Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,744
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
Brutish Law?Just as FTMB has community standards separate from Brutish Law.
Brutish Law?Just as FTMB has community standards separate from Brutish Law.
Brutish Law?
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.
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.
He's also got other people setting up mirrors and re-uploads on Youtube.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
Wouldn't that lead to censorship by government?It is probably time for the large internet companies to be regulated as public utilities.
Wouldn't that lead to censorship by government?
Since they all took down Jones at the same time, there is the suggestion of collusion.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.
He can be sued. I think he already has a few cases on the boil.What about illegal content, as defamation of character definitely is?
He can be sued. I think he already has a few cases on the boil.
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.
But if you're providing a platform for illegality, can't you be sued as well? Might explain these businesses' behaviour.
Alex Jones
Verified account@RealAlexJones
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This is how the establishment stops people from calling out MSM's #FakeNews! #BanComments
#BanDiscussion #FreeInfowars
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5:34 PM - 7 Aug 2018
Alex Jones' websites just lost access to the Disqus comment system.
https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones/status/1026990021449015296/photo/1
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.
And the fact that they all acted together? Aren't you questioning that?
It does rather look like collusion.
...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...
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.