Back in 2017, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Ruse wrote a piece on the growing alt tech industry,

a term that in this context refers to a collection of mostly online platforms,

aiming to replicate the services provided by other existing platforms,

but to do so in a way that they claim at least is more open and less susceptible to what they

perceive to be, censorship.

At that moment in time, many people who held in particular far-right views about race,

gender, politics, religion, guns, and pretty much anything else, especially if those

views were presented in a way that other people considered to be malicious or harassy or violence instigating,

were being booted from quite a few of the most popular and well-known online platforms.

This wave of de-platforming, which is sometimes used to mean the same thing as canceling, and sometimes considered to be one aspect of canceling someone.

The term canceling also being a bit fuzzy and with varying definitions depending on who you ask.

But this wave of people being booted from these platforms, some component of their megaphone being taken away or muffled,

usually because of their behavior, but sometimes because of their expression of their megaphone being taken away or muffled, usually because of their behavior,

but sometimes because of their expression of their beliefs,

beliefs that other people on the platforms

considered to be threatening or generally negative in some way,

incidents of such muffling and denouncing

and kicking people off platforms for not illegal things

picked up from previous years around that time.

Even popular online forums like Reddit, traditionally a hub for mainstream unpopular

conversations and content, and the folks who enjoy such conversations and content,

began to boot communities and users in 2015, usually because they were posting illegal stuff, like revenge

...