Private Enterprises’ Reining In the Promotion of Hateful Lies, Treason and Murder Is Somehow Controversial

In today’s highly polarized world, it seems that literally any development that has the remotest relation to politics is going to auto-generate both a left- and a right-wing contingent around it.

Here we have the fact that the social networking app “Parler,” a tool critical to the success of right-wing extremists, is being banned by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Google in the wake of Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. Parler has been rife with violent comments since before the attack on the Capitol, and Apple and Google say they’ll restore the app only when Parler moderates its service better.

One may think that this would be a fairly straightforward, noncontroversial affair.  Doesn’t a private entity have the right to make and enforce rules?  More to the point, can a private entity be forced to be complicit to an entire range of felonies that include assault, battery, treason, and murder?

Well, as indicated above, apparently there are two sides even in a case like this.  Parler devotees, backed up by Fox News and the rest, claim this is a violation of their rights to free speech that are protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution the few words of which are: “Congress shall make no law.”  Note the use of the words “Congress” and “laws.”

Now, is such a ban fair and just?  Again, in my book, private enterprises have the right, and in fact the moral duty, to refuse to be a party to promoting malicious lies, and worse, incitement to insurrection, treason, and murder.