Own your platform

Whether Donald Trump’s Facebook ban and subsequent bans by Twitter, Reddit, Twitch, Shopify, and Snapchat were the right decision, they certainly opened a precedent that puts a free and open internet at risk. Following the crisis at the Capitol, Parler, an app used by far-right extremists was suspended by both Google and Apple’s app stores. Amazon even stopped providing Parler with their cloud services.

We don’t own the platforms where we spend so much of our time sharing content and building an audience. We don’t control what happens to them. They can go away overnight. And our leverage along with it. — That’s what happened with Vine. And what could happen with Twitter or LinkedIn.

The widely publicised ban on the President of the United States sheds light on what many makers go through every day. Apps are taken away, channels are demonetised. Sometimes legitimately, other times by mistakes caused by algorithms.

If you are a creator. If you produce and distribute any kind of content online, the lesson is clear. Have direct access to your audience. Own your platform