Alex Jones Got Banned

[kengreen]

Alex Jones got banned from YouTube, Facebook, Apple, etc. Sad to see him go. I always knew that Alex is full of crap on a lot of issues, but he is entertaining all the same. I can't figure out why liberals hate free speech. Oh well. There are lots of other platforms out there. I'm sure he'll pop back up before too long.

[plan b]

Big Tech collusion at its worst. Liberals are the most intolerant people in the world.

[Mr.DeMartino]

Won't someone please think about our nation's "vitamin" supplement, survival seed bank, and emergency ration manufacturers. This move could put them and their workers out of business!

All kidding aside, and I don't want to defend Alex Jones, but this is a pretty bad trend. I'm more worried about the smaller content creators. Vox already had a video out debating whether people like Cernovich and Candace Owens should be banned.

Journalism and freedom of the press is the freedom of anyone to publish any viewpoint that our constitution has deemed acceptable. It does not mean that only a certain licensed elite get to be termed "the press".

[Andyman]

Journalism and freedom of the press is the freedom of anyone to publish any viewpoint that our constitution has deemed acceptable. It does not mean that only a certain licensed elite get to be termed "the press".

Alex Jones hasn't been thrown in jail. He is free to publish his viewpoints on any platform that will have him. The fact that several private companies decided they didn't want to host his murder threats, mocking of murder victims and regular stoking of armed uprising rhetoric should be seen as a validation of the free market principles that conservatives are meant to hold so dear. He made a toxic product that major suppliers decided they didn't want. If he can find other suppliers who do want it, they can compete with Apple, YouTube, etc. in the open market.

But yeah, it's definitely the fault of intolerant liberals that a swindling, self-aggrandizing narcissist decided to make a bunch of videos glorifying violence and promoting the harassment of shooting victims. Personally, I blame university professors teaching postmodernism in English lit courses.

[Savant]

If you're going to sue the parents of the "Sandy Hook Shooting" then you deserve to be run out of town. In fact, you should be taken out of town and given a serious beating.

[Mr.DeMartino]

Journalism and freedom of the press is the freedom of anyone to publish any viewpoint that our constitution has deemed acceptable. It does not mean that only a certain licensed elite get to be termed "the press".

Alex Jones hasn't been thrown in jail. He is free to publish his viewpoints on any platform that will have him. The fact that several private companies decided they didn't want to host his murder threats, mocking of murder victims and regular stoking of armed uprising rhetoric should be seen as a validation of the free market principles that conservatives are meant to hold so dear. He made a toxic product that major suppliers decided they didn't want. If he can find other suppliers who do want it, they can compete with Apple, YouTube, etc. in the open market.

But yeah, it's definitely the fault of intolerant liberals that a swindling, self-aggrandizing narcissist decided to make a bunch of videos glorifying violence and promoting the harassment of shooting victims. Personally, I blame university professors teaching postmodernism in English lit courses.

Are Youtube, Facebook, etc. publishers or distribution platforms? Now combine that with what I think is the inevitability that the internet and it's forums, particularly sites like youtube, twitter, and facebook (not necessarily so much itunes) will be seen as "the public square" by the courts, and you are going to have a sticky situation. This is before we get to the issue of whether or not they constitute monopolies and are acting like trusts.

If youtube is going to say that Alex Jones violates certain parts of its TOS, then they better make sure they apply that across the board. If not, then they could be in trouble. If they are going to claim that they have every right to favor a certain point of view and no obligation to be neutral, then that is going to open up a whole nother can of worms.

I think this is going to result in unintended consequences such that those who favor this at the moment will later live to regret it. I say better to let Alex Jones rant and rave and people to ridicule him than to embark upon this path.

[pit23]

Journalism and freedom of the press is the freedom of anyone to publish any viewpoint that our constitution has deemed acceptable. It does not mean that only a certain licensed elite get to be termed "the press".

Alex Jones hasn't been thrown in jail. He is free to publish his viewpoints on any platform that will have him. The fact that several private companies decided they didn't want to host his murder threats, mocking of murder victims and regular stoking of armed uprising rhetoric should be seen as a validation of the free market principles that conservatives are meant to hold so dear. He made a toxic product that major suppliers decided they didn't want. If he can find other suppliers who do want it, they can compete with Apple, YouTube, etc. in the open market.

But yeah, it's definitely the fault of intolerant liberals that a swindling, self-aggrandizing narcissist decided to make a bunch of videos glorifying violence and promoting the harassment of shooting victims. Personally, I blame university professors teaching postmodernism in English lit courses.

Are Youtube, Facebook, etc. publishers or distribution platforms? Now combine that with what I think is the inevitability that the internet and it's forums, particularly sites like youtube, twitter, and facebook (not necessarily so much itunes) will be seen as "the public square" by the courts, and you are going to have a sticky situation. This is before we get to the issue of whether or not they constitute monopolies and are acting like trusts.

If youtube is going to say that Alex Jones violates certain parts of its TOS, then they better make sure they apply that across the board. If not, then they could be in trouble. If they are going to claim that they have every right to favor a certain point of view and no obligation to be neutral, then that is going to open up a whole nother can of worms.

I think this is going to result in unintended consequences such that those who favor this at the moment will later live to regret it. I say better to let Alex Jones rant and rave and people to ridicule him than to embark upon this path.

Alex Jones is doing a little bit more than just "ranting and raving."

[eggieguffer]

If youtube is going to say that Alex Jones violates certain parts of its TOS, then they better make sure they apply that across the board. If not, then they could be in trouble. If they are going to claim that they have every right to favor a certain point of view and no obligation to be neutral, then that is going to open up a whole nother can of worms.

Agreed. The other day after the Sarah Jeong affair, someone tweeted exactly the same tweets with different races and got banned.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/34102/twitter-suspended-candace-owens-accountafter-she-ben-shapiro

This is not applying standards across the board.

 

[Andyman]

I don't think many people disagree that the standards should be applied equally across the board. Alex Jones is probably a victim of his own success to some extent, as lots of extremists from all points of the political spectrum are able to freely continue spreading their nonsense without any consequence. This is either a watershed moment, and these companies will become more active in policing the content they host, or it's a blip. I think it's probably the latter. As anyone who's worked in social media moderation will tell you, the system is deeply riven with flaws - it's based an uncomfortable balance between human subjectivity and imperfect technological automation, both of which can miss important context clues. The reactive nature of it means that it can be gamed by users and bots, and companies dedicate proportionately fewer resources to moderating content in languages other than English. For all the talk of bias, though, sometimes these things are just mistakes. My wife used to be an editor on a (reasonably popular, as in 500,000+ members) Facebook film group, and they were constantly being shut down for "inappropriate content". Turns out that there were certain pictures that Facebook's glitchy tech mistakenly read as "nude", and there were also cases where the same (weird, bitter) people routinely complained to try and get the page shut down, for reasons nobody could figure out. And yet, there are plenty of extremist groups that are allowed to exist unimpeded.

Although I share the concerns about monopoly, the internet itself is the "public square", not a handful of private companies. However users might interact with those companies, they will always want to retain some degree of control over content for reasons of legal liability and profitability.

Again, if Alex Jones wants to do his red-faced shouty thing on his own website, the internet is indeed the public square and he carve out his own little soapbox. No one else is obliged to assist him. And just to be clear, if there were a left-wing conspiracy theorist with 2.2 million followers and the President's ear, who surrounded himself with paranoid gun nuts and made threats to public figures, I'd be okay with YouTube deciding that they'd had enough with the stupid jackass after he did some particularly stupid, jackassy things.

[Andyman]

I can't figure out why liberals hate free speech.

Why don't you put this question to some liberals, on this board or elsewhere? You might find that they hate free speech far less than you think.

And that, in fact, is what most credible data supports, if you look beyond the much-hyped headlines about surveys of American college students.

Here's some background to help get you started: https://medium.com/informed-and-engaged/campus-speech-protests-dont-only-target-conservatives-though-they-frequently-target-the-same-few-bda3105ad347

Much data collection and analysis remain to be done. But one among many untested concepts is whether the survey results would be different if conservative student groups, instead of repeatedly inviting campus visitors who have built a brand of disruption, were to sponsor serious intellectual dialogue with thinkers on the right.

I very much agree with this. Twitter isn't banning Ross Douthat and nobody is going out of their way to shut down David French's public appearances. What's the difference between them and, say, Ann Coulter or Alex Jones? It really has very little to do with free speech. And if you want a taste of real hate, head over to Breitbart and check out any article in which someone tagged as a liberal is called out for saying or tweeting something offensive to that crowd. You'll see how deep the conservative commitment to free speech really runs.

[williamwhite]

Freedom of speech is dying a slow death.  Shouting "Hate Speech" is the new method of censorship.  It's a sad day for our Republic when young people have been sufficiently brainwashed to believe that the "right" to not be offended trumps freedom of speech.

Alex Jones is a nut job.  But is a seriously scary moment when the internet's tradition of being the real free press, the real platform that believes in freedom of speech, goes by the wayside.  I loath the day when the internet is truly dead and ISP's start controlling which ideas the people can access.

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

- Noam Chomsky

"To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker? Or to determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the task of being the censor? Isn't it a famous old story that the man who has to read all the pornography, in order to decide what's fit to be passed and what isn't, is the man most likely to become debauched? Did you hear any speaker of the opposition to this motion – eloquent as one of them was – to whom you would delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read? To whom you would give the job of deciding for you? Relieve you from the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear? Do you know anyone? Hands up, do you know anyone to whom you'd give this job? Does anyone have a nominee?"

- Christopher Hitchens

[Andyman]

From the Infowars Terms of Service:

You will not post anything libelous, defamatory, harmful, threatening, harassing, abusive, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable, or otherwise illegal.
You will not make threats to other users or people not associated with the site.
If you violate these rules, your posts and/or user name will be deleted.
Remember: you are a guest here. It is not censorship if you violate the rules and your post is deleted. All civilizations have rules and if you violate them you can expect to be ostracized from the tribe.

https://www.infowars.com/terms-of-service/

[gogators!]

Not all speech is protected.

Jones is set to explode, according to his ex-wife, now that he's off the air. Let's hope he doesn't take it out on the kids.

[kengreen]

I think this is a wake-up call for conservatives and libertarians. Maybe it's time to shut off Facebook and YouTube, and find other platforms. Hell, Facebook sucks anyway. My wall has been crap for the last two years. I just use it because it keeps me in touch with old friends.

[zola]

Alex Jones is a ridiculous human. I'd have thought that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would see through him. But we had people like Aurata parroting infowars lines about Sandy Hook being a false flag with crisis actors. So in some ways it is scary. Because this guy really has a knack for whipping up the absolute most moronic of those among us, into a rabid frenzy.
Having said that, I do not agree with what apple and facebook etc have done here.

The fact that people can't see how this is the thin end of the wedge that may very well come back and stick us in the ass one day scares me more than Jones's idiotic ramblings.

[Andyman]

I think this is a wake-up call for conservatives and libertarians.

Private businesses self-regulating without recourse to government intervention - the ultimate libertarian nightmare!

I think these companies should've said "Alex Jones offends our sincerely held religious convictions", just to test the conservative reaction. 

[plan b]

Although these are private companies within their rights to do this, we haven't addressed the bigger concern that these companies are monopolies. There just isn't a competitor to their services, where one can take their videos and their voice too.

Remember that Google owns YouTube
Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp

If these companies were owned by those who steer towards the right, Left wingers would be whining day and night about not having a "voice"

[tylerthegloob]

privatize free speech

[CO2]

There's a difference between "Free speech is only guaranteed by the government" and "Yes, YouTube is a private company, but they're essentially television now and the users create 99% of their output. So cut the users some bloody slack."

Yeah, social media companies have every right to toss off whoever they want, for any reason they want, no one is contesting that. But it's a bad idea. YouTube can demonetise for a reason, that already washes their hands clean of nutters.

[Andyman]

I know I'm coming across as the pro-censorship guy here, so let me just clarify a little more. I am concerned about the monopolistic structure of Big Tech, and have been for a long time, which is why I've tried (unsuccessfully) to divorce myself from Google in the past, and not use any Apple products beyond their hardware (again, not a totally successful effort). So I'm not surprised that, in banning Alex Jones, they put their own interests before the free speech privileges (it is not an unqualified right when using a company's proprietary platform) of a user. It might set an uncomfortable precedent, but seriously, what do you expect? They're not the public square, they're big corporations protecting themselves against potential liabilities. If you use their products to build a business or a brand, it's your responsibility to understand that compromise, or face the consequences. Or, more simply, why are you looking to massive corporations to uphold free speech when they don't have to, and it might not be in their interests to do so? Is it unfortunate that they don't? Sure. But huge, for-profit enterprises don't always act in the greater public interest.

I contribute to a podcast hosted on Soundcloud, and distributed through iTunes, Stitcher and a couple other platforms. If any one of those companies goes under, or makes some kind of highly disagreeable change, it's on me to find another platform. I haven't created my own means of distribution, and am piggybacking - for free - on a product that others have built. I have to play by their rules. I might not like it, but again, I haven't built a more popular rival product.

So, my podcast has a tiny audience. Let's say that it grows much bigger, into millions of regular listeners. That's obviously going to bring much more scrutiny as I become better known, and the consequences for screwing up are going to be much greater. With the tiny audience I could pretty much get away with whatever I wanted. Now, there's real price to pay if I do something dumb. So let's imagine that I start using my Soundcloud platform to start regularly defaming people, including the families of murder victims, and some of those of families get harassed by my listeners. I also talk excitedly about armed insurrection, the "Jewish Mafia" and civil war while flogging boner pills. I frequently lie about various public figures, falsely accusing them of child sex abuse, murder and conspiracy to murder, and I threaten to shoot a federal prosecutor. This goes on for years, and after several warnings and multiple lawsuits, Soundcloud decides to pull the plug on my show.

Who, really, bears the responsibility for that consequence - me or Soundcloud? Do you think Soundcloud owes it to me continue distributing this material? Why?