balaks
Full Member
never heard of him, seems like i missed nothing
You only missed losing a few braincells listening to the moron.
never heard of him, seems like i missed nothing
I know what you're saying, but Youtube/Facebook etc are effective monopolies. Not sure how I feel about it.Alex Jones and his ilk are fully on board with bakers refusing to bake gay cakes but up in arms when Facebook, Youtube et al simply enforce their own terms of service.![]()
How much more could he be legitimised? His fans consume his supplements without question, they buy his apocalypse gold and believe anyone in power with a hook nose is a bona-fide pedo.Doesn't this legitimise him more in the eyes of his fans?
These kinds of people always claim the mainstream media etc is shutting them down and censoring them because they speak 'the truth'.
The cat did it
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I just came to laugh at Alex Jones. By the way every platform? Has Twitter banned him now? I knew Facebook, Spotify, Apple and YouTube had.
I'm struggling to give a feck. How do you feel about it?
I'm assuming he broke some of their rules and I heard they took down some of his videos recently so I'm guessing he didn't heed the warmings. It's not like it's going to stop anyone who wants to listen to his feckries... Meh.
There isn't blanket free speech on YouTube afaik anyway...If he broke their T&C's then I have absolutely no problem with it as they are a private company and can do whatever they want. If it's on the basis of 'hate speech' then it's problematic as it sets a dangerous precedent. There is free speech or there isn't. I'll always take the ultra-liberal position and defend people's rights to say even the most heinous things imaginable.
There is free speech, but that doesn't supersede a private entity's right to tell you to feck off from their property if they don't like what you're saying.If he broke their T&C's then I have absolutely no problem with it as they are a private company and can do whatever they want. If it's on the basis of 'hate speech' then it's problematic as it sets a dangerous precedent. There is free speech or there isn't. I'll always take the ultra-liberal position and defend people's rights to say even the most heinous things imaginable.
Free speech only means the government won't jail you for what you say (and even there it has limits). It doesn't mean you at all times have to be allowed to be on the biggest platforms of speech, especially privately owned platforms.If he broke their T&C's then I have absolutely no problem with it as they are a private company and can do whatever they want. If it's on the basis of 'hate speech' then it's problematic as it sets a dangerous precedent. There is free speech or there isn't. I'll always take the ultra-liberal position and defend people's rights to say even the most heinous things imaginable.
The cat did it
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seriously what was the point of merging these two threads?
Ask @KingEric7How do people like him gain such a following. His views veer between stupid and massively offensive.
So everyone here is okay with YouTube banning Alex Jones?
I've heard that they were in danger of being sued. It had been suggested that they were the publisher of his content so if his content was lies that hurt people then YouTube could be sued for billions for allowing it on their site.If he broke their T&C's then I have absolutely no problem with it as they are a private company and can do whatever they want. If it's on the basis of 'hate speech' then it's problematic as it sets a dangerous precedent. There is free speech or there isn't. I'll always take the ultra-liberal position and defend people's rights to say even the most heinous things imaginable.
He has. His post was moved from the Paddy Crerand Show thread to here.Cool on topic OP, Nikhil. Gives a lot of insight on the topic.
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Taibbi: Beware the Slippery Slope of Facebook Censorship
The social network is too big and broken to properly function, and these “fixes” will only create more problems
MATT TAIBBI
...
Read this jarring quote from Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) about the shutting down of the “inauthentic” accounts:
“Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation… I also expect Facebook, along with other platform companies, will continue to identify Russian troll activity and to work with Congress…”
This was in a story in which Facebook stated that it did not know the source of all the pages. They might be Russian, or they might just be Warner’s idea of “sowing division.” Are we comfortable with that range of possibilities?
Many of the banned pages look like parodies of some paranoid bureaucrat’s idea of dangerous speech.
...
And a banned “Mindful Being” page shared this, which seems culled from Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts bit:
“We must unlearn what we have learned because a conditioned mind cannot comprehend the infinite.”
Facebook also wiped out a “No Unite The Right 2” page, appearing to advertise a counter-rally on the upcoming anniversary of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Facebook was “helped” in its efforts to wipe out these dangerous memes by the Atlantic Council, on whose board you’ll find confidence-inspiring names like Henry Kissinger, former CIA chief Michael Hayden, former acting CIA head Michael Morell and former Bush-era Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff. (The latter is the guy who used to bring you the insane color-coded terror threat level system.)
...
The complainants in the Jones case included parents of Sandy Hook victims, who have legitimate beef with Jones and his conspiratorial coverage. The Infowars reports asserting the grieving parents were green-screen fakes were not just demonstrably false and rightfully the subject of a defamation suit, but also seemingly crossed a separate line when they published maps and addresses of family members, who experienced threats.
When Jones and his like-minded pals cried censorship and bias, they came across as more than a little disingenuous. After all, right-wingers have consistently argued on behalf of the speech rights of big corporations.
Conservative justices have handed down rulings using the First Amendment to hold back regulation of big tobacco and the gun industry, and to justify unlimited campaign spending. Citizens United was a crucial moment in the degradation of the First Amendment, essentially defining corporate influence as speech.
The complainants in the Jones case included parents of Sandy Hook victims, who have legitimate beef with Jones and his conspiratorial coverage. The Infowars reports asserting the grieving parents were green-screen fakes were not just demonstrably false and rightfully the subject of a defamation suit, but also seemingly crossed a separate line when they published maps and addresses of family members, who experienced threats.
When Jones and his like-minded pals cried censorship and bias, they came across as more than a little disingenuous. After all, right-wingers have consistently argued on behalf of the speech rights of big corporations.
Conservative justices have handed down rulings using the First Amendment to hold back regulation of big tobacco and the gun industry, and to justify unlimited campaign spending. Citizens United was a crucial moment in the degradation of the First Amendment, essentially defining corporate influence as speech.
...
The First Amendment, after all, only addresses the government’s power to restrict speech. It doesn’t address what Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter can do as private companies, enforcing their terms of service.
So it’s true, there was no First Amendment issue with the Jones ban. But that’s the problem.
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In order to have power to distribute widely you needed resources, but you put those resources at risk if you defamed people.
That all changed with digital media. Way back in 1996, when mastodons roamed the earth and people used dial-up to connect to the Internet, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act. It contained the following landmark language:
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Essentially this meant that Internet providers wouldn’t be treated like news organizations. In the eyes of the law, they were less like CBS or Random House than they were bookstores or newsstands.
The rule allowed platforms to grow exponentially without the same fear of litigation. Companies like Facebook and Google became all-powerful media distributors, and were able to profit from InfoWars-style programs without having to be liable for them.
This led to the flowering of so much obnoxious speech that the First Amendment acquired a reputation as a racist con, and online media distributors, instead of being sued themselves as publishers, began to be viewed as potential restorers of order, beneficent censors.
Now, at a moment of crisis and high political tension, the public seems unable to grasp the gravity of allowing the government or anyone else to use that power.
It is already a scandal that these de facto private media regulators have secret algorithmic processes that push down some news organizations in favor of others. Witness the complaints by outlets like Alternet, Truthdig and others that big platforms have been de-emphasizing alternative sites in the name of combating “fake news.”
But this week’s revelation is worse. When Facebook works with the government and wannabe star-chamber organizations like the Atlantic Council to delete sites on national security grounds, using secret methodology, it opens the door to nightmare possibilities that you’d find in dystopian novels.
Youtube is not a private company but a public company.If he broke their T&C's then I have absolutely no problem with it as they are a private company and can do whatever they want. If it's on the basis of 'hate speech' then it's problematic as it sets a dangerous precedent. There is free speech or there isn't. I'll always take the ultra-liberal position and defend people's rights to say even the most heinous things imaginable.
Youtube is not a private company but a public company.
Youtube is not a private company but a public company.
Stock exchange = publicWhat do you understand by the word "public" in that sentence that makes you think the distinction relevant?
I think he was referring to them being a private entity, rather than how their stocks are traded.Youtube is not a private company but a public company.
Stock exchange = public
I'm not defending that looneyI just see people calling public companies like Facebook, Apple, etc, private when they aren't.
I don't believe in freedom of speech if incites violence, racism or hate and this guy must be one of 2 things, paid to talk shit or he should be in a mental facility.Right, but from the point of view of freedom of speech it's surely a distinction without a difference.