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<\/div>\nIn the past day there have been two very disturbing developments in internet deplatforming.<\/p>\n
We are all familiar with deplatforming from major social media services such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as those platforms outright silencing important news that harms Democrats, like the Biden family influence peddling scandal. Twitter regularly now places notices or restrictions even on Trump\u2019s tweet on the allegation that his opinions on the election are disputed. In the four years Trump as been the subject of dishonest and malicious conspiracy claims, particularly Russia collusion, I can\u2019t remember Twitter ever placing such restrictions on the tweets from Adam Schiff, other Democrat politicians, or mainstream media outlets peddling that disinformation.<\/p>\n
The two recent developments take it to a new level.<\/p>\n
First<\/strong>, The Conservative Treehouse website\u00a0says it received<\/a>\u00a0notification from WordPress.com that \u201c\u2026 given the incompatibility between your site\u2019s content and our terms, you need to find a new hosting provider and must migrate the site by Wednesday, December 2nd.\u201d<\/p>\n WordPress.com should not be confused with the WordPress website software. WordPress.com is a hosting platform owned by\u00a0Automattic<\/a>:<\/p>\n Automattic owns and operates WordPress.com, which is a hosted version of the open source WordPress software with added features for security, speed and support. Please append \u201c.com\u201d when referencing our product name.<\/p>\n WordPress is open source software, which is written, maintained, and supported by thousands of independent contributors worldwide. Automattic is a major contributor to the WordPress open source project.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Legal Insurrection uses WordPress software, but we are not hosted by WordPress.com.<\/p>\n I have emailed Automattic asking them to confirm or deny the story as related by the Treehouse, but have received no response. This form of deplatforming is particularly troubling. Longtime readers may recall that one of the main reasons we left\u00a0Google Blogger<\/a>\u00a0(blogspot.com) in 2011 was fear of being\u00a0deplatformed by Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two and one-half years later, after almost\u00a08 million visits and 10 million page views, I\u2019m moving away from Blogger.\u00a0 I made the decision even before the\u00a0Big Blogger Blackout of 2011<\/a>, but that event confirmed my view that I no longer was comfortable relying on the goodwill of Google.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are now self-hosted, but retain the fear that our host could turn out the lights on a whim or more likely, under some sort of political pressure. We back up the website off-platform every night, and have been assured by our tech team that we would be up and running elsewhere quickly if that were to happen.<\/p>\n But what if that \u201celsewhere\u201d refused to take us under the same pressure. If we were a left-wing website, we would have no such worries because leftists almost never get deplatformed. At least WordPress.com gave the Treehouse notice, but the chilling effect is there. Not only do non-leftists risk deplatforming on Twitter and Facebook, now it\u2019s moved to hosting services.<\/p>\n Second<\/strong>, the Northern Virginia Tea Party has been deplatformed by Mailchimp, as\u00a0Luke Rosiak reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n Mailchimp, a common email delivery service, has refused to provide service to the Northern Virginia Tea Party, citing that it violates their terms of agreement about \u201cpotential\u2026 misinformation.\u201d It had attempted to notify members about a recount rally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n