The Purge is Here–And What You Can Do

If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. -George Washington

The last 24 hours rocked the online world with a social media purge so severe it felt like a modern day book burning.

Yesterday, Facebook took down the Official Walk Away Campaign group and all it’s admins–even their personal accounts were completely wiped out.

But that was just the beginning. Today, Twitter went full throttle and removed the following accounts:

General Flynn
Sidney Powell
Fight Back (used by Lyn Wood after his Twitter suspension the other day)
Rush Limbaugh
Tracy Beanz
Code MonkeyZ
Praying Medic
Major Patriot
Many more
And finally…they permanently suspended President Trump’s account.

In addition to this deplatforming, many more people lost thousands of followers. Although many were bracing for this, the blatant attack on our first amendment right to free speech is frightening. When our constitutional rights are brazenly violated without repercussions, we are in serious danger. The ability to communicate, support each other, and experience community is essential to good mental health and uniting for important causes.

Thankfully, many have been preparing for this moment and we will walk you through some options you have to secure your communication before it’s too late.

First of all, bookmark this site and sign up for our free updates by submitting your email. We are keeping an eye on what is happening and are connected to networks with whom you do not want to lose touch. You can always go to our Important Links and Sources pages if you are looking for an influencer or organization that has disappeared from your feed. These resources offer alternate platforms and website links you can use to avoid censorship.

Our team has been testing platforms and monitoring censorship for a number of years. While this list is not exhaustive, below you will find some of the most commonly used alternate social media platforms and some information about them. Keep in mind that none of these platforms will be as user-friendly as the mainstream platforms you are used to. They aren’t government-funded and they are constantly being improved. Be patient and give them time. Some (probably all, very soon) of these platforms you will not find in an app store. There are other ways to get the app for your phone, however.

Gab rates at the top of the list for several reasons. First of all, they saw this coming years ago and began creating their platform. Their success was apparently deemed a threat, and they got heavily censored. Their hosting service dropped them. They were down for some time as they searched, and finally found, a host that would not censor. Then MasterCard and Visa dropped them. (While they offer a free version, their commitment to privacy and freedom means they have to make money somehow. Some account levels require a small fee and they accept donations.) Through all the opposition, CEO and founder, Andrew Torba, remained unfazed in his pursuit of an uncensored platform.
Now that they have triumphed over these obstacles, they are focusing on advancing their platform with more features. Unlike Parler, Gab allows groups. Most recently they are adding GabTV. Learn more about them at Gab.
Clouthub was well on it’s way to becoming a multi-faceted free social media experience when they hit a snag–IBM pulled the service for some of their channels without warning. Since Clouthub was exclusively relying on IBM’s services for their videos, this deplatformed a dozen of their channels. It takes time to figure out setbacks like this, but they are getting close to finalizing their own video streaming service and will add that aspect back soon. Clouthub offers a group feature and one-on-one direct messaging.
While we currently find Clouthub a bit buggy, keep your eye on them. Because of their unique integration of features, it seems to be the platform of choice for an increasing amount of influencers. Clouthub will likely continue to make updates and work out the bugs rapidly. Learn more about them at Clouthub.
Parler has been around for a bit. It has more of a twitter feel than the others. Parler does not have any group options at this time. While you can direct message people one-on-one, you can not have group messaging. Some people have complained of censorship on Parler, but it is unclear how deep these claims go. Right now, Apple is threatening to pull their app from their store. We do not know if this will affect current users or if Parler has a back-up plan for new app downloads should Apple follow through on their threat. Learn about them at Parler.

The world seems to be exploding with new platforms right now. We don’t have time to review and give you feedback on every one, but we do caution you to extensively check them out before you go all in. Never forget we all thought Twitter and Facebook were free platforms at one time too! Research the founders, CEOs, and investors. Watch how they are treated by the censorship mob. Use discernment and be willing to change your opinion if the evidence changes.

Finally, consider all your communcation avenues. Privacy is an increasingly important issue. Protonmail is more secure than Gmail. Signal, an encrypted app, offers more privacy than text messaging. There are also alternatives to YouTube, Google, and other commonly used web apps. You can find our current list here.

Finally, if you have a website and have encountered censorship, feel free to reach out to use to be added to our list. Our goal is to be a one-stop location for people to find the information they need to make informed decisions.