As a consequence of Trump’s win, Twitter has begun purging alt-right accounts, including the accounts of Matt Forney, Richard Spencer (and his NPI accounts), Pax Dickinson, and others. This is the problem with social media – you do not own it, rather you rent it, and you can be evicted at any time. I can only imagine how awful it felt for Milo to lose his account and all the years he spent gaining those followers, all of it gone in a few keystrokes. Twitter knows it cannot ban all the accounts, as much as it may want to, because then it would seem obvious what they doing to even outsiders, and their corruption and bias would be exposed.

Gab.ai is one solution. But the problem is running a social network is expensive, so eventually after it grows beyond a certain size, outside money (such as from VCs or advertisers) may be required to pay for maintenance, improvements, hosting, and security, but then you relinquish some control in the process. Another problem is that it isn’t big enough. Twitter and Facebook are only games in town – the alternatives just can’t compare in terms of viralness and networking. Viralness is like a drug…you want the page views, likes, and re-tweets, because they validate your importance and impact, providing a dopamine rush similar to that of a psychoactive drug.