1) It doesn't take too much reflection to see these Trump and Parler bans for what they basically are: **A disinformation campaign by Big Tech to distract attention from their ongoing evil role in politics and society in general.** @Plinz

2) I do not see "incitement to violence" in Trump's statements (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html) in the normal legal sense....
If Trump's statements were incitement to violence, then so were any number of impassioned speeches by BLM supporters (note I'm a strong BLM supporter).

3) Sure Trump's words may have helped drive some of his followers to violence, but riling people up emotionally is not the same as inciting violence -- and fudging that line is a very very very dangerous precedent

4). As an anarcho-socialist I buy into "I despise the crap you spout, but I'll defend to the death your right to spout it" ... There may be extreme cases where this right should be overridden (e.g. "Go kill person X who lives at address Y, sneaking into his house by route Z") ...

5) ... but I cannot see that Trump's public utterances have descended to this level. Trump's statements have been stupid, misguided, racist, malevolent etc., but they even if he weren't President they would be protected speech by the US Constitution (and this is a good thing)

6) I agree that Twitter and Google and Apple etc. as private companies have the right to ban Trump or Parler if they want. However I also think this highlights that these tech companies have insanely too much power. That their bans matter so much is terribly wrong.

7) The functions carried out by Big Tech companies should be carried out by decentralized networks, in which case there would be no option for centralized corporate authorities to control discourse by passing judgment on what constitutes "incitement to violence" @IOHK_Charles

8) The evil of Trump as President is going away soon. The evil of Big Tech corps exerting insane amounts of power over media, speech, social interaction and our emerging Global Brain is going to keep growing longer it seems, while some of us build alternatives. @IOHK_Charles

9) Banning Trump and Parler is a clever ruse on the part of Big Tech to make themselves appear moral and distract attention from their own major role in enabling Trump's rise. Don't let their brilliant PR and marketing strategy departments dupe you. @IOHK_Charles

11) Fortunately the Internet itself is not yet censored heavily, in the West ... so BigTech cannot yet censor us in an emphatic way. But that's the direction things seem to be moving.

12) We need fundamentally secure decentralized Internet tech as well as social media... and there is tech for that in the works too (TODA, Nexus, ...) but also a lot of work to be done... @toouufii @NexusOfficial