The number of high profile dissident right social media personalities removed off various platforms for no given reason, other than problematic opinions, continues to rise.
James Allsup and The Iconoclast are just two big names who lost their YouTube channels amid another wave of politically-motivated censorship.
This time, The Red Elephants’ Facebook page was seemingly banned after what its owner, Vincent James, called a “mass-flagging” when The National File reached out to him.
In short, James believes a group of individuals targeted his page, and reported dozens or hundreds of the posts with the goal of getting it taken down by Facebook’s administrators. (READ MORE: Facebook Policies Abused to Ban Ads for Melania Trump, ‘Women For Trump’)
National File reached out to Facebook for comment on why the page was taken down, and did not receive an immediate response.
The Red Elephants had amassed an enormous following on Facebook with hundreds of thousands of page likes. The group’s YouTube channel is currently approaching 300,000 subscribers.
Ironically, in his latest video, James spoke at length about big tech censorship.
https://youtu.be/guwRusjrQ38
Other forms of censorship which appear to be orchestrated by external groups and social media’s clear political affiliations.
Even after censorship of high profile dissident right-wing voices, YouTube claims to champion a wide range of content on their platform.
YouTube CEO @SusanWojcicki says it’s “more important than ever” to let people upload anything they want.
That means the video platform is okay with “content that is outside the mainstream, controversial, or even offensive.” https://t.co/SeWY6finNr
— Vox (@voxdotcom) August 27, 2019
However, recent suspensions has lowered public trust in the platform’s credibility to honor freedom of speech.
Alt-tech has provided a lifeboat to dissident creators.
Some of the complaints concerning alt-tech as viable platforms for large content creators has been the inability to reach a wider, perhaps less politically engaged, audience.
The luxury of YouTube is its preceding reputation and brand.
Individuals who may be recently developing an interest in politics won’t have access to dissident content creators whose work countervails the dominant narratives.
Alt-media was instrumental in shaping right-populist movements throughout the Western World.
As a result of silencing problematic voices, Big Tech can continue to control allowable talking points–removing any existential threats to the awesome power they wield.
