It seems that buying your own social network is the thing to do these days. Defeated President Donald Trump and Ye (aka Kanye West) are now partners in antisemitism who have both been justifiably banned from various social networks. Trump has gone on to form Truth Social and now Ye apparently wants to buy Parler, a failing right wing cesspool that had its heyday around the time of the January 6 insurrection.
Trump and Kanye’s path fits in perfectly with the Trumpist “cancel culture” campaign of grievance. I mean, if you aren’t allowed to make death threats, spew venomous antisemitism, or undermine democracy on mainstream social platforms, I guess it makes sense you’d start your own shop under the banner of “free speech.” (Thanks to Truth Social, Trump is free to tell Jewish people they should be better Jews by pledging their blind loyalty to him . . . and the Israeli government, of course.)
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who doesn’t fit in neatly as a rightwinger (unless you count ignoring Covid mandates for his workers, kissing up to Trump and Kanye, and mocking pronouns) is on his way to buying Twitter.
And let’s not forget that the elephant in the room, Meta/Facebook, is no friend to progressives or democracy either.
It’s enough to make me want to buy my own social network . . .