Monday, January 11, 2021

Social Media and Censorship

If you happen to be hiding under a rock, it may come as news to you that President Donald J. Trump was kicked off of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as had his accounts at Snap, Shopify, Twitch, and Spotify deleted. (Spotify? SPOTIFY??? Are they afraid he's going to make a Rick Roll playlist? Go on a Twisted Sister bender? Seriously! What the hell???)

It's evident that if you do not tow the leftist "woke" ideology line, Big Tech wants you eliminated. I've had my own issues with Instagram when I complained about someone trying to clone my account and using my personal photos. Their reaction was to delete the fake account AND my account. No attempts to find out why I, the victim, was being punished were answered. Then there is Facebook. If you follow my Linda Out Loud account on Facebook, you know my personal account was deleted. Why? I was never told. No warning. No "Facebook jail". My account was just gone one day. If I had to guess why, It's because I had been posting in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who was attacked in Kenosha, WI, and ended up killing some of his attackers. The only reason the Linda Out Loud page still exists is that my husband and my son are listed as page admins. Even with my page continuing, I've been hit with leftist "fact check" after "fact check", and now I am seriously limited on how many times I can post. 

Even before the sitting president was kicked off of social media, a fact that should outrage anyone, I had been dabbling with alternatives. I saw the writing on the wall and knew it was only a matter of time before independent, libertarian, free-market ideas would be unwelcomed on the popular platforms. I thought I had found a home on Parler, but now they are offline because Amazon kicked them off their servers. I do have a Gab account, and Gab's owner had the foresight to make sure he owned his own servers and did not have to rely on someone else to host his site. However, with the new influx of digital refugees, Gab has been unusable. While it will be better as new servers are added, it does show that relying on one or two communication channels, whether for business or personal use, is a danger. 



So now what? I am currently testing out other social media options. I have accounts on several platforms and will be seeing where my style of humor and commentary can get a foothold. I've followed some of my favorite Tweeters and Vloggers around the internet and I'm trying to find sites that promote free speech as well as work with my tech, and my aging brain. (I'll list my accounts at the end of this post.)  

I still have this website, but will work on getting it off of Blogger ASAP since it's a Google product and they are part of the Big Tech cabal. Once I find a social media platform where I feel comfortable, I'll post where you can find me most often on this website. Until then, take a moment and explore outside your comfort zone and try some different sites yourself. Finding a new digital home is difficult, but it's imperative. If you don't, it's too easy for Big Tech to take you out on a whim. 

For now, find Linda Out Loud on...

Gab: LindaOutLoud

Minds: LindaOutLoud

Clouthub: LindaOutLoud

MeWe: LindaDuffy

Twitter: LindaOutLoudLOL *



* I will be dropping Twitter as soon as I find a new "home"

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

United we fall

United airlines is learning some important lessons about customer service and the effectiveness of social media. After "re-accommodating" as passenger chosen by computer to lose his seat when the flight was "overbooked". (Re-accomodating meaning smashing his face in to an arm rest and then dragging him off the plane and overbooking meaning wanting to put 4 United employees on the flight so they kicked off paying passengers that had already been boarded).

It didn't take long for video taken by people on the plane to hit Twitter and Facebook, resulting in much discussion about airline policies, passenger rights, and the actions of the authorities who roughed up the disgruntled flyer.

Instead of continuing to offer higher compensation to passengers in an attempt to get someone to give up their seat, they instead are facing a $1.4 BILLION dollar loss in value as the market reacted. Making the decision to stop at $800 as their top offer to get someone to take a different flight seems pretty foolish now.

The Flying Games?

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Corporate Welfare

I have friends who lean so far Progressive, I suspect they may have a picture of Woodrow Wilson tucked under their pillows. The most common type of meme they appear to post on Facebook concerns corporate welfare. Setting aside the debate about whether or not a company keeping some of the money it earned is actually "welfare", Progressives get upset that corporations receive federal money at the same time Conservatives complain about individuals receiving federal money in the form of welfare, food stamps (EBT), etc... Ok. For today, I will set aside my questions about whether a tax break is actually the same as welfare and agree with them. Giving federal money to a private corporation is welfare. So, why are they defending the government's giving money to Planned Parenthood? Planned Parenthood is a private corporation who's income exceeds their expenses by over $90 million dollars per year. Want to end corporate welfare? Let's start with them.



Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Hey, ladies!

With the current controversy about Planned Parenthood, birth control in general is once again a topic of contentious conversation. Setting aside my opinions for a minute about government involvement in birth control and abortion, I would like to toss this thought out to all the young women.

If a guy can't scrape together enough change to get a condom at a gas station to at least make some small effort to protect you from disease and a possible pregnancy, you need to pick another guy.