Infowars And Alex Jones Banned On Multiple Online Platforms

[floivanus]

Could you try to use your brain a bit? Can you show that anyone in the government asked or ordered these companies to ban Alex Jones? Of course you can't. Net neutrality is dead so don't look for a government body to come and regulate the internet any time soon.

You might "feel" them blocking Alex Jones is wrong, but whatever your feelings are, they have the legal rights to do so. Can you actually support your idea in anyway? Please show me how the government is suppressing Alex Jones' right to free speech. You keep rambling on, when it appears you don't understand how any of this actually works.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ke-infowars-democratic-senator-says?_amp=true

Certain Democrats were grilling Zuckerberg and asking why Infowars wasn’t yet banned and deleted from Facebook, CNN et all picked up the story and ran with it, now after those open hearings and a little time to mull it over they all go and ban him.

Democratic lawmakers were openly telling him he needed de-platformed, an argument could be made that politicians were pushing it, because a few were.

 

[all caps]

It's hard to qualify much of the staff at TYT as journalists. Half the time I see them reading news from other sources and commenting on it. I don't think they have much of a budget to have reporters on the scene.

They are fucking hacks though, though I love Jimmy Dore, he cracks me up and isn't afraid to speak his mind, never just following a progressive narrative. I think your description of them as the left's Fox news is appropriate, just with a smaller reach. Cenk is the Turkish Hannity and Ana is the regressive Tomi Lahren, still would both though (Tomi/Ana that is, Chunk is all yours ).

Alex Jones really is a hypocrite, and not just because of his TOS. However, there's a big difference between his tiny site compared to Youtube or Facebook.

What I really find interesting in the fallout of his banning, are the many fellow smaller government proponents calling for making Youtube and Facebook-like entities public utilities. It's pretty much imperative that a business be on one, if not both of these platforms. I lean Libertarian-ish, but not extreme where I can't see how important smart regulation is. I never really considered forcing this on a company today, but when I think of my own business, I couldn't survive without facebook, or being on Youtube and the internet in general. They are as important as electricity to my livelihood

What do you guys about making social media giants into public utilities? Even typing that feels dirty to me, but when I think back in history and how electric companies carried so much power over the populace that the Public Utility Holding Company Act needed to be created.

Man, that is scary. I've managed to make it without having any of these "public utilities"

How do you feel, now, knowing this "public utility" has a vested interest in what your business thinks, says, stands for, etc? And what happens when the tide changes and their values are no longer in line with yours?

 

[LMP]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ke-infowars-democratic-senator-says?_amp=true

Certain Democrats were grilling Zuckerberg and asking why Infowars wasn’t yet banned and deleted from Facebook, CNN et all picked up the story and ran with it, now after those open hearings and a little time to mull it over they all go and ban him.

Democratic lawmakers were openly telling him he needed de-platformed, an argument could be made that politicians were pushing it, because a few were.

If you think that is the case here, then you must feel the NFL is in violation after all of Trump's tweets and phone calls.

 

[floivanus]

If you think that is the case here, then you must feel the NFL is in violation after all of Trump's tweets and phone calls.

I think potus overstepped in that case

 

[Jack V Savage]

First, the boundary conditions of censorship should include the rights to stand for your political opinion, ideas and beliefs - regardless of whether you are on the right or wrong side of history. Those who claim the truth alone for themselves are the biggest enemies of a free society.

You didn't read well. The issue is telling the truth to the best of one's ability. There is no right to lie (and note that lies that cause material harm are not even legally protected).

Secondly, today the media can be described as 'fourth power'. And as the country's fourth estate they play a crucial role in defining political topics, realities, and demands. As far as I am concerned, tech giants like facebook, youtube etc. are not normal companies. They are modern media and of course they can censor your political opinion. Welcome to the year 2018 my friend.

I recognize that private actors can restrict speech, which can be bad but isn't strictly speaking censorship. Not arguing about that. I'm arguing that the principle that supports free speech is that people should be able to tell the truth to the best of their ability. With Jones, you're defending a guy who is knowingly peddling false information for profit.

 

[LMP]

I think potus overstepped in that case

You thinking he oversteps on the issue doesnt really have much to do with the argument. In the case of the NFL we have the President making comments and demands of the NFL, about players protesting. The NFL now has a rule against protesting during the national anthem, although it is not currently being enforced.

Two things to remember. 1. The NFL is receiving money for the flag ceremonies from the government. 2. They did not appear to be making the rule until Trump was President.

Now the question is simple, is the NFL violating it's players first amendment? If you don't feel the NFL is in violation, even though they are receiving pressure from the President, then I would think you would feel that the social media companies are within their rights to ban Jones.

 

[waiguoren]

 

[Factory]

You thinking he oversteps on the issue doesnt really have much to do with the argument. In the case of the NFL we have the President making comments and demands of the NFL, about players protesting. The NFL now has a rule against protesting during the national anthem, although it is not currently being enforced.

The president has an opinion too. Is he not allowed to criticize them? Trump just loves America too much! and this is why he can't ignore such cheap behavior.
It's the American national anthem!

You didn't read well. The issue is telling the truth to the best of one's ability. There is no right to lie (and note that lies that cause material harm are not even legally protected).

No I read well but I disagree. This is now not related to Jones, but I think people have even the right to lie as long as they don't hurt other people or call for violence. Do you think the MSM reports 100% correctly? I don't think so, but I would never call for a ban. To introduce standards like 'lies', 'right', 'wrong' seems nonsense to me, because they are way too difficult to verify. Of course it is important trying to expose lies and fake news, but it's up to the people and viewers to reject low quality content. The Jones ban was unnecessary. Infowars is nothing in comparison to the left mainstream media complex including Hollywood.

You said "The issue is telling the truth to the best of one's ability" - ...the best of one's ability? How the hell do you even want to measure this?

With Jones, you're defending a guy who is knowingly peddling false information for profit.

But this can be said about almost every politician and many, many journalists. Please tell me who should control the quality of information. Left or right leaning fact checkers? Big Tech gurus like Zuck? The gov? No thank you. How mentioned, I favor the idea to give people this power. They can try to guide us, give us informations, exposing fake news - but at the end we should decide.

 

[Jack V Savage]

No I read well but I disagree.

No, you're not even disagreeing with what I'm actually saying. I agree that in the process of protecting people's ability to speak the truth to the best of their ability, we have to incidentally tolerate non-material lies. That isn't the same as a fundamental right to lie. And it ties to Jones because we know that he is, in fact, lying. Or at any rate, the focus of the debate should be on whether he knows that he's spreading falsehoods or whether he legitimately believes the falsehoods he spreads.

 

[all caps]

The president has an opinion too. Is he not allowed to criticize them? Trump just loves America too much! and this is why he can't ignore such cheap behavior.
It's the American national anthem!



No I read well but I disagree. This is now not related to Jones, but I think people have even the right to lie as long as they don't hurt other people or call for violence. Do you think the MSM reports 100% correctly? I don't think so, but I would never call for a ban. To introduce standards like 'lies', 'right', 'wrong' seems nonsense to me, because they are way too difficult to verify. Of course it is important trying to expose lies and fake news, but it's up to the people and viewers to reject low quality content. The Jones ban was unnecessary. Infowars is nothing in comparison to the left mainstream media complex including Hollywood.

You said "The issue is telling the truth to the best of one's ability" - ...the best of one's ability? How the hell do you even want to measure this?



But this can be said about almost every politician and many, many journalists. Please tell me who should control the quality of information. Left or right leaning fact checkers? Big Tech gurus like Zuck? The gov? No thank you. How mentioned, I favor the idea to give people this power. They can try to guide us, give us informations, exposing fake news - but at the end we should decide.

I can sleep well knowing in the end, we will be proven right. These guys will sleep well knowing they can just wake up and pretend they were right all along. But when reality sets in, I will feel for them.

 

[LMP]

The president has an opinion too. Is he not allowed to criticize them? Trump just loves America too much! and this is why he can't ignore such cheap behavior.
It's the American national anthem!

So I'm going to assume you aren't going to answer the question. I'm left to assume you feel one is bad (Alex jones being banned), while the other is good ( the NFL making rules that players must stand).

 

[AndroidRage]

It's hard to qualify much of the staff at TYT as journalists. Half the time I see them reading news from other sources and commenting on it. I don't think they have much of a budget to have reporters on the scene.

They are fucking hacks though, though I love Jimmy Dore, he cracks me up and isn't afraid to speak his mind, never just following a progressive narrative. I think your description of them as the left's Fox news is appropriate, just with a smaller reach. Cenk is the Turkish Hannity and Ana is the regressive Tomi Lahren, still would both though (Tomi/Ana that is, Chunk is all yours ).

Alex Jones really is a hypocrite, and not just because of his TOS. However, there's a big difference between his tiny site compared to Youtube or Facebook.

What I really find interesting in the fallout of his banning, are the many fellow smaller government proponents calling for making Youtube and Facebook-like entities public utilities. It's pretty much imperative that a business be on one, if not both of these platforms. I lean Libertarian-ish, but not extreme where I can't see how important smart regulation is. I never really considered forcing this on a company today, but when I think of my own business, I couldn't survive without facebook, or being on Youtube and the internet in general. They are as important as electricity to my livelihood

What do you guys about making social media giants into public utilities? Even typing that feels dirty to me, but when I think back in history and how electric companies carried so much power over the populace that the Public Utility Holding Company Act needed to be created.

Facebook is not a necessity for a business. Infowars themselves have posted that they have 5 million new users since this has happened. They have no right to surpass any companies TOS. The Internet should be considered a Utility. Things on the internet should not.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

My personal opinion on this is that its, at the very least, incredibly petty and disingenuous for these companies to ban Jones. Its equally petty and short sighted for the people who support this to defend the action. I get not liking Alex Jones, but you're crazy if you think this is a good thing. I'm not well versed enough on the subject to pin point my full objection, but there does seem to be a First Amendment, censorship thing going on here. I'm aware that those are technical terms that people have been using to dismiss that argument, but seeing as the Internet is a public utility I think those arguments have more validity than given by those that support this action. It also seems like a loophole in the Net Neutrality issue.

 

[HomerThompson]

You've fallen all the way down to defending Alex Jones.

I'm not shocked.

 

[Ruprecht]

What do you guys about making social media giants into public utilities? Even typing that feels dirty to me, but when I think back in history and how electric companies carried so much power over the populace that the Public Utility Holding Company Act needed to be created.

It wouldn't work for platforms like Youtube and Facebook because the consumers are advertisers and there's no global government to "nationalise" it.
Creating the institutions necessary to make social media a public utility is more problematic than the sort of media monopolies they potentially represent.

 

[Jack V Savage]

My personal opinion on this is that its, at the very least, incredibly petty and disingenuous for these companies to ban Jones. Its equally petty and short sighted for the people who support this to defend the action. I get not liking Alex Jones, but you're crazy if you think this is a good thing. I'm not well versed enough on the subject to pin point my full objection, but there does seem to be a First Amendment, censorship thing going on here. I'm aware that those are technical terms that people have been using to dismiss that argument, but seeing as the Internet is a public utility I think those arguments have more validity than given by those that support this action. It also seems like a loophole in the Net Neutrality issue.

Granting that you said you're not able to articulate your full objection, given that you said that people are crazy to think it's good, maybe some explanation is in order.

I think there are two issues at play. You have some people who think that Jones is deplatformed for expressing offensive views, and some support that, while others oppose it. I see it as him being deplatformed for distributing factually untrue and harmful claims, which I see as both normal and good.

 

[all caps]

Granting that you said you're not able to articulate your full objection, given that you said that people are crazy to think it's good, maybe some explanation is in order.

I think there are two issues at play. You have some people who think that Jones is deplatformed for expressing offensive views, and some support that, while others oppose it. I see it as him being deplatformed for distributing factually untrue and harmful claims, which I see as both normal and good.

Are speculation and skepticism "factually untrue and harmful claims" ?

 

[Jack V Savage]

Are speculation and skepticism "factually untrue and harmful claims" ?

"Skepticism" isn't the le mot juste here. But "speculation" does fall on a bit of continuum, and I agree that in some cases, there can be a legitimate debate, though I don't buy Jones' stuff as being one of those cases.

BTW, I should note that FB explicitly said that misinformation *wasn't* their issue with him, but given that I think that misinformation is a legitimate reason here, I still support the decision. I also think that absent the misinformation, as a practical matter they wouldn't make the decision they did.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Granting that you said you're not able to articulate your full objection, given that you said that people are crazy to think it's good, maybe some explanation is in order.

I think there are two issues at play. You have some people who think that Jones is deplatformed for expressing offensive views, and some support that, while others oppose it. I see it as him being deplatformed for distributing factually untrue and harmful claims, which I see as both normal and good.

Getting rid of Alex Jones for fake news is like getting rid of the WWE because its a fake sport or the National Enquirer because its a fake newspaper. The action in and of itself is fake news; pretending that they care about legitimate news and are doing something about it and pretending banishing Alex Jones is going to make a difference is such an absurdity. These companies aren't even associated with journalism, why the faux-journalistic integrity stance? Applauding his banishment from pretty much all the major media outlets for the arbitrary reason of not being 100% factual, even outright false, is incredibly petty and hypocritical.

And then there is the censorship/ First Amendment rights - this is the tricky part because the definitions aren't exactly met. One need not like Jones to oppose the idea that people can be ganged up on by borderline monopolies and censored for expressing thoughts they don't agree with. It sets a dangerous precedent in todays technological heavy environment.

 

[Ruprecht]

Getting rid of Alex Jones for fake news is like getting rid of the WWE because its a fake sport or the National Enquirer because its a fake newspaper. The action in and of itself is fake news; pretending that they care about legitimate news and are doing something about it and pretending banishing Alex Jones is going to make a difference is such an absurdity. These companies aren't even associated with journalism, why the faux-journalistic integrity stance? Applauding his banishment from pretty much all the major media outlets for the arbitrary reason of not being 100% factual, even outright false, is incredibly petty and hypocritical.

And then there is the censorship/ First Amendment rights - this is the tricky part because the definitions aren't exactly met. One need not like Jones to oppose the idea that people can be ganged up on by borderline monopolies and censored for expressing thoughts they don't agree with. It sets a dangerous precedent in todays technological heavy environment.

They didn't get rid of him for fake news though. Facebook or Youtube banning Jones for breaking their T&C is about as anti free speech as Sherdog banning people for porn.