[The New Yorker] Alex Jones, the First Amendment, and the Digital Public Square

The conservative standard bearer right here.

 

Thanks for the sincere reply. I do appreciate it.

1. "They always come for the fringe targets first" is familiar, and it has been true in totalitarian states. But the "they" is always the ruling government. Here, we are talking about a private business and that business has the overwhelming goal of making money. The actual government right now, love it or hate it, is completely controlled by conservatives. If anything, they are simultaneously asking these companies invasive questions about their mode of business and also asking them to monitor foreign troll attacks. But by "they," in this case, you mean Twitter. Not sure what a historical analogy would be for a private company coming "for the fringe targets first." Why would a business that needs billions of customers be interested in a systematic expansion of suppression like you suggest? Even if they were totally politically liberal, (which I would dispute, in this case, and I'm sharing a city with their very conservative, rich asses), they want to make as much money as possible.

2. If we have twitter-based evidence of other accounts (e.g. The Muslim Brotherhood) misbehaving on Twitter, according to the stated code of conduct, then your complaints about them make a lot of sense. But absent misbehaving on Twitter, the complaint is a false one.

If a convicted felon walks into a 7-11 but behaves normally in the store, he has every right to buy a pack of peanuts and leave. If an otherwise-innocent man walks into a 7-11, drunk out of his mind, and starts huffing the nitrous oxide from the tops of whipped cream dispensers, the owner of the 7-11 has every reason to kick him out of the 7-11. Businesses do not generally screen the past lives or external activities of customers. They do monitor behavior that might hurt their business or violate the spirit of their business.

Jones is doing this all intentionally to push boundaries and get himself banned in his crazy martyr scheme. I only hope he doesn't take millions with him when his obvious cult-like schtick plays out to its doomed and sad ending, his own burning-of-compound or mixing of punch.

 

Alex Jones is really just a more political version of Art Bell.....and oddly enough Coast to Coast AM still has their Twitter. Funny how that works.

 

Alex Jones is comic relief for conservatives, it's a kind of niche market. Even his own followers dont take him seriously. He does make some good points like all people with verbal diarrhea, there will be a few hits. Under 10% but valid nonetheless. If you want to ban him for his aggression that's fine , but then ban sasha baron Cohen for his aggression. Ban religious extremist groups. This is twitter selectively preying on the weak and never touching hateful liberals who make non stop threats.

The media can keep doing this, but the people spoke with their votes and showed they dont care for how news is funneled to em. Trump will get reelected in 2020 with the weak Democrat crop and blocking Breitbart isnt going to make a difference.

 

Well if you want to make this thread about Trump when it isn't,ill oblige at state that the President thinks Alex Jones "does great work".


Also, it's easy to make false equivalencies between random entities like Sacha Baron Cohen and Alex Jones with no supporting evidence. But then you have deal with the fact that no one rational will take your statement seriously.

At the end of the say I'm confused why conservatives don't allow the free market to decide what private companies should allow on their platform they created.

Does Clutch not have a right to ban anyone he wants for any reason he likes other than race, gender and religious affiliation?

 

What about religious extremist groups? Al Qaeda is still recruiting heavily off social media.

What about people who make non stop aggressive memes about the President, his family and encourage insubordination by refusing to engage in rational discussion?

Again I am fine banning alex jones altogether , hes comic relief not legit news , but ban the so called comedy that's on your side too. Subtle attacks vs obnoxious attacks are still attacks.

 

Like being sued by Sandy Hook parent’s?

 

If my fellow conservatives want cake shops to be able to not make cakes for gay couples, then online companies should have every right to remove anyone they don't approve of from their platforms. You can't really have it both ways. Either companies have the right, or they don't.

Them removing "conservatives" (more like crazies) may not be right, but they have the right... and you have the right to boycott or not use their services.

 

I think the bigger issue is that CIS and FAIR are phooney baloney "institutions/centers" that put out dishonest work.

 

this is always the excuse for censorship (rather than discredit you, we will silence you)

 

Ha ha ha... Get it? Cause the only person who would be a dirty feminist would have to be someone who is a carpet munching lesbian. And the only reason they'd be a lesbian is because the're too ugly to get a man.



Twitter is a brand. If it were my brand, I wouldn't want this person anywhere near it, either.

It's like when Rush Limbaugh was on Monday Night Football. You guys can say whatever regressive crap you want to say in your own basements to each other. Have a full on klan meeting, whatever.

But you need to get out of your basement more often if you dont realize exactly how offended the rest of the world is when you say that crap in public.

 

Tucker Carlson looks like the Ole Miss Student President, Class of '62

 

I agree. Private companies should be able to do what they want. I do not agree with many of Twitters decisions on who they ban but I admit it is their choice to do so. If right leaning people are upset about what these social media companies do then they can start their own social media service.

 

If they want to behave like publishers who can censor their content, then they should lose their platform exemption. The platform exemption should only exist for companies whose censorship is the enforcement of law.

Yeah sure it's their company, but if they want to behave like a publisher, then they should be liable for the content that they publish.

 

They aren't publishing anything nor acting like publishers.

 

the legality and ethics of the censorship are separate issues

some are arguing the former, but I agree, the case is weak

But the analogy would be if the phone company cut off your line based on the substance of your conversation. That's how Twitter is behaving.