Thanks to photog for informing me about this one: legendary conservative blog Conservative Treehouse is being deplatformed. WordPress has given them to 2 December 2020 to find a new host.
It’s another sad casualty in the never-ending pogroms of Big Tech. I am not a regular Conservative Treehouse reader, but it’s fairly standard, non-controversial conservative commentary. CT was big on debunking the Russian conspiracy and Ukrainian hoaxes, and really delved deeply into the weeds of those baseless witch hunts. It’s also been going hard to illuminate the theft of the presidential election.
But that’s enough. In a world in which Twitter posts Orwellian “fact-check” tags to tweets about the election, any questioning of the orthodoxy is a thoughtcrime. CT itself points to the real reason for their deplatforming:
The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it. At the same time, they are bold in their position. Perhaps this is the most alarming part; and everyone should pay attention. They don’t care.
Truthful assembly is now the risk. CTH is now too big; with a site reach of 500,000 to a million unique readers each day; and with well over 200,000 subscribers; our assembly is too large, too influential, and presents a risk… we guard the flickering flame.
That’s the key—Conservative Treehouse is effective; ergo, it must be eliminated. I’ve written far spicier posts on this blog, but I’m so small, WordPress doesn’t care (or, more likely, doesn’t notice).
It’s also sad to see WordPress turn on its most successful users simply on ideological grounds. I’m now giving WordPress my money for a hosting package and my sweet .com address. It’s easy and user-friendly—and affordable. They boast that they power 38% of websites on the Internet—a mind-boggling fraction, when one considers the countless websites online.
CT isn’t the first right-wing website to get the ax. Chateau Heartiste was unceremoniously dumped a couple of years ago. That website actually was fairly hateful in terms of some of its commentary, but even then it deserved to live. It was truly engaged in the hurly-burly of free speech and expression—often stating some controversial Truths, albeit in spicy ways.
Now it’s gone, and Conservative Treehouse will be joining it. It always starts with the truly controversial sites like Chateau Heartiste, but then they come for the mainstream conservatives. It’s why we shouldn’t cheer when some earthier sites further to the Right get deplatformed—it’s just the prelude to the silencing of even the mildest of dissent.
I had higher hopes for your, WordPress.
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A YouTube channel I subscribe to, Liberal Hivemind, is being shadow-banned. It’s hard now for people who aren’t subscribers to find his channel.
T’aint right, McGee.
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Yes. One of my favorite YouTubers is RazorFist, and while his videos are still going up (I believe that is still true as of the time of this writing), I’m not receiving e-mail notifications of new videos from him, even though I have opted-in to receive e-mails for EVERY video he uploads (I should, in all fairness, double-check that before I jump to any nefarious conclusions, but I’m pretty sure it’s a “soft” deplatforming).
Interesting times. Too interesting.
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You were surprised? Why? WP’s owners and management have always been on the left, but also greedy enough to overlook many things. The bell started tolling when they mounted a campaign to support net neutrality. They’ve just been holding on till they could find some cover and concealment. They’ll get around to us eventually.
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I’m not so much surprised, as I am dejected by the predictability of it. I think the same thing, Neo—they started with the edge-lords, then went to the popular conservative sites. Next they’ll be going after the smaller players like us. I guess I should start archiving the site and backing it up for that inevitable day when it all gets shut down.
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I back mine up periodically, but when we get shut down, haven’t much idea of what I’ll do with it. Email perhaps, if that still works. One blog has gone all the way to a printed newsletter sent by mail. Too soon but it might get to that or fax.
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Forgive my ignorance, but exactly _how_ do I back up my site? My idea was to copy-paste every piece laboriously into a Word document on my hard drive.
Printed newsletter is not a bad idea, if the readership exists. I suppose I should be collecting as many e-mail addresses as possible in case I have to go to an e-newsletter format. That’s what I appreciate about SubscribeStar, too—I could always just make it my main blog, posting free content along with the paid stuff. They are very committed to free speech (ironically, they’re a Russian company, I believe).
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On your site management page under tools you will find an export tabm which will allow you to export your entire site. Last time I did it was a while ago and it didn’t affect anything on mine, but they keep changing things, so check first. I just stored it on my hard drive, but that’s up to you.
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Thanks, Neo. I’ll probably do that tonight after reading up on it some. I will keep a few copies on various hard drives to be safe.
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That’s my theory.I try for quarterly but I often forget.
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Thank you for your ancient technical wisdom, Most Honorable Neo-san.
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Yeah, you’re welcome PP, you’re also a smart aleck. I like that in a guy. 🙂
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Eh, ain’t I stinker? ; D
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Yep, ya is.
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This post might have the most comments of any I’ve ever written, and it’s purely you and me going back-and-forth hilariously. Talk about padding my stats, haha.
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You should have seen Jessica and me back in the day. I think we managed 40 once on our own. We finally decided to let other do most of it and took it to email. And sometimes it encourages others to jump in.
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Haha, I can imagine. Hopefully Audre will hop in on this one with some trenchant insights—or just to agree that we’re both a couple of impudent scamps having fun in the comments, haha!
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Note that the export function does not back up your media ( pictures). However, if you decide to host your blog elsewhere, if you setup a new host before shutting down the old one, the import procedure will copy over your media.
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Thanks, Robert! I appreciate the tip. I’m sticking with WordPress for at the least the duration of my current subscription, but I’ll have to consider other options to make sure the site can survive.
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