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| Alex Jones may have crossed the line of speech regarding Sandy Hook . But Censorship is at work attacking Jones Again! |
Is it CENSORSHIP?
Facebook and (2)>>YouTube shut down accounts Monday run by radio host Alex Jones, saying his charged rhetoric violated their policies and were detracting from their efforts to spawn a civil conversation. Alex Jones has been doing the same thing every day for well over a decade, but Facebook, YouTube, and Apple all decide within hours that he suddenly violates their (2.2)>>"community guidelines." ???? Mr. Jones is just one Facebook user out of 2.2 billion, but he had become symbolic of tech platforms’ inconsistency and reluctance to engage in a misinformation war The (2.3) >>pressure on Facebook to do something about him had intensified after executives gave a series of vague and confusing answers to lawmakers and reporters about the company’s policies. Misinformation was allowed to stay on the platform, they said, but hate speech wasn’t. So users dug up and reported old Infowars posts, asking for their removal on the grounds that they glorified violence and contained dehumanizing language against Muslims, immigrants, and trans gender people. This bring up the question of free speech and just why the First Amendment is under attack , while I don't care hear any "dehumanizing language" against anyone , there is a double standard in our media circus. Censorship doesn’t work; it boomerangs back to bite us all. Even beyond that, we should be concerned to see social media companies wading into this murky territory. When internet monoliths start deciding which thought is acceptable in the name of "hate speech," it puts us down a problematic path that’s sure to be abused. Anyone can call anything they disagree with hateful — will Facebook start banning pages for the National Rifle Association or Planned Parenthood? If you offend too many minorities they well do everything to silence you .But no matter how despicable Jones' commentary is, we should all be dismayed to see him censored on social media. Facebook, YouTube and others are private companies, so they aren’t violating Jones' First Amendment rights. Nonetheless, they are stifling the spirit of free speech and — perhaps most important — censorship will only make Alex Jones a martyr among his fan base.This blatant act of censorship of political ideas is a perfect example why we need decentralized, censorship-resistant media, and why we simply cannot trust our media to an elite handful of social media oligarchs.
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>Alex Jones . Jones began his career in Austin with a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched format to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM). Ron Paul was running for Congress and was a guest on his show several times. When the Oklahoma City bombing happened in 1995 Jones began accusing the government of being responsible, saying, "I understood there’s a kleptocracy working with psychopathic governments — clutches of evil that know the tricks of control”. In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed By Design. By 2013, he had built a media empire: web, radio, subscription video, and DVD and T-shirt sales. At the time, Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald estimated that Jones was pulling in as much as $10 million a year between subscriptions, web and radio advertising, and sales. The Bush years were a ripe time for Jones and his message of government deceit. The lies leading to the invasion of Iraq and the complicity of the media were plain for all to see. By the time Jones produced his 9/11 film Loose Change, he was no longer a lonely voice in the media wilderness, but the founding father of a growing national movement. Charlie Sheen suggested he organize a 9/11 Truth conference in Los Angeles, and Jones appeared in Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novel A Scanner Darkly. “Alex’s mind is a turbocharged research and information processor,” Linklater has said. Sharing the credits with Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr., Jones once again played himself as a street prophet. His scene ends when plainclothes agents haul him into an unmarked police van for ranting publicly about government drug dealing. (2)>>YouTube. Jones has 80 million hits on his YouTube channel, and his fringe views have slowly begun to infiltrate more mainstream outlets. Many of his fans, in fact, believe that Glenn Beck routinely rips off Jones, stealing his ideas and then watering them down for broader consumption. “People inside his company tell me Beck follows what we do closely,” says Jones. “It’s frustrating that I’ve never sold out, yet I’m being gobbled up by this giant Pac-Man who puts my work through his corporate-media assembly line. He takes information from me about secret combines and elites and then spins it against big government, but he ignores big business. He says George Soros is at the top of the New World Order power pyramid? Give me a break. I have no love for Soros. But I don’t trust Beck. Ninety-eight percent of my audience hates him. New listeners tell me I’m a Beck wanna-be. I’m like, ‘No, it’s the other way around.'” (2.2)>>"community guidelines." ???? . 3 years ago there was another censorship issue with Clementine Ford, a columnist for Australia’s Daily Life, was banned from Facebook for 30-days on Friday after telling an internet troll, who allegedly called her a “diseased whore”, to "f**k off". criticized Facebook for double standards after she was banned from the social network for confronting an internet troll, yet a meme she reported depicting domestic violence did not qualify to be removed. Well, there are plenty of Facebook pages that attack others based on “religion and national origin”. I’m guessing that Facebook doesn’t really care and only acts when someone complains. (2.3) >>pressure on Facebook. The double standard is obvious on FACEBOOK while now its playing the role of the NET NANNY.Whenever the social media company has been pressed to explain its decision-making, it has referred to its community standards, a public document that outlines Facebook’s rules for users. The company has outright bans against violent content, nudity and terrorist recruitment propaganda. The rules on other types of content, including hate speech and false news, are more ambiguous. Facebook content still contains the same violent content, nudity and terrorist recruitment propaganda.
ADDITIONAL NOTES :
With censoring what is called hate speech . Defining hate speech , separating protesting has always been a thin line between the First Amendment rights. Burning the American flag has always been one of the most shocking and controversial means of protest, from hippies in the 1960s to today, with an anti-Trump flag-burning demonstration outside the Republican National Convention. While I must concur that flag burning is not my way of expression of not agreeing with my government , its a issue not on its own a American one , world protesters sometimes burn their nations flag , not so uncommon . What has this to do with Alex Jones ? Here is a good example : A man whose case set Supreme Court precedent over the constitutionality of burning the American flag -- and whose flag-burning activities led to his arrest during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland -- is suing Cleveland for what he said are his violated free-speech rights. Gregory "Joey" Johnson is also suing the conspiracy website InfoWars and its operator, Alex Jones. Joseph Biggs, a former InfoWars employee, and Jordan Salkin, who still works at the site, are also named as defendants in the suit. They were listed as victims in the documents that charged Johnson with a crime. Johnson's suit says the pair lied about their injuries, and pointed to a YouTube video Biggs made that said he was an aggressor, not a victim. The big question here is inciting violence. Facebook did give a reason for banning Jones, though, and it's a fairly weak and ill-defined one. "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," the company explained. The problem was not that Jones was lying, or engaged in libel, or spreading fake news. The problem was hate speech. But we don't know which statements he made were deemed hateful, or why. We don't know if Jones is being singled out, or if anyone who said the things he said would be banned. We don't know if a statement has to be targeted at a particular person to count as bullying, or whether generic trutherism could fit the bill. When Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) grilled him on how Facebook defined hate speech. It was an interesting exchange. Zuckerberg was straightforwardly uncertain about how the site would handle such accusations moving forward. Alex Jones was certainly the easy target of "reverse hate" .The legitimacy or illegitimacy of 'Hate speech' is subjective, depending upon the perspective of the observer.
Censorship & the Media .
ADDITIONAL NOTES :
With censoring what is called hate speech . Defining hate speech , separating protesting has always been a thin line between the First Amendment rights. Burning the American flag has always been one of the most shocking and controversial means of protest, from hippies in the 1960s to today, with an anti-Trump flag-burning demonstration outside the Republican National Convention. While I must concur that flag burning is not my way of expression of not agreeing with my government , its a issue not on its own a American one , world protesters sometimes burn their nations flag , not so uncommon . What has this to do with Alex Jones ? Here is a good example : A man whose case set Supreme Court precedent over the constitutionality of burning the American flag -- and whose flag-burning activities led to his arrest during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland -- is suing Cleveland for what he said are his violated free-speech rights. Gregory "Joey" Johnson is also suing the conspiracy website InfoWars and its operator, Alex Jones. Joseph Biggs, a former InfoWars employee, and Jordan Salkin, who still works at the site, are also named as defendants in the suit. They were listed as victims in the documents that charged Johnson with a crime. Johnson's suit says the pair lied about their injuries, and pointed to a YouTube video Biggs made that said he was an aggressor, not a victim. The big question here is inciting violence. Facebook did give a reason for banning Jones, though, and it's a fairly weak and ill-defined one. "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," the company explained. The problem was not that Jones was lying, or engaged in libel, or spreading fake news. The problem was hate speech. But we don't know which statements he made were deemed hateful, or why. We don't know if Jones is being singled out, or if anyone who said the things he said would be banned. We don't know if a statement has to be targeted at a particular person to count as bullying, or whether generic trutherism could fit the bill. When Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) grilled him on how Facebook defined hate speech. It was an interesting exchange. Zuckerberg was straightforwardly uncertain about how the site would handle such accusations moving forward. Alex Jones was certainly the easy target of "reverse hate" .The legitimacy or illegitimacy of 'Hate speech' is subjective, depending upon the perspective of the observer.
Censorship & the Media .
Apple, Facebook, Spotify and YouTube’s ban turned Jones into a martyr for the far-right and fringe communities looking for a new man to stand behind as they push their own agendas. But it’s not a freedom of speech issue, nor one of censorship. The First Amendment, which gives American citizens the freedom of speech, states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Other popular right-wing YouTubers, including Glenn Beck, Secureteam10 and Daily Wire editor-in-chief, Ben Shapiro, echoed Jones’ rhetoric. Shapiro and Beck both said while they disagree with Jones’ views, YouTube’s move set a dangerous precedent. Beck referred to platforms removing Jones’ content as a “very sad day for freedom of speech.”
The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.
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