I would like to discuss the most likely scenario of the future of the Free Internet based on the policies of Social Media giants and Google search engine. The prospects seem to be bleak in the short run and bright in the long run.
The Rise and Fall of Alternative Media
During the years 2008-2017 there has been a great rise of Politically Incorrect ideas due to Social Media such as YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Imgur. Formerly censored ideas came into Mainstream. To a large degree, the Alternative Media gave victory to President Trump. Otherwise, John Kasich would have been the president.
Liberals in general and SJWs in particular have put a great effort into censoring Politically Incorrect Internet at least since 2012. Up to recently, their efforts have been unsuccessful. Unfortunately, their efforts have been successful since Spring 2016, and are likely to be completely successful in the near future. Since Spring 2016, Facebook banned many pages offensive to SJWs, and Twitter banned at least half prominent Right-Wing users. In 2017, YouTube demonetized all Politically Incorrect videos, and now (August 2018) is banning them. The most recent casualty of Social Media Purge has been Alex Jones' InfoWars channel. Google has the ability to ban sites from the Internet.
Given my interest in Discrimination Against Men, I am particularly concerned about MRA/MGTOW content, about half of which has been banned by now. But Progressive and SJW Net of
Censorship is much much wider then any single issue. I personally do not agree with those who oppose immigration, but I find it unfair that their content is banned in the Social Media Purge. I disagree with Nationalists, but they should not be censored. Some Radical Feminists may support banning MRAs, but many of them are also censored for their views on transgender issues. Many Islamists are censored along with anti-Islamists. Narrowcasters taking Politically Incorrect stance on many issues will lose all platforms.
Censorship will disproportionately affect Strong Conservatives. The loss of InfoWars is a severe defeat for Republican Party ahead of Midterm Elections. By 2020, the number of popular President Trump supporters on Social Media will likely be decimated.
It is almost certain, that within the next five years almost all Politically Incorrect narrowcasters will be banned by the Social Media Giants. At first the Internet Refugees (cyberrefugees) will move to Free Speech alternatives such as Minds, $#@!ute, Gab.ai, and Voat. The vast majority of the audience will be lost. At first these sites will grow due to the influx of cyberrefugees. Eventually, these sites will be banned as well. Even though we like to be optimistic, in the short term there is almost no cause for optimism.
Some Strong Conservatives naively believe that by censorship Liberals are showing their weakness. In reality the power to censor is Liberals' greatest strength. Throughout History, the greatest strength and source of power for all Tyrannies has been the ability to suppress dissent. That has been true from Slavery in Ancient Babylon to Inquisition to Communism during the last century. If the Far Left will be able to censor the Internet, their tyranny would be worse then Communism.
The New Samizdat
At this point all Politically Incorrect narrowcasters should ask what can they do once all of their speech is banned from Social Media and Internet. History knows several precedents for distribution of censored information. One of them is Samizdat -- production of unauthorized media in USSR from 1960s to 1980s. Typewriting unauthorized text was an inefficient mode of production. Typing up to four copies with carbon paper was a labor-saving device, but it produced low quality print. Nevertheless, many members of Intelligentsia both read and typed such text. Whole unauthorized journals were maintained. Wide availability of audio tape recorders in USSR was the real game changer -- it allowed the majority of people to listen to unauthorized music and speech.
In USA, Free Speech and mostly Free Press existed until 1980s, but many people published their own zines nonetheless. Being a student I self-published a few short fiction stories in early 1990s. First, I would write the story by pen on paper. Second, I would make a few Xerox copies -- 10c per page then was equivalent to 25c per page in 2018. Third, I would distribute the copies among my friends. Do not blame me for spelling errors -- paper has no spellchecker. By late 1980s, most American universities had many computers and printers. Everything we wrote from assignments to short fiction could fit on the floppy disks with the extraordinary memory of 1.44 MB. Even though I did some assignments on computer, I preferred to write fiction with pen, paper, and Xerox copier.
Fortunately, with modern technology, we will have much more advanced forms of Samizdat. It would consist of .pdf text and meme files, .mp4 video files, and .mp3 audio files. It should have a lot of good music videos. One thing I am looking forward to would be good video games in which SJWs would be represented as monsters. Is this an inaccurate representation of them? Games could be stored as .zip folders. These files would be sent by email distributors such as Telegram.
Politically Incorrect material may be censored by any platform, but exchange of files will be censorable only by Federal Government. The First Amendment does give broad protections against such censorship. Recent court cases have broadened the definition of Free Speech.
I hope to see an Alternative Media less dependent on the platform by 2025. Nevertheless, there are huge logistic and Computer Science problems associated with building a new Alternative Media almost from scratch. Storage and distribution of hundreds of thousands of videos would present a technical problem. About 500,000 YouTube videos dealing with men's issues would need about 50 TB of storage space. Unknown millions of videos dealing with other Politically Incorrect issues would need hundreds of terabytes. Finding ways to produce content appealing to most consumers is a Social Science problem.
On a positive note, I believe that the public distrust of Mainstream Media will make tens of millions of Americans open to Alternative Media. I am grateful to President Trump for publicly calling out the Liberal Media as The Enemy of American People. EAP is the grammatically correct abbreviation for Mainstream Media in 2018.