After the storming of the U.S. Capitol by an insurgent lynch mob driven by far-right social media conspiracy theories and stirred on by then President Donald Trump, at least 10 market-dominating tech companies took action through content moderation and account suspension. Chief among those removed was Trump himself, banned from Twitter, and Parler, an alternative social media platform that markets itself to far-right extremists, which was ejected from its host, Amazon Web Services.
The ban had an immediate effect on internet discourse: Within a week, researchers tracked a 73 percent reduction in disinformation about election fraud on Twitter and other platforms. Amazon’s filing against Parler documents months of futile work to convince the platform to suppress users’ explicit calls for violence in accordance with their terms of service. While some argue that tech companies should take similar action against other world leaders who use populism to stir up mass violence, critics of the decision are alarmed at the supposed restriction on free speech by tech companies.
