At last month’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference — this year held in Orlando, Florida — one of the major themes addressed was the threat to freedom of speech posed by Big Tech. Several instances of Big Tech censorship abuse were noted, such as GoFundMe’s decision to ban donations to the Canadian truckers’ Freedom Convoy. As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis put it, “Big Tech is now the number one institution for censorship in this country.”

However, instead of only calling for political action such as using anti-trust laws to “break Big Tech up into a million little pieces,” as Senator Ted Cruz (TX) demanded, others put forward a less politically dependent solution. That proposed solution is for conservatives to work to develop a “parallel economy.” And it’s already begun.

One of the invited speakers was Erik Finman, who is a technologist famous for making millions on bitcoin as a teenager and for developing the Freedom Phone. He advised, “The only way we can fight is not just having similar technology but better technology that they can’t touch.” And that is the key to making a parallel economy work — politically conservative individuals need to use their talents and skills to develop technology that isn’t simply an alternative to Big Tech, but is in fact better.

Recent social media startups such as Gettr and Donald Trump’s Truth Social are attempts at this, though it remains to be seen if they will truly compete by being better than Big Tech’s social media giants or be simply similar, unimpressive alternatives.

Underscoring the need for a parallel economy, last week, Google-owned YouTube pulled down nearly half of the hours of streaming video content from CPAC’s conference, claiming that the content violated its policies. At issue for YouTube was “misinformation,” which the social media giant has applied to any suggestion that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.

CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp slammed YouTube’s blatant censorship, writing in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai: “Regardless of your personal beliefs and those of your senior leadership (not to mention your absolute liberal bias), there remain very serious questions about the way the 2020 election was conducted. Removing our content does not erase those questions, no matter how hard you try. Indeed, it is telling you offer no evidence that would demonstrate any falsity in the content you censored.”

Google’s response was to remove even more of CPAC’s videos from YouTube. It’s clear that Big Tech’s fascistic relationship with the political Left has become even more insidious. And while government intervention is likely necessary, conservatives need to be actively and aggressively working to develop a parallel economy in order to help preserve our fundamental freedoms.