Pulling the Plug

PRIVATE COMPANIES CAN CHOOSE WHAT TO OFFER THEIR CUSTOMERS

by Froma Harrop

SO, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS been booted off Twitter, as of now forever. Facebook also gave him the heave-ho. Apple and Google, meanwhile, have tossed the riot-friendly Parler app out of their stores.

Parler became a social media cave for the Trump-inspired looters, vandals, cop killers and other social misfits who rampaged through the Capitol. But Amazon may have delivered the harshest blow by refusing to store Parler’s data in its cloud-computing service.

Having lost the presidency, the Senate majority and now major platforms for disseminating lies and calls to violence, Trump World, or what’s left of it, automatically shifted into self-pitying snowflake mode. With quivering voices, its members accused the tech companies of censorship.

When Simon & Schuster announced it would not be publishing the book by one of the instigators, Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator called the move “Orwellian” and a “direct assault on