It's alarming. I feel like the common sentiment on censorship, and many other issues, among my in-group has shifted under my feet. We have existing laws against harassment and terroristic threats, and in the case of Alex Jones it seems to me that those legal avenues are being pursued properly, so de-platforming serves only to create a dangerous precedent. As an anti-war leftist, I know that my group is next on the chopping block if it's not there already.

Yes these are private platforms, but that line of reasoning ignores the extent of the coordination between governments and these corporations. Do any of you Americans ever think how this kind of precedent will play out in smaller countries, where Facebook blindly does the bidding of corrupt governments? The internet and social media networks are the telephone and mail systems of the 21st century. At least until it is more feasible to have an online presence without going through multiple corporations as intermediaries, I think we need to be more diligent about protecting even the ugliest forms of speech on private platforms.