Fired for Being on Parler

by Paul Jacob: Is the desire to speak freely a bad thing?

In tweets now “protected” from public view, Jennifer De Chiara, president of Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, professed distress upon learning “that one of our agents has been using the social media platforms Gab and Parler. We do not condone this activity.”

Her agency, she added, works “to ensure a voice of unity, equality, and one that is on the side of social justice.” So “Colleen Oefelein is no longer an agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.”

This announcement came some weeks after Oefelein reported (on Twitter) that she’s “now also posting on Parler. It’s a great platform with no censorship!”

Tech giants like Twitter and Facebook have become increasingly brazen about banning users for uttering wrongthink. Hence the appeal of pro-free-speech alternatives like Parler and Gab.

De Chiara and Oefelein certainly disagree on the exact reason for the firing. Oefelein says it was for being “a Christian and a conservative.”

Of course, their two explanations are not mutually contradictory.

Anyway, it is significant that De Chiara explains the firing by specifically citing Oefelein’s use as such of a pro-free-speech platform. Also significant is that her explanation includes nothing to the effect that Oefelein expressed anything even so much as politically incorrect . . . or, let’s note, that she was bad at her job.

One apt response to deplatforming is shunning, the boycott of (in this case) the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. If you are an author or agent working with the agency and you disapprove of such retaliation against the desire to speak freely, find another agency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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