The Parler situation is complicated. They have given AWS and other companies reason to shut them down by refusing to police content even when it rises to threats of violence against public officials. But is that the real reason for shutting them down now, or the excuse? Or both?

It’s important to note that Apple, Google, and AWS have urged Parler to strengthen its policies against posts that incite and encourage violence, but Parler has refused in the name of “free speech.” They have an extreme libertarian view of what “free speech” — and they’re wrong.

Having said that, it’s important to note that Big Tech is seizing this golden opportunity to push the envelope and clamp down on “conservative” accounts generally. The big Twitter purge over the weekend is at least some evidence of that, but this has been happening for months.

One more complicating point: Big Tech has deep pockets; they have to worry about lawsuits by plaintiffs who are the victims of violence encourages or incited by posts on a platform that they promote or host. The calls for repeal of Section 230 only exacerbate this legal risk.

Now for the broader philosophical point: there has to be a reasonable intermediate between the extreme libertarianism of sites like Parler and the opposite extreme of the fascist Chinese social credit system that Big Tech is arguably trying to build in cooperation with the left.