Author here. Apologies for the factual inconsistencies in the article. I wrote the article in a fit of emotion and I do not write often, so you might find my thoughts and words messy.

I do not defend Parler or the people on it either. What happened was not a civilized thing. The whole point of rule of law is that society doesn't succumb to rule of the jungle

Should Parler be banned ? I don't know. A big chunk of me leans towards the answer yes.

But this very answer scares me. Who am I, in a civilized, nation state, with a legislative, executive, govt. , to decide who has a voice and who doesn't ? And even if I do , who checks my powers ? What stops me from doing the unethical, the incorrect and the evil ?

What I wanted to focus was, not on Parler (it was my prompt for ideas washing around in my head for a while), but on the sheer amount of centralized power and authority in the hands of Big Tech, at the moment. Wikileaks was the wakeup call. It showed how much financial, media and technological clout Big Tech has and how effectively they operate in conjunction with the government.

Social media unshackled the voices of the normal people from the dependence of print and TV. It made the system of checks and balances more approachable for the common. I fear that Big Tech is now becoming the very same villain that they wanted to liberate the common man from.

And it scares me.