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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>The Internet is like the power of TV and radio in the hands of the people, and the power of the people is beyond guns and religion.

What makes people powerful is coordination.

The public space for conversation on the web are a handful of platforms - and those can easily be controlled.

The rest can still exist (personal webpages and so on), but they will remain fringe.

>Censorship has always been about maintaining their narrative.

Well, first they came for Alex Jones, but I didn't do anything, I wasn't a conspiracy nut...

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It’s funny how hard they went on Alex Jones as that can pretty much summarize to us all whether they were afraid of his rhetoric or not.

They were very afraid.

People who casually read conspiracy and alternative news (e.g. not hardcore conspiracy theorists who read David Icke), might believe some crazy crap (that doesn't hurt anyone, just discredits themselves), but they are also more prone to questioning the mainstream narratives (and that is very much feared).

Not to mention that a lot of very true shit going on is indeed conspiracies -- it just doesn't involve aliens and illuminati, but established powers (e.g. the white establishment having FBI follow and discredit MLK and other civil rights activists), state agencies, rich private interests buying politicians and forming cartels, powerful elites pushing their agendas, big industries promoting their crap (e.g. big food and big tobacco buying their own "scientific research" and then promoting it in through the magazines they advertise in) and so on...

Well that is simply not true.

For example, the Sandy Hook harassment brigade caused real harm, eg: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-crime-sandyhook-i...

Yeah, a false story can cause such harassment, but that's not unique it conspiracy stories. An actual true fact could cause harassment as well (e.g. people attacking muslims after 9/11, because the perpetrators where muslims, and so on).

I'd say the problem lies more with people that find it acceptable to harass others, whether their actions are based on a true story or a hoax.

I feel you are stretching here. It seems everyone who ends up involved in a major internet conspiracy gets serious harassment. You can't disconnect conspiracies from the harassment they cause.

I'm glad you have conceded that it is harmful.

I agree there are many other things which are also harmful.

Rather cheap sarcasm, no? If those "many other things which are also harmful" apply equally to the opposite thing, then it's probably neither the thing nor the opposite that is the actual cause of the harm.

Someone wanting to harass someone else can do it over a true story (person X did X) just as well as over a conspiracy story (aliens made person Y did Z).

The fault lies with the harasser (who is acting badly) not with the reason why they harass.

Or maybe you think that if a story is true then it's OK to harass people over it?

I think we agree that isn’t true.

Both the harasser and the person encouraging it can be at fault.

You can throw in all the strawmen you like.

There are plenty of very harmful conspiracy nuts. Some Parents of children killed at Sandy Hook have had to go into hiding to avoid people accusing them of being part of a cover-up. Employees of Comet Pizza have been stalked and verbally attacked.

Who is this "they" you speak of? Is it the normal people horrified by the harassment that he unleashed on people?

Trolling has been a problem for internet platforms since the Usenet days. The solution has always ended up being banning that individual from the place they are doing the harassing.

That's just sensible community management.

They are the people who own the country. They are the people who are invited to the Bilderberg meetings. They are those who fund think tanks. They are the people whose kids are guaranteed a seat in an Ivy league school, regardless of merit. They are also VERY unlikely to face jail time when they are accused of a crime; which is rare.

No, they are not a single entity. No they aren't perfectly coordinated. No, they aren't a single group conspiring in a smokey room.

But they are a social group. They go to the same schools, live in the same ZIP codes and vacation in similar places. They marry overwhelming among themselves. There are a few thousand families in the US with that level of power. New families reach these power levels and other families fall off, it isn't a fixed thing.

But you'll know who they are because you and I aren't invited to their clubs.

There's a great documentary produced by an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune that gives a great insight into this. As a member of the top of the top, Johnson was able to personally interview many mega-rich children like Ivanka Trump and others, and give a direct look at what they're like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km_JmxnzTvc

Err..

This sounds unlikely, since these are the people who are least affected by people like Jones. I'd also note that many of these people are also the ones making noises about a conspiracy against conservative voices in silicon valley.

The people who banned Jones are more like people like me. People who hate the lying, disrespect and trolling he represents.

First they came for Alex Jones and I applauded because he was a jerk, then they came for me.

Speaking of bans, can private companies censor government communications, from a legal PoV?

Say company “X” runs a comms medium, and either an official office channel or an official with a private channel is contrary to the views of that entity, can that private entity legally censor government communication?

Which government came for alex jones exactly?

None. GP is conflating US companies with the government.

There's not much difference in a corporatist state, where a heck of a lot of the wealth is concentrated in a few private corporations and interests...

That's the same whether it's the USA or some Latin American country with 5 wealthy families enjoying politicians in their pockets.

"What's good for the country is good for General Motors"-style...

It could be argued that private companies censoring you violates your first amendment rights. And it probably will be decided by the supreme court in the next few years.

Free speech is a concept, not just the bare letter of the text of the bill of rights. [1]

And there are examples of private companies being forbidden from censoring or removing people.

For example, the courts ruled that a private airport was forbidden from kicking out people who were there to hand out flyers. [2]

And, do you seriously think it is ok for the private electricity company or the postal service to deny access to their network because they disagree with your politics? Is it really ok, just because "property rights"?

The first telegram network was a total monopoly, and was used as a tool by the wealthy to manipulate elections and tamper with commodities prices.

It was because of this that we got common carriage laws.

Back then, would you have defended the telegraph company banning journalists who criticized labor practices in coal mines? Why not? It's their private property after all. Those labor organizers and human rights activists should have thought about the consequences of their actions before attempting to expose child labor.

[1]: http://magaimg.net/img/5yri.png

[2]: https://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/12/26/ca-supremes-give-free-s...

> It could be argued that private companies censoring you violates your first amendment rights

No it absolutely cannot be argued that. The 1st amendment clearly applies to the government, and there is no legislation requiring the same for private companies/citizens. There would need to be a law equating corporations to government (there is not) at a federal level.

> It could be argued that private companies censoring you violates your first amendment rights.

No, it can't First Amendment rights apply only to federal government action.

Equivalent rights are interpreted as applying to State government action under the incorporation doctrine tied to the 14th Amendment.

You could possibly make an argument that the 14th Amendment applies to corporate (or LLC, but not sole proprietorship) action based on a theory that a state-chartered corporation’s actions are, ipso facto, state actions, but that's very out of line with basically all US legal precedent.

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