Alex Jones, Infowars Ban on Youtube, FB and other platforms

by pleaseresearch 97 Replies latest social current

  • Simon
    Simon

    He's an idiot, but some of the things he's covered turned out to be correct and weren't being covered by the MSM so he's an occasional useful idiot.

    They are private companies but they do hold a lot of influence (surely, given recent news about election interference that is being pushed?). It's not like some little forum (this one for instance), these are behemoth companies with little regulation. Just like newspaper ownership used to be controlled to protect undue political influence there should be some controls over them. They hold so much power now.

    Most sinister is the fact that this was coordinated between multiple companies, What happens when someone is maybe blowing a whistle on something and want to silence them?

    People rejoicing shouldn't be so narrow minded to think this is just about Alex Jones and InfoWars - this is about freedom and it's better to let some idiots have a voice than to live in a world where a few different people hold too much power.

    It WILL be misused, it always is.

    Who decides what is and isn't acceptable? Who watches the watchers?

    We already know they have given control of the decisions to some pretty questionable groups that have shown themselves to be not up to the task of being unbiased.

    It seems like they can't even be bothered to try to appear fair anymore - the NYT hiring of an outright racist is further proof of that if any were needed.

    There are already better ways to address false speech than banning it as hate speech - libel and court action. If you look back it seems the messaging over the last election was a pretext to clamp down. "we're silencing people to help you" but still don't silence lots of actual hate speech or abuse, just opinions that they disagree with politically.

    My prediction: Hilary will run for 2020 and there will be wall-to-wall positive coverage on all social networks and a cull of anyone speaking out or disagreeing.

  • OneGenTwoGroups
    OneGenTwoGroups

    His war on factual information has taken a big hit.

  • Simon
    Simon

    People who think this is "great" should look back at history. The boots may one day come for you ..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my1LRyiUEBI

    https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/please-analyse-w-h-audens-poem-o-what-that-sound-249733

  • never a jw
    never a jw

    Simon: "this is about freedom and it's better to let some idiots have a voice than to live in a world where a few different people hold too much power."

    The same freedom you have to ban any comments or people you don't like and being a small potatoes is no excuse. Fine with me. Freedom is freedom. The same freedom that the rest of us have to stop using Facebook or coming to your site.

  • Simon
    Simon
    The same freedom you have to ban any comments or people you don't like and being a small potatoes is no excuse.

    It really comes down to "reach" and influence. What facebook, twitter and google do with their platform is vastly more significant to society than if some troll is kicked off a private forum.

  • Bella Henry
    Bella Henry

    There are no constitutional rights that are unlimited.

    Free speech is a right of all of us, but none of us have the right to insight lawless actions, (Brandenburg v Ohio), make false statement of facts ( Gertz v. Robert Welch,Inc.), use speech that breaches the peace (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire).

    It appears to me that Jones regularly used his speech in unprotected ways, and that companies which are now being held accountable for how their platforms are utilized and the impact they are have chose to ban him so they are not held liable for any of the outcomes of his actions.

    People do have the right to think and believe what they want. They do not have the right to behave any way they want without restriction.

  • Apostate Anonymous
    Apostate Anonymous

    I'm guessing this probably has something to do with the mounting litigation that he is being hit with in the last few months from parents of the Sandy Hook shooting. From what I understand, some of the parents are still receiving death threats and constant harassment from people who follow the theories that AJ popularized about it all being a staged 'false flag' and all. So it seems some people are using Simon's route of libel and court action. I'm definitely no fan of AJ. I find him to be unnecessarily obnoxious. He admitted that his show is a gimmick and that he is just playing a "character" during his custody court proceedings recently. I'm also not ignorant to the fact that this WILL be used to target political dissidents of all stripes, which is a bad sign

  • VIII
    VIII

    Exactly what Simon said. What else will be limited and censored by these companies?

  • _Morpheus
    _Morpheus

    Discussing the constitution with regard to twitter, fb, apple podcast hosting etc, is pointless. The first amendment has NOTHING to do with private platforms, be it newspapers or modern tech portals.

    That said, i wouldnt ever want any voice banned, even if it was commies.

    Theres a huge difference, btw, between banning trolls and banning ideas you personally dont like. Trolls who show up and drop a few random curse words or show up and spam the forum with advertising are easy bans. Personally, i wouldnt want so called jw apologists banned. Let them speak and let us retort. Im in favor of debating ideas passionately, even stupid ass concepts like flat earth.

    Banning jones is a huge mistake.

  • JW_Rogue
    JW_Rogue

    Yes, they are private companies but it seems they got together and decided to take this action collectively in response to the desire of elected officials. This is different than if a company just decided to ban someone because they violated site policy.

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