Look, I get it. It was 2016 and you guys inexplicably won the 2016 election and you needed a reason to celebrate. But this wasn't so much celebration as it was being the asshole fans who riot after Game 7 and rub their opponent's nose in it. This shit may have been cute in the early days of the Trump administration, when we were still shocked that he won and was going to be president. But here's the thing that I think you need spelled out for you because nobody else will say it:

It's been 5 fucking years! You're not owning anybody anymore!

You can play these games all you want, but if you're still voting with the idea of "owning the libs" or "making liberals cry", the only person you are owning is yourself. This shit just isn't funny anymore. If you vote with the idea of "owning the libs" or "making liberals cry", then you're a psychopath of the Norman Bates variety and should probably be checked into the nearest mental health facility to get your head examined, because you are a danger to yourself and to others.

By voting to "own the libs", what you're really doing is electing batshit crazy politicians like Ron DeSantis, or Pete Ricketts, or Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Matt Gaetz, who enact incredibly reckless policies that do long term harm to both you and me. And of course batshit begats batshit, so our politicians that we elect now, like Marjorie Greene, will seem relatively tame to the ones who are elected 15 - 20 years from now. And these are people who you wouldn't trust to run a 7-11, let alone the entire United States Of America!

And these politicians enact these reckless policies that not only put us, they put the whole world in danger! Want proof that actions have consequences? Trump fired our pandemic response team and threw out Obama's pandemic response handbook, and ignored all the signs that a pandemic was coming. And guess what? Now we're in a pandemic! Another example? Conservatives skimp on regulations regarding building maintenance, and we had a building collapse on itself! Or on the flip side, do you know someone who was killed by a gun or was a victim of a mass shooter? Then guess what? If you still vote that way, you're part of the problem!

Let's put it this way - in the last 5 years, we've been through endless mass shootings, extreme fires, a raging pandemic, riots, floods, tropical storms, extreme climate change, wars, I could go on and on. And you know who was in charge then? It wasn't us, it was you - all you! Because you put a president in charge who thought the solution to climate change was to send nukes to the eyes of hurricanes, and you thought it was funny! He also thought it was funny to say that the reason why California was on fire was because of "poor forest management" and you bought it! You're laughing your ass off!

Because you wanted to "own the libs" and to "make liberals cry"! Ha ha, we got it! We're so owned! We're watching the deadly destruction, and you're laughing and you told us to go fuck our feelings! Not so funny when your house is destroyed in a category 5 hurricane or a forest fire, is it? Or your loved one gets killed in a mass shooting (or a shooting) because the NRA is too chicken shit to do anything about gun control, because 2nd amendment and muh freedums!!!

Politics isn't a joke, it's not funny. There are no do-overs. You can float all the conspiracies you want. Keep believing the lies and the bullshit. Keep listening to blowhards like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Maria Baritromo. Keep electing the way that an Australian owned news entity owned by a billionaire oligarch tells you to vote. The truth is you're not owning anyone. You're owning yourself. Because if you still listen to these assholes, after all of this, in the end, the only getting owned is you.

Let me make something perfectly clear: You are *NOT* entitled to social media accounts. Social media may be free speech, you can argue that point. But the corporations who control the platforms you use - whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc, are privately owned companies. They own the sites. They make the rules. They can determine who gets to use their sites, through this thing that literally all social media platforms have called a "Terms Of Service Agreement". Which is a set of rules that can dictate who can and cannot use their sites. And you most likely didn't read it.

And let me say this as someone who has moderated multiple message boards in my tenure on the internet in terms that you can understand. Think of it like your driver's license. If you use your driver's license irresponsibly - whether you get in a DUI or you get in a serious accident, or even arrested, you can have that license taken away. Getting banned for using your account irresponsibly, whether it's through death threats, racist / sexist language, or harassing people, is like getting a speeding or parking ticket. The more tickets you accumulate, the more of a case that the owners of these sites have for taking away your account.

That's how it works. Every single site you've ever been to on the internet has at least a basic set of rules. Even those far right websites, like Parler, GAB, and Telegram have TOS agreements, even if they don't necessarily police or enforce the speech rules. Yes, a user who makes death threats, uses threatening language, and harasses people whether it's racist or sexist, would be considered a risk to the owners and moderators of any of these sites. It doesn't matter what their platform or message is. By calling for violence, and repeatedly harassing people, Trump acted irresponsibly and Twitter and Facebook acted accordingly.

Irresponsible behavior isn't tolerated on the internet, period. It doesn't matter who you are. If you're an abusive jerk, you will get found out and banned for it. And yes, our previous president repeatedly engaged in irresponsible behavior. It finally took a massive act of violence for him to get the axe no matter how many times he was called out on it. The internet may be the new public square, but we still have rules and decency standards. You can make up all the conspiracies you want about things like "shadow banning" (whatever that is) but they simply aren't true.

If you can't understand how to follow the rules, then maybe you need to go back to pre-school and kindergarten and learn some basic manners, and see how quickly not following the rules and repeatedly flaunting your boorish behavior gets you sent to the principle's office. You're not getting banned or de-platformed because you're a conservative posting conservative views on the internet. You're getting banned or de-platformed because you're an abusive jerk who repeatedly breaks the rules. And that's not on the companies who own, run, police, and advertise on these social media sites. That's you.

Fuck you Fox! Thanks to this BS my school is on lockdowns and is getting death threats because of this exchange.

https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1389357980236214273

This is great news!

https://twitter.com/MysterySolvent/status/1388184669821313026

This would make a great "how it started/how's it going" meme!

Uh............. what? All beer is plant based!

https://twitter.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1386059943128698883

This is going to be a disaster!

Twitter has a feature where it suggests that you follow certain topics. And I think the weirdest one for me is that it randomly suggested that I follow Everton, which is a British Premiere League team. I've never followed anything even remotely connected to the BPL, which makes this one even stranger.

It's also randomly suggested that I follow the city of Oakland (I'm in So Cal) and beauty (I'm a guy so this doesn't really apply to me).

https://twitter.com/RachelAbramsNY/status/1383755822216278029

Ouch!

30 years? That's what you get for following a con artist!