Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themselves be pressured into) censuring speech more than has ever been seen in the modern West. This strikes me as an odd paradox, coming from a country where people get taught from primary school onward to "disagree with what you say but fight for your right to say it".
I wonder where all this is going to lead, especially since these few companies control so much of global information flow. Are Facebook, Google and Twitter, once self-titled champions of free information flow, going to be the forces that end America's freedom of expression (in practice at least)?
Had it been European companies operating big social media sites, you'd seen the same thing happen. Companies are companies, and they aim for profit less so principles. And more and more Americans view websites' hosting of controversial content as implicitly condoning that content.
Besides, the First Amendment only prevent governments from limiting speech, not companies.
More than the Hays Code or HUAC?
And those are just in America; I'm old enough to remember when certain UK elected members of Parliament were legally banned from speaking on television, resulting in the weird "words read by an actor" workaround.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%9394_British_broadc...
Also I don't think you can call it "absolute freedom of speech" as some speech, like calls for murder of the usual fire in a theatre exemple, are indeed not allowed. The US also has libel laws & copyright laws. To me the main difference with European style freedom of speech seems to be tolerance of extremist political/religious speech.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
A critique of islam could be considered 'hate speech'.
On the other hand I do agree that calls for violence/murder should indeed be punishable and are also far better defined to be taken up as law.
It's a grim comparison, but communism has actually produced a higher body count that nazism and fascism combined.
That US had traditionally granted free speech to all kinds of extremists, no matter the -ism, was truly remarkable and unique. Definitely a cause for wonder (even jealousy like OP says).
And the way they found to circumvent that pesky constitutional constraint by having mega-corp-in-bed-with-gvt monopolies do the dirty work, without breaking the letter of the law, is remarkable again. An elegant "hack".
I've always found that to be a trite self-aggrandising phrase (especially in its "to the death" variant). How many of the people who have repeated that, actually stick by it long term? Gotta be microscopic.
The first amendment is scoped to the government because the constitution is scoped to the government.
Yes and no. It's true that he Constitution is scoped to government, so if there was a free speech principle that was not it might have been limited in the Constitution.
But the free speech principle actually underlying the Constitutional text is also scoped to government in that involves and relies on the freedom of all actors except government to choose what speech to make, endorse, support, relay, or associate themselves with to promote the competition of ideas and the success of good ones and elimination of bad ones, on the concept that the former will be more likely to be relayed and the latter will die out from failure to convince people to participate in spreading them.
If platforms of overwhelming reach and intrusiveness actively relay content blindly, it makes it much harder for the winnowing process to work.
In fact I firmly believe sites like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook allowing racism and other horrible crap on their sites in the mid 2000s until recently is what helped make it more mainstream. In the web of the 1990s these idiots would have had to go to their own sites that nobody else goes to. Mainstream sites like Slashdot or whatnot didn’t tolerate it. For some reason after the dot com crash the new round of sites afterward have had some kind of delusion that they need to uphold free speech. And it’s nonsense.
The usual explanation I have heard is that free speech is limited to tge govt. not able to arrest you for criticising it. It does not apply to private parties.
I think de facto censorship by private monopolies must also be illegal for true freedom of speech.
This snopes article provides some background about what happened there:
Another example of Snopes proudly declaring FALSE when PARTIALLY TRUE would be more appropriate.
Ah the modern Web, where even the 'fact-checkers' play the spin game.
How does that make a "ban" partially true?
Parents of children who were lost during Sandy Hook received physical threats and death threats because of Jones' comments. That's the line where free speech should be censored.
Welcome to the world of "plausible deniability". Deliberately speaking in a way that lets you defend yourself "oh I was only meaning metaphorically!" or "I was just joking!", where you intend a subset of your listeners to understand that you are speaking literally, is a common tactic. It's somewhat akin to the Motte and Bailey defense: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
what isn't provided in the article is the actual video that provides context. He is making the statement 'we' are under attack. The Battle rifle is being used in the context of defending yourself from these attacks.
Media Matters posted a clip of the video in question. https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1029477795561463808
In my opinion they are reaching here even in their own clip taken from Alex's periscope video. I see it as him saying 'we' need to be ready. Earlier in the clip he says the time is now to act but says economically, judiciously legally and criminally. I assume given the others he mentioned criminally meaning press charges on those who attack.
I defiantly urge people to seek out the actual video or at the very least the clip above before instantly going to the 'He deserves to be banned.
I hate that I have to say this but I'm not a fan of Alex Jones. I feel like I as well as many others have to say that (not just for this topic) otherwise its looked at as we're just followers and will defend him no matter what.
The media is made up of people.
Sure, but those are things that can't be attacked with guns. So when Jones talks about attacking them with guns, it's natural to understand it as attacking those parts which can be attacked with guns—the people, and the buildings (which contain people). And those parts have been attacked by guns recently.
Lets assume it wasn't a figure of speech. I'm with you in that I don't condone if he calling for physical attacks on people be it with a gun or some other physical means. I don't condone or agree with that in general regardless of what side its on.
From the article: "calling for supporters to get their “battle rifles” ready against media and others,"
battle rifle is in part taken out of context of what he said in the video and is editorialized to an extent to paint it in a way that could be construed as him calling to attack.
Taken out of the video with a little more context: "Because they're coming...This is it... So people need to have battle rifles ready at their bedsides..." https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1029477795561463808
I didn't put everything in that quote, but linked the video where I listen to it from so you can hear it in whole. If you take it in those terms he isn't calling for attacks or acts of violence, but is saying they are coming for you and you need to be ready to defend yourself. You can argue that defending yourself could become violent, but I see defense a little different then the aggressor.
By the way appreciate the discussion we having.
plausible deniability is clear in cases where someone makes an actual argument for something then pulls the "haha I was only trolling" argument, but to say for example to be ready for battle, in the context of politics, should not be immediately taken as a call to start tying the lynching ropes. People use references to war, battle, fighting and so on all the time in the context of political conflict.
Is that what happened? I guess I'm behind on the news; I had heard his twitter account got suspended, I didn't realize he was lynched!
Or is that just hyperbole? Why do you feel the need to resort to hyperbole in this situation, instead of discussing what actually happened?
I find interesting the transformations you use in your language—"get your battle rifles ready" becomes "be prepared", but "twitter account suspended for a week" becomes "tying the lynching ropes".
[this was edited, btw, since you responded while I was editing it]
Which is why politics is such a dangerous minefield to traverse. Sure you are never going to have absolute of anything, but certain ideologies are inherently violent in nature. And sooner or later some lunatic will do bad things in your name.
Free speech only means you are allowed to say things, it doesn't mean you get immunity from the consequences of your speech.
To be fair, that's not an "arbitrary rule" that kylesellas just made up. Censorship of speech which threatens or advocates violence is commonly accepted as a limitation to free speech necessary for maintaining civil society, and the premise is codified in law throughout the world.
>If your standard was applied consistently then then there would be no media.
The fact that the standard exists and that media also exists would imply that your definition of 'consistent application' isn't relevant.
"The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444
Twitter, of course, is not the State and can do what they want.
But if the State censored or in someway punished Jones, they would have to demonstrate that his speech constituted "inciting" "imminent" "lawless action." And there have been several cases since which have focused mostly on the "imminent" part.
Absolutism is poison.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they weren't free speech absolutists.
The compromise gives additional representation to the free citizens of a slave state equal based on 3/5 of the number of slaves, but if voting power is worth, then it is saying that worth of those who enslave is enhanced by the number enslaved. The slaves themselves, though, are not recognized having any worth.
The only sense in which the 3/5 compromise makes a slave worth 3/5 of a non-slave is that it makes the marginal increase in voting power a free citizen derived from an additional slave in the state 3/5 of what they receive from a disenfranchised non-slave. (IOW, Jim Crow and it's modern successors are 67% more politically effective for the disenfranchisers per disenfranchised person than actual slavery under the 3/5 compromise.)
It was just 4 companies that banned him, not the government. He can just go to the alternate versions of those platforms...
Alex Jones made his name originally driving around Austin with a sound truck.
You're not guaranteed an audience, full stop.
The same way all of these companies actively block spam on their platforms to improve user experiences. This is probably a result of analytics in inside Twitter where they realize that it's costing them subscribers and revenue.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean that any private entity has to facilitate it. In the US it means that the government can't instate laws that limit free speech, for what may be a broader definition of what is considered legitimate expressions thereof than you'd find in a typical European country applying the same principles.
> This strikes me as an odd paradox, coming from a country where people get taught from primary school onward to "disagree with what you say but fight for your right to say it".
Let's say that you throw a party. You invite friends and acquaintances to use your property. After a few hours, everyone is drunk and someone you don't really know well starts shouting racial slurs. You feel uncomfortable about it. Your guests feel uncomfortable about it. Would you fight for his right to use your property as a platform for his ramblings? He's ruining the party and your own reputation as a host is at stake. Your moral standards are being questioned. You would not be limiting his right to say anything by throwing him out. If nothing else he can go home and shout at a mirror.
That's the kind of situation you have with Facebook/Twitter/Google. They invite people to use their property, on their terms. If they don't like you, they'll kick you out. Even if they don't care, they might kick you out to save face. It's not paradoxical; it's very much in line with American culture: everyone should have the right to choose how to represent themselves and how to use their property. Get off my land! Trespassers will be shot!
> I wonder where all this is going to lead, especially since these few companies control so much of global information flow.
Here I think you pinpoint the problem exactly. This problem doesn't only concern censorship but how these companies treat and disseminate information overall. If public debate is largely controlled by private, poorly unregulated organizations, democracy takes a hit. Maybe tighter regulation of entities that deal with so much communication is called for. I think GDPR is a step in the right direction. Destroy the economic incentives to facilitate so much communication.
The USA does not have absolute freedom of speech, it recognizes free speech as a fundamental right which means speech restrictions are evaluated under the “strict scrutiny” test.
> At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themselves be pressured into) censuring speech more than has ever been seen in the modern West.
First, this is factually inaccurate: private parties throughout the West have controlled what speech they will choose to repeat, convey, relay, and associate themselves with under standards much more restrictive than those being applied by the controversial platforms today, which are controversial precisely because of how much extreme speech they choose to relay on their platform.
But, second, there is no paradox between the US’s strong notion of free speech and US private entities being selective about speech they will participate in: the strong free speech protection in the US has always included protecting the right of private actors to choose what speech they will participate in, not merely as a legal principle but as an essential theoretical underpinning of the right.
Turns out that there is a limit, and it's making really overt death threats. I'm surprised he didn't get banned over the "Democrats are going to have a revolution" stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/07...
> it's making really overt death threats
I don't think that's overt, but I think it's grey enough (perhaps deliberately so) that it constitutes incitement to violence. This is awesome - banning account for specific reasons (message X contained an incitement to violence) means moderation can be applied consistently. Twitter has had a much better approach in this case than FB or Apple, who've simply stated there's an issue with hate speech on the entire account without saying what it was.
No longer will it be, “get out there with your battle rifles and let the blood of the infidel run free” but it will become, “let loose your holy Christmas candy and witness the tears of the spoilt children of the Left!”
There’s no death threat or incitement to violence there.
That's inciting or soliciting violence, not a death threat.
https://www.infowars.com/new-york-times-media-matters-lie-cl...
This is the first time I ever watched or listened to Alex Jones so I have no dog in this fight. However, I do not trust outlets like the New York Times to tell the truth about conservatives who are being shut down online. Apparently my lack of trust was correct.
There are two aspects of what Jones said that make me say the NYT is lying:
He starts by outlining the people he's talking (really, ranting) about, namely commies/the reds/antifa etc. Then he says people should move against them "politically, economically, judiciously, legally, criminally" which is pretty garbled, but I don't think he meant criminally as in literally "break the law" because he prefixed it with "legally" and "judiciously". I suspect he meant "via the criminal justice system".
The reference to battle rifles comes much later in the video and it's in the exact opposite sense of what the NYT is implying. He says:
And they're coming. And they're coming. They think they can really take down America. And ... this is it. So, people need to have their battle rifles and everything ready by their bedsides, and you've gotta be ready, because the media are so sophisticated in their deception [snip]
Having them "ready by your bedside" shows very clearly this is meant in the sense of defence not unprovoked attacks and moreover defence against the people who read the media not the media itself. Jones doesn't seem to be arguing that journalists will literally be coming for people in their sleep.
It's rather unfortunately ironic that the NYT's coverage of a video in which Jones claims the media is "coming for us" and "they're so sophisticated in their deception" seems to prove him right - they are using sophisticated deception to whip up a mob that is trying to "get" him.
Will this wave of platform rejections force Alex Jones fans onto Mastodon?
I don't support Infowars but I'd take it any way over "Hai this is @EloanMusk2499 and I am giving out free cryptocurrency - just click this link or send 1BTC to this address and you'll get 10BTC in exchange!!!".
I hope that twitter is addressing that problem with stronger anti-spam measure, but it doesn't really relate to Infowars.
While companies have all the right to have control over whatever on their platforms, there just isn't a well known unfiltered, unmoderated, "real" spot on the internet anymore that is known to all - just some niche spots requiring technical or insider knowledge.
It's sickening to look at all the stock-footage-showing happy-go-lucky feeds - comments, articles, posts disappearing without a trace, individuals banned, search results removed.
I'm rather sure that the more this continues, the sooner a breakout moment happens, creating p2p-ish network not needing direct corporate support for content delivery.
To note: in no way do I support Jones, and as said, companies have the right to censor.
Could you explain what you're referring to here?
As separated cases they don't seem like much - but knowing how few major platforms there are (covering like 90% of what most internet users see) this is catastrophic. What someone should see shouldn't be decided in some Middle-European FB contractor's moderator sweatshop.
The simplicity of central platform just has all the users going there, because they don't want to search for hours to find communities to participate in.
infowars is still available at infowars.com, they just can't use the platform and distribution effects of fb, twitter, spotify, etc anymore, so they are precisely back in 1999.
I always found "disapproval by removal/banning" to be absurd. The true way of them not gaining ground is by educating people. Yes, it's a much, much harder way. Yet it's infinitely more fair, and probably the only way to a healthy society.
I really wondering, how would you educate somebody who is shouting and threatening other people. Also, can you imagine how you would feel, if your child was killed in a school shooting and then somebody is telling everybody, that you are lying?
If you want to educate this idiot, go ahead, and before you try to do it, stop him from hurting people, who are already having the worst time of their life...
It's not just him you should educate. It's more about the people who listen to him. As for shouting lies: is it a better alternative to silence that man because you are right? On one hand, argue back, and accept that he has a voice even if it hurts you, on the other, it's the task of all the people standing around to dismiss and ignore and that guy.
Let him use your property as you see fit, by all means, but don't insist others do the same.
But of course you're equating Twitter with the State or a "voice" which is ridiculous. Please stop.
Until the CloudFlare CEO decides that he wants to virtue signal too (like he already did with Stormfront).
Or until Microsoft decides to boot them from Azure (like they already did when Gab.ai had a post they didn't like).
Or until the DNS is revoked... which has already been done by government agencies.
> Or until Microsoft decides to boot them from Azure
Welcome to the Open Market. If they don't want to do business with a company, that company is free to look for another vendor that will.
If anything this will make Alex, and his followers, even crazier, as his censorship by major Web outlets only PROVES that the DEMONS behind the New World Order are plotting to silence the righteous!
Given Alex Jones weakness for theatrics he is going to play up this 'conspiracy' against him to prove every other conspiracy theory he nurtures for the next 10 years.
The 'co-ordination' however is blatant and raises questions about whether they are trying to silence him or martyr him. Is this really necessary, why is it co-ordinated and so heavy handed?
The only logical explanation for it being so brazen is they are doing this against him as cover to silence more 'problematic' figures which would raise more serious concerns about dissent and free speech. But that's a conspiracy theory.
It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, or as a Restaurant owner I can't open a 'straight white people only' restaurant, but Social Media giants can basically purge any and all far right content.
The more significant legal concept would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group, I'd imagine. "Far right" isn't on the list. (Neither is far left, incidentally.)
Regarding "history of power and violence", well, if we compare the amount of violence and harassment right-wing events and meetings get (from Antifa, and other such orgs), vs. how relatively undisturbed gay pride events are, along with the overwhelming opposition of the media, academia, corporate elite, etc., to rightist views, I think its clear that the bulk of the "power and violence" lie not with people like Jones
.. you find that you know nothing about why Pride exists and what it's for? Homophobic attacks on Pride marches themselves are relatively rare in the West these days, but individual random street attacks, abuse and discrimination against gay people are not.
(also, you seem to have forgotten that the US president and both houses are currently in power, or does that not count?)
If you start using the inappropriate language at work, HR might have something to say about that.
Freedom of speech does not protect you against yelling “Fire” in a packed movie theater.
For some reason folks think you can say anything and there are no repercussions. That’s childish.
I know it's more complicated in practice because the problem is political and other factors come into play.
If a Muslim man is punished by his employer for not shaking hands with women he meets in his work, is that religious discrimination? Or is he discriminating against the women because of their sex (also a protected class)?
What is wrong with you? What happened to you as a child that made you think this form of discrimination is even remotely acceptable?
He is saying why is it OK for a small business to be forced to accommodate something that may be against their belief system. But the biggest corporations, who are also managing our online discourse, can pick and choose what they like.
This is a form of gaslighting that tries to establish credibility for extremists that they don't have.
That is the case. In my opinion he's a hilarious nutcase, but just because you find his views offensive does not mean his speech is now illegitimate. The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow the airing of controversial opinions, even if that means you end up with professional trolls calling tragedies a hoax. Any time you make a "freedom of speech doesn't apply to opinion X" argument, you are actively arguing against freedom of speech.
> This is a form of gaslighting that tries to establish credibility for extremists that they don't have.
What does this even mean? Having a different opinion is not gaslighting and to suggest that it is, is to trivialise a form of psychological abuse.
No, these big businesses cannot say "no tweets about gay weddings".
In the UK you're not forced to bake gay wedding cakes. You have the choice to bake cakes and not bake any wedding cakes at all. What you can't do if you're a business is refuse to provide cakes to people because they have (or you perceive them to have) a protected characteristic.
Is being allowed to reenact Jim Crow something you really don't understand why you cant do?
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colo...
For overt bias-in-process reasons related to the state administrative adjudication of his particular case, not because the result otherwise would have violated his rights.