The New York Times [NYT] published an attack piece on the cellphone app Clubhouse. The app lets people listen to live audio of one or more persons speaking. It is an invitation-only podcasting app where the audience feels like they are receiving a more intimate/exclusive experience than just listening to someone on Youtube. It is currently only available for iPhone.
Paul Davison and Rohan Seth launched the app in San Fransisco less than a year ago. The app recently gained popularity in the USA, in part because Elon Musk promoted it. Musk himself used the app to interview the CEO of Robinhood.
In China, the app had rapidly grown in popularity as a leading free speech tool for political dissidents. This led the Chinese regime to officially ban Clubhouse last week.
The NYT attack piece comes on the heels of the Chinese ban. The newspaper accuses the app of spreading “misinformation, conspiracies, hate speech, anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, and misogyny.” In other words, all the predictable cliches.
The core reason that the Chinese Government and some left-wing radicals in the USA dislike Clubhouse is that there is no permanent record of what people have said. Neiman Lab, run by the Neimand Foundation at Havard, says that the problem with Clubhouse is that there is no way to “Fact-Check” what people have said. Hannah Gais, the Senior Researcher for the SPLC’s “Hatewatch,” has also attacked the app as being a “haven for people with power and/or money.” Apparently, Gais is opposed to private conversations. She has even publicly glorified Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union on Twitter.
As proof that Clubhouse is a dangerous app, they claim “Clubhouse Influencer” Porsha Belle had her account suspended. The NTY alleges that “bullies” complained about her “after she spoke up about misogyny.” Belle has 288 subscribers on Youtube and 455 followers on Twitter. She hardly seems like an influencer. It sounds like she was picking fights with people on the app and got suspended.
On Facebook, Porsha Belle is advocating for “Black Power,” and says her Clubhouse account is for “black politics and bringing awareness to true black history.” Here is an example of the kind of “true black history” she provides. She claims that five US presidents were actually “black” before Obama. This seems like an odd thing for her to argue because she also says that American is a “white supremacist” country. Belle, naturally, is also trying to collect donations using gofundme.
As further proof that Clubhouse is evil, the NYT says that a woman was kicked out of some rooms because she is deaf, causing her to cry. Does anyone think maybe there is more to this story that the NYT is omitting?
Lastly, the NYT accuses Clubhouse of hosting people engaged in multi-level marketing. As if Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media platform were not full of multi-level marketing hustlers.
The evidence against Clubhouse presented by the NTY is comically flimsy.
Meanwhile, Antifa continues to organize riots on Twitter. A thirteen-year-old girl stabbed a fifteen-year-old girl to death while her friends live-streamed it on Facebook. A group of teenage perps raped and tortured a woman to death in a Wisconsin park then shared videos of it on Facebook Messenger. Yet, the NYT thinks the real problem is that a Black Power activist from Houston had her account suspended on Clubhouse.
