Deep State Fascism Kills Free Speech!

[Crisps?]

What is the world coming to when billion dollar American corporations are no longer on the side of Venezuelan leftists?

Remember the days when people had just enough brain cells and self-respect that when a boss derided his own customers, saying the product was "crap", he was out on his ear and the company essentially wiped out?

Using Facebook in the first place is bad enough, but if you continued use it even after knowing the boss quite rightly regards you as a "dumb fuck" for using it, then you're way beyond the realm of dumb fuckery and deserve everything you get.

Funniest thing is all these cunts would happily forget "free speech" again in one second if Facebook re-enabled access to all that lovely traffic (which they originally handed to Facebook in the first place, when it was still small enough to need dumb fucks to help it out).

The answer to Facebook (or any mega corp) is simply to not use it and/or convince other people to stop using it.

[BeardFaceMan]

I still can't fathom how there are actual adults out there who don't understand that free speech doesn't mean free access or a free platform. That this concept even has to be explained. He signed up to a website, agreed to their terms, broke their terms, they got rid of him (as has been pointed out, the same terms and process that he has on his own site when people aren't conforming to the hivemind view). "Oh they only did it because bad publicity duh!" No fucking shit, a company doesnt want to be associated with the views of a man who harasses school shooting victim and survivors, theres a turn up for the books.

You cant say fuck on the tv before the 9 o clock watershed, is that censorship and a free speech violation? Should toy manufacturers be able to advertise whatever they want in whatever fashion they want during kids tv programs because FREE SPEECH? Should I be allowed to fly a flag from my home that says "BLACK PEOPLE AREN'T VERY NICE ARE THEY?" because free speech and I can say what I want, when I want? Perhaps I could hang outside a school at chucking out time and shout Chubby Brown jokes through a megaphone, that would be fine, right? Alex Jones hasn't been censored, he is still free to say what he wants, he's still free to sell all the garbage he wants, people can still find him easily if they want to listen to him, theres nothing stopping him creating his own social platform or website because he is still free and still has that power. Fuck me, a shitstarting hatemonger who doesn't even believe what hes saying and is only saying it to make money off of fucktards gets banned from a few sites for ToS violations and its fucking 1984.

[Barry Admin]

There's an obvious amount of powercreep going on though, and the "it's a private company, they can ban people when they want" argument doesn't really cover what we're seeing here, where several huge corporations are ganging together to determine what content is acceptable for everyone else to view. There's a power grab going on here.

A lot of us remember when the internet was the Wild West, and loved it for that, and many of those self same people now evidently don't see anything sinister with wide scale censorship being slowly but surely rolled out.

Of course it starts with people like Alex Jones, of course it does. He's a cunt. But he's a cunt whose voice has been tolerated for many years.

Apparently Twitter are also bringing out rules that allow them to punish people for their behaviour outside of their platform, does anyone know anything about that? Evidently it's something Twitch already has in place.

For most people now, their means of expression on the internet is a controlled by a small bunch of powerful corporations. Once those corporations start trying to actively control and shape the content, then yeah, that's a problem.

[Barry Admin]

By the way, I didn't even know this was the full list of services he'd now been banned from. What, he broke all of their rules and terms of services, all of a sudden? Definitely nothing sinister or worrying going on here...?

...banned from twitter and his app removed from the Apple store.
Along with recent iTunes, Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Spotify & Tumblr bans...

[BeardFaceMan]

Worrying, maybe, sinister, not a bit. It's the same as Disney firing James Gunn, his tweets had been there for years and it was just a knee jerk reaction to public opinion. And seeing as these companies rely on the public for their income, yeah they take notice. That's what these companies are doing with Jones, yeah he's been tolerated for years (not an excuse for continued tolerance) but the climate has now changed and people are less likely to tolerate his particular brand of hate speech, companies don't want to be associated with that because their customers would leave. It's not really ganging up, its just corporations spinelessly doing what they think the public want to see.

And nothing that has happened is stopping Jones, or anyone else, setting up their own social network where his kind of free speech is acceptable, he hasn't been censored. He hasn't been arrested, he is still free to say whatever he wants, thats not censorship, thats just people being picky about the people they associate with and talk to. He is still allowed to go on the internet, sign up to many sites and post to his hearts content as long as he doesnt break their ToS, he can even make his own sites, forums and networks with his own ToS, no one and nothing is stopping him doing that as he's not being censored.

I'd disagree with peoples means of expression being censored as well, there is absolutely nothing stopping people, or Jones, expressing themselves in any way they see fit, all that has changed is the audience, the amount of people you can express yourself to. You can still do everything you used to do, so is it just a human selfish entitlement thing, where everyone thinks everything they say has to be heard by as wide an audience as possible at all times, no matter the subject or audience?

[Barry Admin]

And you perhaps know I'm not one for conspiracy theories normally, but the more I think about it, the more I think getting rid of Alex Jones in such a high profile way might be a work of genius.

Let's say you do have a conspiracy. The aim is, perhaps, to control and sanitise a "free marketplace of ideas", so it can be used more effectively by corporations to do what they like to do best; sell adverts, and push products.

Firstly, AI-equipped tools like Candid are rolled out by the sort of people ("skeptics") who would be against such normally, and are easily bought off. Then the Adocalypse occurs, stripping these very same people of a lot of their revenue, using the sort of AI tools they've helped promote and equip. Whoops.

Now the corporations want more control still, so they collude to "deplatform" people, and get the wider public uses to the idea that, hey, it's their space, they own it, they can do what they want. As Zetetic often argues though - and I hope I briefly represent his argument fairly here - these are platforms that are now essentially public spaces, and depriving someone of their ability to use them greatly hinders their ability to communicate because there's simply no viable alternative of similar size and influence.

By making Alex Jones a victim of this, you colour most people's responses in a very obvious way. He's a dick, so a lot of people will say "hey, he's a dick and said truly reprehensible things, who cares? Fuck him."

But he is also of course a conspiracy theorist. So if you think he shouldn't be deplatformed in this way, you're now essentially pushing people to look like fans of conspiracy theories by objecting to this wide-spread collusion. Looks at the title of this thread.

It's just a thought and I hope I've expressed it clearly. I'm nervous that biggy will now come in and start talking about "psyops" again.

[BeardFaceMan]

And you perhaps know I'm not one for conspiracy theories normally, but the more I think about it, the more I think getting rid of Alex Jones in such a high profile way might be a work of genius.

Let's say you do have a conspiracy. The aim is, perhaps, to control and sanitise a "free marketplace of ideas", so it can be used more effectively by corporations to do what they like to do best; sell adverts, and push products.

Firstly, AI-equipped tools like Candid are rolled out by the sort of people ("skeptics") who would be against such normally, and are easily bought off. Then the Adocalypse occurs, stripping these very same people of a lot of their revenue, using the sort of AI tools they've helped build and equip. Whoops.

Now the corporations want more control still, so they collude to "deplatform" people, and get the wider public uses to the idea that, hey, it's their space, they own it, they can do what they want. As Zetetic often argues though - and I hope I briefly represent his argument fairly here - these are platforms that are now essentially public spaces, and depriving someone of their ability to use them greatly hinders their ability to communicate because there's simply no viable alternative of similar size and influence.

By making Alex Jones a victim of this, you colour most people's responses in a very obvious way. He's a dick, so a lot of people will say "hey, he's a dick and said truly reprehensible things, who cares? Fuck him."

But he is also of course a conspiracy theorist. So if you think he shouldn't be deplatformed in this way, you're now essentially pushing people to look like fans of conspiracy theories by objecting to this wide-spread collusion.

It's just a thought and I hope I've expressed it clearly. I'm nervous that biggy will now come in and start talking about "psyops" again.

I can agree with that, Jones is not an easy person to defend and it can make you look a bit suspect if you do, but I don't think that's something that has happened by design, more by accident.

So if social media are public spaces now, why should different rules apply? A library is a public space if I went there and started shouting and they said it was against their rules and I had to leave, would that be my free speech being censored? Why should online be any different? Yeah, they can be sketchy about implementing their rules but again, its their gaff, their rules, and you agree to that when you sign up. If you dont like that you are still free to go elsewhere, start your own bookshop or try and find a library that tolerates shouting. And why is it that you should be guaranteed influence and a sizeable audience for what you have to say? You get those things from the things you are saying, not just for opening your mouth.

[Barry Admin]

Worrying, maybe, sinister, not a bit. It's the same as Disney firing James Gunn, his tweets had been there for years and it was just a knee jerk reaction to public opinion. And seeing as these companies rely on the public for their income, yeah they take notice. That's what these companies are doing with Jones, yeah he's been tolerated for years (not an excuse for continued tolerance) but the climate has now changed and people are less likely to tolerate his particular brand of hate speech, companies don't want to be associated with that because their customers would leave. It's not really ganging up, its just corporations spinelessly doing what they think the public want to see.

Beardy, to briefly respond to this post, I'll ask first why has the climate changed?

Also I think it's impossible for people to set up their own social networks in any meaningful way or on any sort of scale that would have an impact.

Finally, my understanding of Web 2.0 was that it was largely driven by ideas such as: hey, now you can curate your own experience! So I'd like to know how we've got from an era where people did this by blocking and unfriending and such, to this current paradigm where giant corporations will now collude to do that for you, and everyone just says, yeah, fair enough, just go ahead and decide for me.

[marquis_de_sad]

A lot of us remember when the internet was the Wild West, and loved it for that, and many of those self same people now evidently don't see anything sinister with wide scale censorship being slowly but surely rolled out.

Of course it starts with people like Alex Jones, of course it does.

From my memory of that era, people got banned from various fora all the time. The main difference now seems to be the scale.

[Barry Admin]

Scale, cooperation and a lack of any meaningful alternatives.

Add to that the fact that most people have been stripped of their anonymity, and have actually willingly given it up, and suddenly "getting banned" surely seems like a far more serious issue, whereby your presence can now apparently be removed from multiple platforms, leaving you with no meaningful alternative to communicating on that scale again.

It seems positively and obviously Orwellian to me.

[Jakey Chesterton]

Scale, cooperation and a lack of any meaningful alternatives.

Add to that the fact that most people have been stripped of their anonymity, and have actually willingly given it up, and suddenly "getting banned" surely seems like a far more serious issue.

Something I've noticed particularly post the recent disinfo/troll/bot scares - a lot of the people you see calling others bots have avatars that are selfies of themselves (often in work clothes), and consider not being identifiable in this sort of way as prima-facie evidence of bot-ness. Seems completely crazy to me.

[bgmnts]

He's just a mega mega cunt who broke some rules.

Move on.

[Barry Admin]

So if social media are public spaces now, why should different rules apply? A library is a public space if I went there and started shouting and they said it was against their rules and I had to leave, would that be my free speech being censored? Why should online be any different? Yeah, they can be sketchy about implementing their rules but again, its their gaff, their rules, and you agree to that when you sign up. If you dont like that you are still free to go elsewhere, start your own bookshop or try and find a library that tolerates shouting. And why is it that you should be guaranteed influence and a sizeable audience for what you have to say? You get those things from the things you are saying, not just for opening your mouth.

Let's take the idea of a library and give a different example.

For all meaningful purposes, in this example, everyone relies on libraries for their information. Let's pretend there's no other meaningful distribution network that's as effective or as large. There are small indepent second hand book stores, but hardly anyone goes in them because they smell of old people, and there's nowhere near the same kind of selection.

Now let's suppose that the libraries start objecting to certain ideas in books, and start to remove them from their shelves, across every branch. At first they pick on really shitty books that no one much likes anyway, so no one gives a shit.

Then, next, maybe they start removing books that are critical of libraries, or of certain political ideas.

Are those the sort of libraries you'd want to use or have to rely on?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Indeed, when you look at how people we now consider as good they were often labelled terrorists or threats to the state. It makes me concerned that your next civil rights activist may not ever be heard because they're deemed a threat to the establishment.

Look at all the civil rights activists in the past who were surveilled and undermined; not to mention terror legislation in the 80's was used to keep tabs on people as benign as the National Union of Miners.

[marquis_de_sad]

cooperation

I agree that the lack of real alternative platforms is an issue, but I don't agree with you and biggy that this is co-ordinated. It seems more like a domino effect from platforms that have put up with Jones and his critics for a long time. All it took was one of the big ones to lose patience.

[canadagoose]

I think banning Jones from various social media is more equivalent to something like Pubwatch. You're banned from a good few pubs if you behave badly enough, which could, effectively, stop someone drinking in any of the pubs in their area. Is it worrying? Not really. If you don't act like an antisocial tit, it won't happen to you. You could say "ah, but what if they abuse their power?", but is banning people who make a nuisance of themselves abusing their power? I don't think so. If that happened it could be concerning, but it doesn't happen. (Abuse of the Pubwatch scheme, I mean.) I think you really have to look at incidences of banning individually, considering what the person being banned is like, rather than just a blanket "you shouldn't suppress anyone's free speech regardless".

It's for the good of other people who use the platforms, too. If someone is influential enough, they could influence others to spread their toxicity and bother perfectly innocent users of the platform. I don't think it's such a terrible thing to make an example of someone who constantly pushed their luck. It makes it more pleasant for the rest of us.

[Barry Admin]

I don't want to repeat myself as a response to various analogies that are drawn up to defend censorship, so I think I've argued my main point enough here for the time being, but one point I would like to reiterate is that I don't understand why blocking and such now isn't enough, and we're happy to let corporations begin to decide what content - content which has been available for many years - is now suddenly inappropriate for us to have access to.

Anyway, a song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uWd6XgBVIcg

[Sebastian Cobb]

[marquis_de_sad]

Second time that's been posted in a thread of two pages.

[mothman]

Well, Greenwald's a cunt himself who'll probably end up on the wrong end of a Brazilian police death squad one day, providing hours of fun for conspiracy theorists everywhere. So, meh.

[chveik]

He's just a mega mega cunt who broke some rules.

Move on.

Yeah, I think they're things far more worrying in the world right now.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Second time that's been posted in a thread of two pages.

GOOD

[Barry Admin]

Yeah, I think they're things far more worrying in the world right now.

You could say that of most things.

Not sure why people should be told to "move on" with regards to a discussion, either.

[Mister Six]

There's an obvious amount of powercreep going on though, and the "it's a private company, they can ban people when they want" argument doesn't really cover what we're seeing here, where several huge corporations are ganging together to determine what content is acceptable for everyone else to view. There's a power grab going on here.

No there fucking isn't. That "ganging together" is just your interpretation, bolted titbo-style onto the facts. Jones has been allowed to run wild and ignore terms and conditions on these sites for years, leading to a pizza shop in DC getting shot up and the parents of dead children being victimised and harassed.

But since some of those parents have started filing high-profile suits against Jones there's been a groundswell of disapproval from regular people. Enough that continuing to allow Jones to ignore the rules on Twitter, Reddit et al is becoming increasingly economically risky for those sites.

So one of them weighs up the risk of putting off their audience by firing Jones vs the risk of putting off their audience by allowing him to continue using their services in a very public way - the risk of being sued to fuck for being a conduit for his shitty behaviour is also likely a factor - and decides it's time to actually use the rules they've had for years.

Well, once one of those sites goes, the others realise that they're looking increasingly bad. Not wanting to also end up fucked, they do the same thing.

That's what happened - not some dastardly cabal of companies declaring Jones an enemy of the people. He acted like a quite stupendous cunt and now he's paying the price.

As fellow "Ooh, slippery slope" thinker Manticore said:

This is the most convincing argument for his removal that I've seen, but why didn't all these platforms do it then?

Well it turns out they did. So at least he should be happy now.

A lot of us remember when the internet was the Wild West, and loved it for that, and many of those self same people now evidently don't see anything sinister with wide scale censorship being slowly but surely rolled out.

So? You should be welcoming this stuff - the more people get kicked off Twitter, the more its audience balkanises and spreads over multiple messaging platforms, decentralising the system and diminishing the control of the corporation.

Of course it starts with people like Alex Jones, of course it does. He's a cunt. But he's a cunt whose voice has been tolerated for many years.

So... what? He gets grandfathered in past the rules and regs? "Ah, he might have encouraged his fans to start hate campaigns against grieving parents and knowingly contributed to the hysteria that saw an armed man attacking a pizza shop, but he's been doing it for ages..."

EDIT:

I don't want to repeat myself as a response to various analogies that are drawn up to defend censorship, so I think I've argued my main point enough here for the time being, but one point I would like to reiterate is that I don't understand why blocking and such now isn't enough, and we're happy to let corporations begin to decide what content - content which has been available for many years - is now suddenly inappropriate for us to have access to.

It's not about "content" just like Tommy Robinson's prison sentence wasn't about "free speech". Jones knowingly encourages dangerous fucking lunatics. Stop making it sound like Twitter is just blocking his dingbat theories about sixth dimensional OppressionCubes or whatever.

[canadagoose]

he might have encouraged his fans to start hate campaigns against grieving parents and knowingly contributed to the hysteria that saw an armed man attacking a pizza shop

This is a big part of it for me; his actions don't exist in a vacuum. Letting him continue to act the prick on social media influences other people, and makes the place more toxic. I mean, he could have just followed the rules if he felt so strongly about getting his message out, but oh no, he has to stomp all over everything and have it his way. It's just pure entitled, arrogant behaviour.

[Barry Admin]

The sort of person who would shoot up a pizza place because he believes it houses a child sex ring run by Washington Elite is obviously a nutcase. If you're concerned about "influence" then where does it stop? I took great interest and glee in the Pizzagate thing when it started, and it was something concocted by 4chan trolls, clearly for a laugh, and spread on Reddit. There were even people on here who believed it. So why is Alex Jones solely to blame for that lunatic who went in and fired some shots off?

I've had a quick look and can only find reference to the guy trying to recruit friends by showing them "a YouTube video", and mentions of him having read stuff online. Has Alex Jones specifically been cited as an influence on him?

The point being, stuff like Pizzagate is all over the net.

[canadagoose]

If you're concerned about "influence" then where does it stop?

I mean, it could go onto the dark web and whatnot, but in terms of influence in public spheres - if the power exists to reduce his influence there, why not use it?

[Barry Admin]

Because dingbats gonna dingbat. We didn't ban the work of J.D. Salinger after John Lennon got offed.

[canadagoose]

Because dingbats gonna dingbat. We didn't ban the work of J.D. Salinger after John Lennon got offed.

Maybe if JD Salinger had previously gone into WH Smith's, wiped his arse with the Telegraphs, covered the shelves in dogshit and encouraged people to fling his books at passers-by, it'd be more analogous.

[canadagoose]

...but on a serious note, I don't think books aren't the same as social media insofar as you can interact with social media, not with a book. You can basically live your life through those channels, and air your thoughts like you're really there. You can't misbehave through a book, unless you print illegal things (bomb recipes, maybe)?