Stefan Molyneux has now been banned from Twitter less than a week after being banned from YouTube.
Twitter’s official explanation, of course, is a lie:
Twitter appears to dispute the notion that he was removed for ideological reasons. In a statement provided to CNN, the company said that Molyneux “was suspended for spam and platform manipulation, specifically operating fake accounts.”
So it is just a coincidence that Molyneux had been running these spam accounts, possibly unbeknownst to Twitter for years, and than only within a week of being banned from YouTube does Twitter suddenly become aware of this and take action. As someone who has followed Molyneux on Twitter, I found no evidence of the use of spam accounts. Molyneux is popular enough that he does need to resort to such deception.
Twitter also lied about denying the practice of shadowbanning and filtering of certain accounts and keywords, which is real.
Trump tweeted at Jack Dorsey (@Jack) to implore Twitter to reconsider, and in a series of tweets praised Molyneux and others who have been censored and cancelled by the left. Oh wait, nevermind. Nope…trump is still ranting about Covid testing and being a victim of ‘witch hunts,’ while boosting his friends at Fox News and CNBC. What a disappointment.
And here is angry Arab man Talab talking tough about cancel culture as if he opposed it all along, even though a few days ago he praised the cancellation of Molyneux’s YouTube account. Does he really think our memories are that short.
Reminder: You do not become free by becoming prominent.
You will be canceled if you stray from the monoculture. As in Kundera's *Joke*, they will find something you said somewhere that you don't even remember.
Your public "apologies" will make you look even more vulnerable. https://t.co/H4yy1eMOvi
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 7, 2020
You do not want to be "cancelled" by
1) Your barber
2) Your butcher
3) The owner of your favorite restaurantThe rest can go f*** themselves.#BeingIndependent pic.twitter.com/ea9INKnMKw
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 8, 2020
Taleb’s logic is, if you get cancelled, it is partially your fault because you made yourself vulnerable (or what he calls fragile). Which is idiotic. Unlike Taleb, not everyone has a major publishing house to promote their work and invites to major TV networks; many writers and other content creators depend on social networks and social media to promote their work, because those are the only avenues if you are not already established.
As someone who opposes cancel culture, I don’t want Taleb cancelled, but it would be essential if people stopped following him, stopped buying his books, and shared articles and videos that call him out for his nonsense.
Vox Day is not wrong about building your own platforms, but it’s not a practical solution either. There are many alternatives to Facebook..can you name some? Let’s see…umm…Myspace? Just create your own version of Visa or MasterCard. Easy. Yeah, my point exactly. Since 2010 or so, there have been hundreds of attempts at creating alternatives to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other major networks, but all have failed at gaining any traction and have been forgotten, with the possible exception of Gab. DailyMotion and Vimeo are terrible, with horrible interfaces and intrusive ads.
But there are still many conservative YouTube and Twitter accounts that have not been banned, such as James Woods and others. YouTube and Twitter know that deleting too many conservatives would eliminate any facade of impartiality, and also political divisiveness is good for page views and ad impressions. But prominent right-wing accounts that have not been suspended yet are probably kept on a short leash and monitored closely for possible rules violations, to give Twitter the justification it needs to finally suspended the account.
It is funny how Taleb censors the word ‘fuck’ in the above tweet, as if him calling anyone whom he digresses with a ‘moron’ or an ‘imbecile’ is perfectly acceptable, but spelling out ‘fuck’ is beyond his moral sensibilities. You won’t get banned from twitter for cursing, but you will be banned for misgendering someone, for being too critical of BLM and other left-wing groups, for harassment (never ever send DMs to anyone unless you have permission, or know the person, or the question is harmless and non-political), for questioning the ‘official’ Covid-19 CDC and WHO guidelines (even if such guidelines are scientifically and or empirically wrong, or contradict earlier guidelines), for ‘provoking violence’ (a criteria which is intentionally vague enough so as to give Twitter discretion to censor almost anything that can be interpreted as offensive to someone else), or for ‘spam and deceptive practices’ (even though celebrities are allowed to constantly spam users with promotions for their latest TV shows and other projects).