NYC Gazette

Megan McArdle was not surprised at the possibility of Parler being shut down by tech giants Apple, Amazon, and Google.

Yet she was concerned when it materialized after Twitter banned President Trump from its platform.

Notwithstanding the fact that companies have the right to control the direction of their business, McArdle stresses that terminating companies is not private entities’ business. On a legal basis, the government can.  

“Companies have every legal and moral right to do what they wish with their property, of course. But one can acknowledge that while also asking whether what they do is wise, or good for America, or even good for the companies themselves. A handful of executives made another business go away, while signaling that corporate America has chosen a political side and that it’s not afraid to go further than our government. That’s unprecedented, and I’m frightened of setting that precedent now."

McArdle reckoned Trump should be blocked from being allowed to further agitate unrest. But pointed out that “in the longer term, we may radicalize people who were previously neutral, and thereby empower even worse foes than the ones we vanquished.”

Raged by the 9/11 attack she regarded it “as the largest intellectual mistake” of her life when she became vocal on her opinions against Iraq.

“When others said, ‘Wait a minute, slow down, is this really a good idea?’ my side frequently dismissed them as naifs, terrorist-sympathizers and even traitors,” she wrote in her column in The Washington Post.

“They were right. My side ‘won’ that debate, and then bungled into Iraq, getting a lot of Americans, and many more Iraqis killed in the process,” she stated further.

McArdle leaves with the question: “Ask what sort of society we want to live in before we start authorizing sweeping new powers.”