We saw how, in a couple of days, that Big Tech was able to completely decimate a strong company like Parler.

The excuse was because they weren’t controlling or moderating speech that could be inciting enough. Google and Apple removed their Apps from the App Store. Parler had been the number one free App in the store. Amazon pulled their server which then seems to cause every other company to blackball them so they couldn’t even get a replacement and all their other operations were impaired.

So then some of the people considering alternatives to Twitter fled to Minds which describes itself as an open source, community-owned social network dedicated to privacy, free speech, monetization and decentralization. My info sec friends suggested that I should go over there after all this hit.

But apparently Big Tech will brook no alternatives, especially not those claiming to care about free speech.

Now Google has come for Minds. The Google Play store has given them just 24 hours to make a lot of changes to moderate their site, according to Bill Ottman, the Minds CEO, or have their App removed from the store.

Looks like Google Play is coming for Minds next: pic.twitter.com/ckLwElTPwh

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 15, 2021

Ottman said that necessitated them removing major functionality for the site from that App including search discovery and comments. Needless to say, he was not happy, he said, and they would be “working towards something better” that they were working towards a fully “censorship resistant structure.” They apparently also use AWS but he said that they had multiple “escape pods ready to go” if Amazon decides to pull them from their hosting service.

So they’re saying if you want to go there, download the app from their website directly. Of course, being in the App Store means that far more people have access to you and can see you which is why it’s so critical to these companies.

But this just shows, once again, how problematic that Big Tech control can be, when they control all the Apps, the servers, even your monetary ability to operate. At what point do people say enough and people in government weigh in to stop the collusion. Fine, yes, companies can dictate on their own sites. But when Big Tech then throttles the competition, you’re no longer able to talk about “build your own,” because they wouldn’t let you build your own.

People are speaking up, Twitter and Facebook are taking a huge monetary hit in the backlash. But it’s still going on.