Yeah but...orange man bad.

It's all very Maoist.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Who? What? You should probably move on from that irrelevance now. He’s not coming back.

As some might have noticed I am taking a break from this place for a while as, having recently moved home, I am just too busy at the moment. I dip in from time to time and find the same old prejudices are still alive. In this part of the universe anyway.

So I won't bother countering all the spurious arguments in the above. Those with any kind of common sense will recognise their frailty anyway, whilst others won't.

There is one though that is so nonsensical it demands pointing out less it becomes an accepted "alternative fact" in the minds of the unrighteous.

The idea that the tech industries "have unethically silenced a sitting president" is simply untrue. Trump wasn't silenced. No US President could be silenced. They always have ways to reach out to the people, either directly through addresses or announcements, or indirectly through spokespeople.

What Trump tried to do, initially with great success, was to harness the power of the new media to bypass the traditional media, its journalistic scrutiny and criticism, and speak directly to the people. This gave him the opportunity to portray events, and himself, exactly as he wished to. When fact checking revealed that much of what he said was untrue, the danger of this became only too obvious. History teaches us that an authoritarian leader seeks to control the message by controlling the way it is delivered. Constantly describing the traditional media as "fake news" was all part of this effort.

The tech industries were in a bind. As commercial businesses Trump was gold dust for them but eventually their need to maintain their reputation for ensuring tainted content gets removed overcame the commercial benefit. To the great relief of many who, like me, treasure the existence of a free press. Trump, his views and his supporters still have outlets they can use. Some though have chosen, as is their right, to remove him. Not silenced at all. Just channelled.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

We used to live in constant fear of Trump deporting our Latina mother-in-law.

But just in case, her address is 324 3rd Street Los Angeles.

And she gets in at 6.....

It's OK. He's with the Lizard people now. They'll take good care of him.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

When anyone, President or not, is abusing a platform to spread misinformation, then it is the duty of that platform to take action. No-one has the right to use any social media platform. They are not publicly owned, but are commercial businesses. Users don't have rights. They only have responsibilities which involve abiding by the terms and conditions required by the site.

There is no monopoly at all. There are many alternatives, which may not be as popular or successful, but they exist. Trump was not, and is not, silenced. His reach has merely been curtailed to those who WANT to hear him.

Whether we need more regulation over the social media companies is another matter but should it be decided that we do it is likely to take the form of tighter controls over content, and not anything which allows unfettered access to their platforms, which would not be in the public interest.

Suggesting that this is all a scheme of the "left" is really quite funny. It has nothing at all to do with political positions and only concerns ensuring that lies are not allowed to repeatedly be spread, or incitement to violence or civil disorder be posted. Who-ever does that, whether from the left or the right, will suffer the same fate.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.