tells Parler it must do.
This morning I’ve learned that Google beat Apple to the punch by removing Parler from its Play Store. Google and other browsers can be programmed not to present any website they choose. Who knows what all they can do to users who enter a verboten web address? If Big Tech does what the deep state wants them to do, history suggests that the deep state will smile in satisfaction with the power afforded by its political arm controlling all three branches and proceed to gain more power.
If you are watching what is going on, you can see an illustration of Lord Acton’s observation, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I doubt, however, that anyone in Lord Acton’s age could have imagined just how much power could be accumulated.
I’m reminded of astronaut John Swigert’s immortal words, “Houston, we have a problem.” The difference is that no one was against America solving the problem the Apollo 13 spacecraft experienced.