It amuses me that we have an unparalleled ability to communicate ideas with each other and exercise free speech… and yet being deplatformed is now a “thing”.
Heck, the word didn’t even register in Google trends until 2016.
But in our easily offended, “cancel culture” world, it’s become the go-to move for so-called social justice warriors to try and deplatform anyone they disagree with on the grounds that they are being un-PC, offensive or unfair.
This deplatforming trend has now reached email marketing.
Most recently, Alex Jones, Stefan Molyneux and Martin Geddes… all deplatformed by MailChimp.
Now don’t misunderstand me here… even though I’m critical about the current state of political correctness in our society and believe “cancel culture” is at odds with the fundamental right to free speech, I have no truck with unpleasant or unpalatable ideologies…
And before you start hating on MailChimp, or start getting all smug that your provider is different, or start saying these folks had it coming… the fact is this:
You don’t have to be a conspiracy-theorist or white nationalist to get booted from your email marketing provider. Regular, hardworking men and women who are running legitimate businesses, serving their audiences and providing for their families, get booted too.
Affiliate marketers, for example, are increasingly high on the hate list for many ESPs.
If you don’t believe me, go check their Acceptable Use Policies.
As Tim Denning (a deplatformed blogger) puts it:
“Living in a world of rules you don’t know you’re breaking, hidden in lengthy terms of service documents that no one reads and that requires a legal background to understand makes us all vulnerable.”
In other words…
When you play in someone else’s yard, you have to play by their rules.
MailChimp, as one of the largest email marketing providers, may be “leading the way” here… but you can bet your bottom dollar others will follow.
After all, if it was your business, you’d feel the same way about protecting it too.
And the providers care less about your business than they do about theirs…
So if you pose even an alleged risk to their deliverability, brand image or marketability, it’s curtains for you.
And as history shows, a popular opinion or acceptable behavior today can easily be vilified tomorrow.
That’s why you need to backup your email lists.
And the best way to do that is with ListLockr.
Not only because it does it all automatically, but also because it does it all in a secure and privacy compliant way.
Because the only thing worse than losing your list to a deplatforming is facing a potentially embarrassing and expensive data breach if that CSV export backup on your cloud drive or PC gets leaked somehow.