• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Alex Jones

ramonmercado said:
But posts which don't breach British Law are also deleted. Youtube doesn't claim to be an unfettered channel for free speech, it has detailed community standards which posters are required to adhere to. Just as FTMB has community standards separate from British Law.
Click to expand...

You'll have noticed that the FTMB has no published set of rules and that guidelines on behaviour have evolved organically to meet the style and content being posted. YouTube, however, have bound themselves to wording such as this:

From the Community Guidelines:
Hateful content

Our products are platforms for free expression. But we don't support content that promotes or condones violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity, or whose primary purpose is inciting hatred on the basis of these core characteristics. This can be a delicate balancing act, but if the primary purpose is to attack a protected group, the content crosses the line.​

That repeated emphasis on 'primary purpose' will permit of quite a bit of unpleasantness, I'd say. And there are certainly channels more unpleasant and more untrue than InfoWars; what few of them have, however, is Jones's audience and influence. That seems to be the real reason they've struck now. The content seems no more extreme or targeted than it was previously; in fact, he has been rowing back on the Sandy Hook stuff significantly and the pseudo-antisemitism is now wrapped up in the silly 'hidden demon' talk of bonkers evangelists.

No fan of his attacks on innocents, but once you begin bending, twisting and breaking your own rules to deal with 'bad guys', you can guarantee that 'not-very-bad guys' will be the next in line.
 
Yithian said:
You'll have noticed that the FTMB has no published set of rules and that guidelines on behaviour have evolved organically to meet the style and content being posted. YouTube, however, have bound themselves to wording such as this:

From the Community Guidelines:
Hateful content

Our products are platforms for free expression. But we don't support content that promotes or condones violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity, or whose primary purpose is inciting hatred on the basis of these core characteristics. This can be a delicate balancing act, but if the primary purpose is to attack a protected group, the content crosses the line.​

That repeated emphasis on 'primary purpose' will permit of quite a bit of unpleasantness, I'd say. And there are certainly channels more unpleasant and more untrue than InfoWars; what few of them have, however, is Jones's audience and influence. That seems to be the real reason they've struck now. The content seems no more extreme or targeted than it was previously; in fact, he has been rowing back on the Sandy Hook stuff significantly and the pseudo-antisemitism is now wrapped up in the silly 'hidden demon' talk of bonkers evangelists.

No fan of his attacks on innocents, but once you begin bending, twisting and breaking your own rules to deal with 'bad guys', you can guarantee that 'not-very-bad guys' will be the next in line.
Click to expand...

The rules make it quiet clear that contributions to Youtube are subject to restrictions. I can't see how any of their rules have been bent to deal with Jones. It's not the first example of a channel being shut down by Youtube.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that any particular media outlet has to give you a platform.
 
I think sites like YouTube have had a soft rule for awhile, where disgusting or hateful or crazy or extreme views are tolerated so long as no real waves are made.
Jones has always been an extreme far right comment or, of the sort who think that Fox News is too liberal, but he's not really dipped into anything that's actually actively harmful.
Then comes Pizzagate and Shandy Hook. Neither conspiracy theories are entirely his doing, but he's helped push them. And it resulted in a gun man showing up to a pizzeria and wounded families being harassed and an ensuing and public trial.
I think it is a free speech issue, but it's the awakening to the reality that speech on the internet isn't a thing apart.
The idea has been that things said on the internet, even on a popular channel, don't carry the same weight as they do being said somewhere "real."
Jones and other have been pushing that edge harder and harder, and it's finally breaking.
 
Interesting article about the Sandyhook parents law suit against Jones and it's implications.

ONCE UPON A time, there was a fringe news outlet with a loud and dissenting opinion. A fatal shooting, it claimed, was not at all what it seemed to be: It was a hoax, orchestrated by some shadowy force—probably Communists—bent on replacing freedom with dictatorship. This was untrue, but that didn’t stop the outlet from naming and insulting alleged collaborators. And so the media outlet was sued for defamation.

This story might seem familiar, but we’re not actually talking about Alex Jones, the Infowars founder who infamously spread the lie that the Sandy Hook school shooting was an elaborate hoax—the grieving parents simply crisis actors—across YouTube, and is now being sued by Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah Pozner, a 6-year-old killed in the attack. We’re talking about Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., a Supreme Court case that will provide the legal precedent for the court to decide how hard or easy it will be to take Alex Jones to task for spreading lies.

Trouble is, that case was tried in 1974.

A lot has happened in the past half century. Most notably, the emergence of Jones’ preferred medium: the internet. In a case where the web is not only the vector of the defamation but also the means of targeted harassment campaigns, severe enough that Pozner’s parents have moved seven times in the past five years, that is a pretty serious context switch.

Thus far, Jones’ legal arguments remain embroiled in the nuances of free speech: Specifically, what kind of platform constitutes a serious media institution, and what kind of actions signify a public figure. ...

https://www.wired.com/story/alex-jones-lawsuit-will-help-redefine-free-speech/
 
Regarding Alex Jones when he said that the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack by Adam Lanza was utterly fabricated, and the grieving families of the victims were all frauds in a government hoax to attack gun ownership, the grieving families have taken up a defamation lawsuit against Jones:
https://www.wired.com/story/alex-jones-lawsuit-will-help-redefine-free-speech/
And frankly defamation suits are a decent remedy against the abuses of bad media, provided you have the money or a pro-bono lawyer to will help you win them, but it is only one remedy for one kind of problem.

I think Alex Jones is merely part of a general problem with the media:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
 
kamalktk said:
Alex Jones has been banned from YouPorn, which is apparently a real site.

"Before you go “wtf,” there were indeed (non-porn) videos with Alex Jones in them on YouPorn (people often take advantage of relatively lax copyright policing on various porn sites to upload non-pornographic content). "

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/now-even-youporn-has-banned-alex-jones-but-hes-still-on-twitter
Click to expand...
He's also got other people setting up mirrors and re-uploads on Youtube.
They probably can't stop him getting his message out there.
He'd already been demonetised on Youtube (AFAIK) and was making money from selling his own merchandise, vitamin supplements and the like.
 
Hitler loved dogs.

Alex Jones's InfoWars has superb music and the rumour is that much is his own creation (based on banks of synths and audio editing equipment see on video footage of his home).

And Glenn Beck's empire may be circling the drain, but The Blaze has great sets, lighting and camera work.

That's the last of my defence.
 
Alex Jones is of course a nutty conspiracy theorist but we should all be concerned about the tech giants (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) apparently acting on concert by banning Infowars within a few hours of each other.

I don’t want government censorship but nor do I want censorship by big business.

It is probably time for the large internet companies to be regulated as public utilities.
 
Quake42 said:
It is probably time for the large internet companies to be regulated as public utilities.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't that lead to censorship by government?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Wouldn't that lead to censorship by government?
Click to expand...

It shouldn’t do. Government should not regulate the content. But, as with regulation for utilities (and financial services), such companies would be subject to rules around treating customers and others fairly. Internet companies have spent years arguing that they are simply carriers and should not be responsible for content carried on their systems, in the same way that postal or telephone services are not responsible for what people write or say to each other. They can’t have it both ways, and should not be censoring legal content even if it annoying or objectionablem which Jones often is.
 
Quake42 said:
It shouldn’t do. Government should not regulate the content. But, as with regulation for utilities (and financial services), such companies would be subject to rules around treating customers and others fairly. Internet companies have spent years arguing that they are simply carriers and should not be responsible for content carried on their systems, in the same way that postal or telephone services are not responsible for what people write or say to each other. They can’t have it both ways, and should not be censoring legal content even if it annoying or objectionablem which Jones often is.
Click to expand...
Since they all took down Jones at the same time, there is the suggestion of collusion.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that somebody powerful ordered them to do it, perhaps using government influence to make it happen.
Now it looks like all that paranoid conspiracy stuff has legs.
 
GNC said:
What about illegal content, as defamation of character definitely is?
Click to expand...
He can be sued. I think he already has a few cases on the boil.
 
Yithian said:
Hitler loved dogs.

Alex Jones's InfoWars has superb music and the rumour is that much is his own creation (based on banks of synths and audio editing equipment see on video footage of his home).

And Glenn Beck's empire may be circling the drain, but The Blaze has great sets, lighting and camera work.

That's the last of my defence.
Click to expand...

Stalin: anyone who killed that many farmers can't have been all bad.
 
GNC said:
But if you're providing a platform for illegality, can't you be sued as well? Might explain these businesses' behaviour.
Click to expand...

As I say the tech companies’ argument has always been that they are merely providing the pipes for information to move, in the same way as postal or telephone services. Hence they are not responsible for content , although will take down illegal mateial if notified about it,

That is very different to policing content and removing it, not because it is illegal but because it offends ideological sensibilities. This is what seems to have happened with Jones and infowars.

Note also that the US has the first amendment so is not constrained by “hate speech” laws and the like.

No, this is big business censoring ideas they dislike, and that is a deeply chilling state of affairs given the stranglehold a handful of companies have over information globally.
 
S7gHUsH.jpg
 
I'm a bit surprised to see that Twitter is standing on a point of principle.

We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.​

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45107687
 
Quake42 said:
As I say the tech companies’ argument has always been that they are merely providing the pipes for information to move, in the same way as postal or telephone services. Hence they are not responsible for content , although will take down illegal mateial if notified about it,

That is very different to policing content and removing it, not because it is illegal but because it offends ideological sensibilities. This is what seems to have happened with Jones and infowars.

Note also that the US has the first amendment so is not constrained by “hate speech” laws and the like.

No, this is big business censoring ideas they dislike, and that is a deeply chilling state of affairs given the stranglehold a handful of companies have over information globally.
Click to expand...

But Jones and Infowars was the inception point of illegal behaviour, such as slander and violence. You can't imagine any business trying to put on a respectable front would take kindly to that.
 
And the fact that they all acted together? Aren't you questioning that?
It does rather look like collusion.
 
Mythopoeika said:
And the fact that they all acted together? Aren't you questioning that?
It does rather look like collusion.
Click to expand...

If this really is about the current situation re libel action then they are likely to be worried about the same issues and act in similar ways - similar action in regard to concerns in common, rather than collusion, I think. Twitter may simply feel that Alex Jones has not said anything on their platform which might put them in the frame; given the less than exhaustive nature of the way Twitter works that's maybe not so unlikely - whereas YouTube has given the man a platform to expound upon his ad homs, ad infinitum.

Quake42 said:
...That is very different to policing content and removing it, not because it is illegal but because it offends ideological sensibilities. This is what seems to have happened with Jones and infowars...
Click to expand...

Does it though? The bans have taken an awful long time coming - internet companies have been glacially resistant to taking such action in the past, and not at all shy about explaining their refusal to act, and there’s stuff still out there as repulsive as anything Infowars can come up with. But the current situation does coincide exactly with the ramping up of specific litigation against Alex Jones, the cause of which is not a vague and general dislike of his subject matter, but a very particular series of incidences and their consequences.

There is talk of this being a test case, and if it really is going to represent the hammering out of a new set of protocols within a legal framework then the carriers of the information may feel themselves about to enter potentially new territory, and therefore possibly as exposed as Jones. There's also the distinct probability that Jones would use his platform to argue about his court case and therefore run the risk of ending up in contempt; again, if this develops into being a test case, maybe no-one really knows yet how the people who provide the platform for that contempt will also be treated. (And I don’t doubt that his legal representatives are somewhat relieved: they’ll be thankful that the very same acts that have provided ammunition for their attack on free speech arguments will also have somewhat hobbled the gobshite's ability to get himself into even hotter water.)

Libel laws are not so different now to what they were when the object of such legislation had to be printed on hand operated presses and disseminated in the street. Now a lie can be uploaded and broadcast to millions virtually instantaneously. Whereas once information took days - maybe weeks and months - to settle into the public consciousness, it now takes hours – and possibly minutes. (Look at some of the hoaxes that have surfaced almost instantly after terrorist attacks).

Freedom of speech was never intended as a license to say anything about anyone without consequence or redress - there have always been qualifications. The internet has changed the game in so many ways, and so fundamentally, and it's high time that the line dividing freedom of speech from outright libel was tested for the internet age.

For all the spinning of this into a fight between a purveyor of free speech and those interests that would like to see our freedoms curtailed, it's worth remembering that Jones is using a global media network to make himself rich off the back of lies he possibly doesn’t even believe himself. He’s the fucking corporation – he’s the vested interests – he’s the big media - not the bereaved parents of Newtown, Connecticut.
 
Last edited:
Twitter needs money more than facebook/YouTube do, and Alex gives them page views (and thus money).
 
Spookdaddy said:
If this really is about the current situation re libel action then they are likely to be worried about the same issues and act in similar ways - similar action in regard to concerns in common, rather than collusion, I think. Twitter may simply feel that Alex Jones has not said anything on their platform which might put them in the frame; given the less than exhaustive nature of the way Twitter works that's maybe not so unlikely - whereas YouTube has given the man a platform to expound upon his ad homs, ad infinitum.



Does it though? The bans have taken an awful long time coming - internet companies have been glacially resistant to taking such action in the past, and not at all shy about explaining their refusal to act, and there’s stuff still out there as repulsive as anything Infowars can come up with. But the current situation does coincide exactly with the ramping up of specific litigation against Alex Jones, the cause of which is not a vague and general dislike of his subject matter, but a very particular series of incidences and their consequences.

There is talk of this being a test case, and if it really is going to represent the hammering out of a new set of protocols within a legal framework then the carriers of the information may feel themselves about to enter potentially new territory, and therefore possibly as exposed as Jones. There's also the distinct probability that Jones would use his platform to argue about his court case and therefore run the risk of ending up in contempt; again, if this develops into being a test case, maybe no-one really knows yet how the people who provide the platform for that contempt will also be treated. (And I don’t doubt that his legal representatives are somewhat relieved: they’ll be thankful that the very same acts that have provided ammunition for their attack on free speech arguments will also have somewhat hobbled the gobshite's ability to get himself into even hotter water.)

Libel laws are not so different now to what they were when the object of such legislation had to be printed on hand operated presses and disseminated in the street. Now a lie can be uploaded and broadcast to millions virtually instantaneously. Whereas once information took days - maybe weeks and months - to settle into the public consciousness, it now takes hours – and possibly minutes. (Look at some of the hoaxes that have surfaced almost instantly after terrorist attacks).

Freedom of speech was never intended as a license to say anything about anyone without consequence or redress - there have always been qualifications. The internet has changed the game in so many ways, and so fundamentally, and it's high time that the line dividing freedom of speech from outright libel was tested for the internet age.

For all the spinning of this into a fight between a purveyor of free speech and those interests that would like to see our freedoms curtailed, it's worth remembering that Jones is using a global media network to make himself rich off the back of lies he possibly doesn’t even believe himself. He’s the fucking corporation – he’s the vested interests – he’s the big media - not the bereaved parents of Newtown, Connecticut.
Click to expand...

Lots to unpick there.

The first thing to highlight is that the US has First Amendment protections that we in the UK do not, and amongst other things this means that slander / libel actions there are less likely to succeed. There’s a reason why plaintiffs in global libel cases try to have their cases heard in London if it can possibly be managed.

Secondly, this is not the first time that the giant media platforms have demonetised / shut down / banned content creators that express views they dislike. At the same time, inconsistent policing and enforcing of those companies’ own policies is the order of the day. Look how many accounts - many of them “blue tick” verified ones - are free to spout anti-white racism , for example, on Twitter. Look how many left wing call for acts of violence against political opponents.

And look what happens when identical postings are made, but with the targets reversed. Immediate bans.

This isn’t really about Jones, and the fact that he is annoying and objectionable is besides the point. Freedom of speech is meaningless if it’s only the freedom to say things that Government or big business approves of. This case is the canary in the mine. Governments around the world are terrified of this new world of communication and if they can’t shut it down completely they want to regulate it to the point that it no longer threatens. In the US, Silicon Valley is 95% liberals / Democrats and there is horror that their creations helped create President Trump. That’s the real story here, not Jones and his nonsense.
 
On last evening's PBS Newshour they interviewed the dean of the University of Missouri Law School. Here's a link to the segment:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-kicking-alex-jones-off-social-media-is-not-legally-censorship

The main takeaway was that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects speech from interference by the Government, period. Private companies are not bound by it to allow any speech they don't approve of. So, while Alex Jones' feelings may be hurt, his First Amendment rights are not being infringed (at least not from a legal standpoint).

The same reasoning applies to claims of "Censorship." Again, the legal definition of censorship is suppression of speech by the Government. Whatever Facebook et. al. are doing, it doesn't meet the legal definition of censorship.

All that being said, I'm uneasy with the idea of any social media platform taking it upon itself to silence a particular point of view. I think it might be argued that if social media meets the definition of a public utility, they have a duty to allow all points of view. I figure, let demagogues like Jones babble on. The more they talk, the more obvious it becomes that they are unhinged. And, sooner or later, they are likely to step on a legal land mine.

As one of my teachers once told me, "The surest way to destroy a scoundrel is to let him talk and quote him accurately."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top