The War on Freedom of Speech Continues

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...pends-libertarian-accounts-including-ron-paul

https://www.infowars.com/the-war-to-destroy-alex-jones-part-one/

 

This is getting crazy. I mean, Alex Jones is clearly a troll, profiteering from hate. But from what I can tell, antiwar.com is arguably up to some good stuff. But hey, maybe it's just because I agree with them

On the other hand, these are all private platforms. And so they get to choose who they publish, and who they don't.

 

As far as I know, this guy Alex shares several fake news and conspiracy theories.

 

Most recently, speculation that Michelle Obama is a man. I mean, that's just crazy! It's one thing to say that she has better muscle definition and tone than most men her age. But that's arguably just because she works out far more than most men.

And sure, with modern medical techniques, any woman could have been born a man. And vice versa. So maybe Alex Jones started out as a woman I mean, "Alex" But the point is that it's meaningless BS. With no other function than generating lulz, and so traffic for his site, and so money.

And for sure, he has every right to do that. But there's no expectation that Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc should help him do that.

 

Why does it matter what he believes or says he believes?

 

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It doesn't. All that matters is that Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc apparently don't want to be associated with him. Just like Wilders doesn't allow political discussion. Owners get to set policies for their sites.

Also, this isn't about "freedom of speech". The Constitution only guarantees freedom from government censorship and repression. And it also guarantees freedom to Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc to censor, or to refrain from censoring, without government interference.

 

So you are saying you support the corporate censorship of society?

 

If I had a blog, I would certainly reject attempts by third parties to control the content. And I would undoubtedly nuke any BS from Alex Jones.

However, I do get that there's an issue when operations on the scale of Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc do that. Because they're so huge that they've effectively replaced the public commons. The answer to that, however, is perhaps for governments to break them up, because they're monopolies. That's been done for newspapers and TV, for example. And yes, I get that there are concerns about that as well, given how corrupt governments have become.

The best analogy that comes to mind is "freedom of speech" vs "crying fire in a theater". And Alex Jones is pretty clearly "crying fire". And indeed, it may well be that many of these jerks are Russian operatives. And arguably ought to be prosecuted as such. Or maybe we should just enjoy the lulz

 

I think it means a lot more than that when these platforms have become part of society because they operate on user submitted content. We are not talking about traditional publications here we are talking about platforms that presented themselves as community projects that everyone could contribute to and they therefore became accepted as a new part of day to day life so there are some moral issues when these platforms then decide to start discriminating against certain people it becomes the corporate censorship of society and I think that is a very bad precedent.

 

Maybe so. Except that they were never really "community projects". Usenet was a community project, and it was damn hard to censor. But Facebook and Twitter are just exploiting user-submitted content to make money. And Google is just exploiting web indexing and search to make money. So yes, there are moral issues.

On the other hand, trolls can't expect to exploit social media forever without push-back.

 

J**** Fr***** C*****t.

Get rid of & shut down the 10's of thousands of Russian accts. And stop bothering people who don't post racist & other hate filled speech.

 

The internet was designed to be global. Why is everyone so frightened of Russian opinion?

 

One mans troll is another mans truth seeker.

 

Normally, I'd agree with you. But Alex Jones is clearly a troll.

 

That's not why he's being banned, it's because he's a male, Caucasian, right wing troll.

 

You ppl realize he repeatedly broke some TOS at most of these sites, yes? Also the sites are run by private companies. They can do whatever they want to any content.
Only when the government is going against someone for his/her opinion it's a breach of free-speech.

I would happily throw someone out of my house if he repeatedly insults me or anyone I sympathize with, while I am a huge free-speech guy.