Deep State Fascism Kills Free Speech!

[Barry Admin]

Obviously it's a somewhat facetious example, but the main issue with censorship is always who gets to decide what is an "unsuitable influence", and I don't think it's an issue that should be taken lightly.

[Mister Six]

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.

Yes, and Jones has been happy to court these nutcases and get them further upset.

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?

Because he's a public figure. If Twitter can get shit because it's a prominent social media company, then Jones can get shit for spreading this nonsense to millions of viewers and normalising and legitimising what is clearly a crackpot theory.

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?

Well Jones apologised for spreading the stupid fucking rumours after things got horribly out of hand. That was likely to avoid a lawsuit, but it recognises his culpability in riling people up about the story (the store had received multiple death threats as the story spread, before the fella with the gun arrived).

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

What are you, nine? "There's loads of crime everywhere, your honour, so why are you victimising my client for murdering a granny?"

Jones promoted this and the theory that the Sandy Hook parents are all "crisis actors" (please don't focus on Pizzagate to the exclusion of that particularly shit behaviour). He did this even when those innocent people were getting death threats. He did it on various social media platforms, who - either for legal purposes, in order to avoid upsetting their audience, or maybe even for actual ethical reasons - don't want to be associated with that.

You want to present this as some master conspiracy or a free speech thing, but it's not - it's a bloke who's been given ridiculous leeway to incite violence, and victimise and defame people for decades who has now had his toys taken away from him, because the T&Cs of every major forum (and most minor ones!) forbid, y'know, inciting violence, victimisation and defamation...

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.

Plus, it makes a mockery of this "Why can't people just block the content they don't like?" argument.

Because how the fuck do you block someone sending you physical hate mail, or threatening you in the street?

In the event that Twitter change their T&Cs to ban criticism of Twitter itself, or genuine political figures, or the establishment or whatever, I'll give a fuck. But Jones has been repeatedly overstepping the line for years, engaging in (or encouraging) harassment of people who aren't even public figures beyond their connection to awful human tragedy (or, somehow even worse, just being swept up in a lunatic conspiracy theory, like the pizza shop workers and customers).

This isn't just people being shit on a forum (although even CaB has banned people over the years), it's people using that forum to rile up imbeciles into attacking strangers (and selling snake oil, but that's by the by). In which case, said forum has every right to tell them to fuck off.

[canadagoose]

Obviously it's a somewhat facetious example, but the main issue with censorship is always who gets to decide what is an "unsuitable influence", and I don't think it's an issue that should be taken lightly.

There always has to be someone deciding who (rather than what, IMO) is an unsuitable influence. After all, we live in a society (bottom text). We can't just have everyone running around acting as they like. You can say a lot of things, within reason, but it's the way they're put and the way they're broadcast that matters.

e.g. If Salinger had added an appendix to Catcher in the Rye containing methods to quickly kill people, or methods to blow people up, and then wrote "you know, just saying, like ;)" at the end, and then a higher number of people were murdered or bombed, do you not think he should maybe be considered at least partly responsible? Not wholly responsible, but you know, responsible for incitement.

[Mister Six]

Obviously it's a somewhat facetious example, but the main issue with censorship is always who gets to decide what is an "unsuitable influence", and I don't think it's an issue that should be taken lightly.

So, er, who should get to decide then? A court? Ah, but that's the establishment.

This seems like one of those shit arguments wherein we're told just not to do anything, because taking any action is too problematic.

My question is, who the fuck thinks someone spurring on imbeciles to target grieving parents isn't being an "unsuitable influence"?

[Mister Six]

(I'm just off out to walk the dog, so please don't take my sudden silence as a rejection of whatever's said next.)

[Mister Six]

(Also sorry if I'm getting a bit het up. The Sandy Hook conspiracy makes me fucking furious.)

[canadagoose]

(Also sorry if I'm getting a bit het up. The Sandy Hook conspiracy makes me fucking furious.)

Yeah, sorry if I'm being a bit moody too. I'm a bit sick of the internet just now. I could really do with a break from it.

[Barry Admin]

I think I'll leave this for now, the tone is too aggressive and unpleasant for me.

[BeardFaceMan]

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

I think Harvey Weinstein kickstarted the change in current climate. People are now getting more upset, online anyway, at people who break the rules or act like pieces of shit and get away with it for ages. People are very vocal now about wanting changes in lots of areas and companies that rely on the public understandably dont want to piss them off. So it only took one thing to kick it all off and all the other companies follow suit. I know you're not one for conspiracy theories which makes it all the more strange you think there's one going on here. There was no co-ordination, just companies seeing which the wind was blowing and following it.

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.

I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg was told the same thing about MySpace when he started Facebook. And the guy who started Twitter was probably told not to bother because of FB. Social networks come and go and theres absolutely nothing to stop someone trying to make another one and theres nothing to stop it becoming succesfull, no one is being censored there.

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.

That's not quite what happened with Jones though. People signed up to that site agreeing to certain terms. Those terms made it clear that they wouldn't encounter the type of content Jones posted. They shouldn't have to block him as he shouldn't be posting that content in the first place. No corporate collusion, just companies banning someone for breaking their terms. One did it, the rest sheepishly followed.

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?

You're doing an awful lot of pretending and supposing there so I kinda tuned out, you're just creating your own rabbit hole to dive down. I'm not sure why you're so hung up on the idea of scale either, why does someone have a right to talk to 2 billion people at once? Why do you always have to shout at full volume all the time so everyone can hear always? What's wrong with using 3 or 4 different sites to spread your message to a lot of people instead of using just one? He can still get his message out, and the people who listen to him then get his message out to others and so on and so forth. It's just that entitled "EVERYBODY needs to hear what I have to say" attitude.

Free speech is a right, having an audience isn't, an audience is something you earn or lose depending on how you use/abuse that right.

[Mister Six]

There was no co-ordination, just companies seeing which the wind was blowing and following it.

Yeah, the past couple of years - since BLM fired up properly in 2016, I'd say - there's been a massive push in social awareness and people (particularly the younger crowd that are leaving social media en masse at the minute) actively opposing companies and people that they feel do not represent their particular mores.

Given the outcry around the Sandy Hook stuff, this is hardly surprising. Had Twitter given a fuck about ethics they would have tossed Jones out of an airlock years ago, of course. But at this point - with the social winds blowing, as you say, and Jones's high-profile lawsuits and custody proceedings (during which his own lawyer had to say Jones doesn't believe the shit he peddles, just to stop his kids being taken away) - it's hardly a surprise that companies don't want their brands stained with his shit.

[marquis_de_sad]

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

And the Pizzagate subreddit was deleted for their harassing batshittery.

Jones at his worst is on the level of shouting 'fire' in a theatre. The problem isn't the conspiracy theories, its the call to arms. His "battle rifles" comment was the last straw.

[jobotic]

(Also sorry if I'm getting a bit het up. The Sandy Hook conspiracy makes me fucking furious.)

Too fucking right.





Asan aside, funny how Google pulling Russian opposition videos hasn't come up.

[Z]

I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg was told the same thing about MySpace when he started Facebook. And the guy who started Twitter was probably told not to bother because of FB. Social networks come and go and theres absolutely nothing to stop someone trying to make another one and theres nothing to stop it becoming succesfull, no one is being censored there.

Well, there's a few things there. None of the major tech companies had managed to figure out a way to utilise social networking effectively prior to Facebook and Facebook also happened to be the one at the top when that kind of thing really began to have a useful place in people's lives.

Since then the only ones to take off in a thoroughly mainstream way have been Twitter (which was a good idea at the perfect time that didn't really compete at all with facebook in those early stages but has still to display serious viability as a business), Instagram (quickly picked up by Facebook) and Snapchat (which looks to have been beaten by Facebook with Instagram Stories after a barrage of attempts to copy it).
The thing to stop new companies is Facebook, they'll either buy them at a very generous price when they smell a potential threat or they'll crush them.

[manticore]

I've only just seen this:

Mister Six:

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

Quote from: manticore on Yesterday at 02:21:33 PM

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.

I haven't used the phrase 'slippery slope' so I don't know why you put it in quotes there. I'm split on this subject. Facebook explicitly said that the Sandy Hook thing was not related to the reason for them banning Alex Jones and I wonder why that is, and how what he's said since then is worse.

Mister Six:

In the event that Twitter change their T&Cs to ban criticism of Twitter itself, or genuine political figures, or the establishment or whatever, I'll give a fuck.

I don't think any of these platforms have to change their T&Cs to ban critisism of 'the establishment' - they can and do interpret them to ban or suspend all sorts of people quite regularly for expressing beliefs or ideas they consider objectionable. I think that's where there's a danger.

In case anyone doesn't know what exactly is being talked about in relation to Jones and Sandy Hook, here's a compilation I found of what Jones said. It's really obscene stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkWAjaVlhHc

[BeardFaceMan]

...The thing to stop new companies is Facebook, they'll either buy them at a very generous price when they smell a potential threat or they'll crush them.

That's a business decision though, not because Zuckerberg and his shareholders want to censor people or control the internet or because some cabal of company CEOs has a secret plan to control all information.

[BeardFaceMan]

I don't think any of these platforms have to change their T&Cs to ban critisism of 'the establishment' - they can and do interpret them to ban or suspend all sorts of people quite regularly for expressing beliefs or ideas they consider objectionable. I think that's where there's a danger.

Why is that? Why are you so suprised that a mainstream media outlet wants nothing to do with someone who has ideas that are not mainstream? There are other places he can go to post his hate where it will be tolerated and the response to that is usually "well it doesnt have the reach of Facebook or Twitter". No fucking shit, places and people that tolerate that kind of talk are in the minority, not a lot of people agree or like listening to it so when they get together there arent very many of them, how is any of thqt suprising? If someone has ideas that the mainstream finds repulsive why are you so suprised when the mainstream gets repulsed by them and says "we dont want you here saying that shit"?. All that has happened to Jones is someone has said to him "alright mate, take it somewhere else", thats basically it. If people still want to seek him out and listen to him they are free to do so just as he is free to carry on with his hate act (and it is an act). No censorship.

[manticore]

I don't think any of these platforms have to change their T&Cs to ban critisism of 'the establishment' - they can and do interpret them to ban or suspend all sorts of people quite regularly for expressing beliefs or ideas they consider objectionable. I think that's where there's a danger.

Why is that? Why are you so suprised that a mainstream media outlet wants nothing to do with someone who has ideas that are not mainstream? There are other places he can go to post his hate where it will be tolerated and the response to that is usually "well it doesnt have the reach of Facebook or Twitter". No fucking shit, places and people that tolerate that kind of talk are in the minority, not a lot of people agree or like listening to it so when they get together there arent very many of them, how is any of thqt suprising? If someone has ideas that the mainstream finds repulsive why are you so suprised when the mainstream gets repulsed by them and says "we dont want you here saying that shit"?. All that has happened to Jones is someone has said to him "alright mate, take it somewhere else", thats basically it. If people still want to seek him out and listen to him they are free to do so just as he is free to carry on with his hate act (and it is an act). No censorship.

If you read my post you would know that I wasn't talking about Alex Jones. I was answering this from Mister Six:

In the event that Twitter change their T&Cs to ban criticism of Twitter itself, or genuine political figures, or the establishment or whatever, I'll give a fuck.

So I'm talking about people with non-mainstream views in general being banned or suspended. There is a danger of that and it has happened several times recently. Of course I'm not the slightest bit 'suprised that a mainstream media outlet wants nothing to do with someone who has ideas that are not mainstream' having been seeing the exclusion of critical voices from them for decades.

This is the third post addressed to me on this thread where the person hasn't read the post I wrote! The atmosphere isn't good for discussion, more a lot of vitriol (not from you) and ranting.

[doppelkorn]

.

[BeardFaceMan]

Why is that? Why are you so suprised that a mainstream media outlet wants nothing to do with someone who has ideas that are not mainstream? There are other places he can go to post his hate where it will be tolerated and the response to that is usually "well it doesnt have the reach of Facebook or Twitter". No fucking shit, places and people that tolerate that kind of talk are in the minority, not a lot of people agree or like listening to it so when they get together there arent very many of them, how is any of thqt suprising? If someone has ideas that the mainstream finds repulsive why are you so suprised when the mainstream gets repulsed by them and says "we dont want you here saying that shit"?. All that has happened to Jones is someone has said to him "alright mate, take it somewhere else", thats basically it. If people still want to seek him out and listen to him they are free to do so just as he is free to carry on with his hate act (and it is an act). No censorship.


If you read my post you would know that I wasn't talking about Alex Jones. I was answering this from Mister Six:

So I'm talking about people with non-mainstream views in general being banned or suspended. There is a danger of that and it has happened several times recently. Of course I'm not the slightest bit 'suprised that a mainstream media outlet wants nothing to do with someone who has ideas that are not mainstream' having been seeing the exclusion of critical voices from them for decades.

This is the third post addressed to me on this thread where the person hasn't read the post I wrote! The atmosphere isn't good for discussion, more a lot of vitriol (not from you) and ranting.

I did read your post, in the line after the line I responded to you mentioned Jones and he is someone with non mainstream views being banned, so I think it applies. The only danger comes from people breaking the ToS of the places they sign up to. And theres a big difference between criticisng the mainstream and having non-maimstream views.

[darby o chill]

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_{I'm sorry this adds nothing}

[Mister Six]

I haven't used the phrase 'slippery slope' so I don't know why you put it in quotes there.

My apologies.

I'm split on this subject. Facebook explicitly said that the Sandy Hook thing was not related to the reason for them banning Alex Jones and I wonder why that is, and how what he's said since then is worse.

I can't see the remarks about them specifically not doing it for Sandy Hook but this is FB's statement:

As a result of reports we received, last week, we removed four videos on four Facebook Pages for violating our hate speech and bullying policies. These pages were the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the InfoWars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page. In addition, one of the admins of these Pages – Alex Jones – was placed in a 30-day block for his role in posting violating content to these Pages.

Since then, more content from the same Pages has been reported to us — upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies...

I gathered that the earlier videos (the bullying ones) were Sandy Hook, but maybe I'm wrong there. Still, it's not like there isn't enough for him to go on in that regard.

Looking at some of what he said, here's one of his videos about drag queens (who aren't necessarily transgender, but whatever):

"We're going to destroy you...You will ascend to Hell in the reverse order...we're coming like the villagers in the night, with the torches burning bright, with fire...fire is not the weapon of evil, fire is the weapon of good, and it will consume you."

So yeah, I think it's quite reasonable for Facebook and other sites to not want to host this kind of thing, whether it's out of genuine social concern or just a desire not to get on the wrong side of history, in this far more "woke" online world.

I don't think any of these platforms have to change their T&Cs to ban critisism of 'the establishment' - they can and do interpret them to ban or suspend all sorts of people quite regularly for expressing beliefs or ideas they consider objectionable. I think that's where there's a danger.

Do you have any example? That would be helpful as I'm not really sure where to look for this stuff.

But even if there's legitimate concern over this kind of thing, Alex Jones is clearly not the right figure to invoke, just as Tommy Robinson isn't the right figure to invoke when talking about free speech in the UK...

[Sebastian Cobb]

K, going to relentlessly defend some questionable organisations; my enemy's enemy is my friend after all.

[marquis_de_sad]

Pick one:

1 defend everything these corps are doing
2 believe all the conspiracy theories about how/why this thing happened

****************LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS********LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTIONS****************

[manticore]

Do you have any example? That would be helpful as I'm not really sure where to look for this stuff.

Two Venezualan facebook sites - telesur and Venezuela Analysis, were taken down, but then restored. There are some more examples here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/facebook-declaration-of-independence-hate-speech. People are suspended  from twitter constantly for their twitterings about social and political matters, sometimes for trivial reasons. These aren't huge issues yet, but they show that the existing T&Cs can be used to remove things that are disapproved of, and that's what has to be watched.

A related and maybe more important thing at the moment is that if you look up contentious issues like Syria or Yemen on Google, you find that alternative but quite respectable sites are far lower down the search results than they used to be. Also political youtube channels are denied advertising money if they discuss certain controversial and difficult topics.

But even if there's legitimate concern over this kind of thing, Alex Jones is clearly not the right figure to invoke, just as Tommy Robinson isn't the right figure to invoke when talking about free speech in the UK...

My feeling is that Jones' videos should have been taken case by case, and for example the Sandy Hook ones should have  been taken down straight away. Both Jones and Tommy Robinson should have free speech up to the point of incitement to violence (or whatever the right phrase is). There's a good article about 'The Anti-Fascist Boomerang' on Jacobin here:

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/fascist-free-speech-repression-far-right

[a peepee tipi]

 I'm glad he's gone, but it's not good on Twitter for waiting so long to do what should have been done and by the same token his being removed from the platform is not nearly as egregious an example as others given in this thread. Think both sides are making a mistake by lumping his banning in with the actual censorship of dissenting voices

[Benevolent Despot]

How can anyone in their right mind defend an absolute cunt like Alex Jones on any topic?

Because he's hilarious. How can anyone in their right mind welcome censorship? I can't imagine the pomposity and dourness of the haters. Even a medieval monk in a black cloak on a Hebridean island would crack more of a smile at Alex than some of the dour conservatives on here. People think his listeners are dense if they take him seriously, yet they also take him seriously.

Of course, these bans aren't against free speech as the right to say whatever you want does not mean you have to be given a platform to do so. Banning him from social networks does initially work in his favour, but all in all it's the right decision.

Err, freedom of speech is not only controllable by the state. America has in-built protections against itself whereas private institutions don't and favour whichever way the wind is blowing. Private institutions who are held hostage to "the community" and "the majority" are greater threats to individual expression. Pandering to consensus should always be resisted.

Obviously it's hypocritical. Right wingers who always touted a company's ability to discriminate on the basis of profit or political views or even the open 'right to refuse service's as a fundamental right are now bitching when it's their turn.

Twitter has the right to be politically biased. It's not antithetical to discrimination to point out that it is, and that it is dishonest about it.

I am growing into the belief that if people want to believe in fake news very little is going to persuade them otherwise. Further if they are too lazy or time poor to do some fact checking then that's a problem for democracy and society in general not private companies to filter.

So, no censorship?

Re; parents of mass shooting children, Alex did an on-air apology and reach-out to them some time ago. Not that it matters really. It was as insincere as any conspiratorial argument he originally made. I also don't like how this is the primary matter of contention. My stone-cold heart says invoking children shouldn't change the reality or ethics of a situation, or denote special measures. It's a "hang-the-pedos" argument.

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.

I really hate these direct causal links between one person's words and and another person's violence. Alex Jones is not in a military hierarchy with armed underlings who answer to him. If George Monbiot says Exxon Mobil are evil he is not responsible for another loon shooting up Exxon's board room. It's a klaxon alarm call when this conflation of individuals being responsible for a group's actions and vice-versa comes up - it's the leftist Marxist tyrannomobile which Alex fittingly loves to oppose.

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.

If it's purely an economic decision then that's a good reason to push the notion that free speech is more valuable than preventing upsetting speech. Make Free Speech Profitable Again. We'll turn the market together, Mr. Defeatist.

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.

So if not collusion then cowardly herd behaviour, wow, goddamn commendable of them.

"We're going to destroy you...You will ascend to Hell in the reverse order...we're coming like the villagers in the night, with the torches burning bright, with fire...fire is not the weapon of evil, fire is the weapon of good, and it will consume you."

He means metaphorically, in the infowar. "The fire" is words of rage and the consumption is your total logical demise. He usually makes it clear he doesn't hate gays or transgenders, just the globalists who want to turn everyone gay and transgender to depopulate and demoralise and then launch a spaceship to Alpha Centauri and merge with machines.

Good posts up above by Barry Admin, thanks!


In conclusion, the saga has reminded me of the 1995 film "The Last Supper", whose finale features a shock-jock who exaggerates for moral reasons. Here's a memeplex crossover I made:

[Zetetic]

My feeling is that Jones' videos should have been taken case by case, and for example the Sandy Hook ones should have  been taken down straight away. Both Jones and Tommy Robinson should have free speech up to the point of incitement to violence (or whatever the right phrase is).

I'm not sure how conceptually workable this is, given that the interpretation of works doesn't take place in isolation. At the very least, once you've started posting videos that pass some standard for incitement then this probably changes how we understand your previous and future videos.



The possible 'solutions' remain the same:
- Campaign for standards of protected and unacceptable 'speech' on major social 'networks' to be brought into public regulation and arbitration.
- Promote decentralised and/or diverse internet services.

[Mister Six]

As I understand it/half-remember it, Facebook did take Jones's videos case-by-case - but he posted a string of objectionable content that caused a ban to be instigated.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

The Deep State strikes again, banning an angry charlatan from Twitter after only allowing him to become a nationally famous figure and bilk X million dollars out of vulnerable idiots, rather than X + 1 million dollars.

What happened to Free Speech?!

[jobotic]

The Deep State strikes again, banning an angry charlatan from Twitter after only allowing him to become a nationally famous figure and bilk X million dollars out of vulnerable idiots, rather than X + 1 million dollars.

What happened to Free Speech?!

That's all that needed saying.

Nice picture though BD.