Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

in reality, all of this has been a total load of old bollocks

Is it right for them to strike Alex Jones from their platfoms

Right
13
76%
Wrong
2
12%
Not sure
2
12%
 
Total votes: 17

User avatar
Davey the Fat Boy
Posts: 24007
Joined: 05 Jan 2006, 02:55
Location: Applebees

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 10 Aug 2018, 04:28

The Modernist wrote:
Davey the Fat Boy wrote:There is no “free speech” issue here. The first amendment guarantees that the government will not ban you. But Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iTunes and all of the other platforms mentioned on this thread are privately owned, and therefore have the right to decide what content they present and/or amplify.
.


Is it quite that simple Davey? Privately owned yes, but they depend on user generated content so it's not quite the same thing as a newspaper or television channel which have professionally created content that has been specifically commissioned. Furthermore they now have such a monopoly on what's being viewed or consumed on the net, that it is potentially a problem if they start deciding what views can or can't be heard.
Just to make clear, I'm not saying they were wrong in this instance as I don't know enough about the particulars of this case.



Well...if you want to make a moral case on those grounds - you could argue it that way. But then you’d have to deal with the particulars of who Alex Jones is and what he tries to pass off as news.

But from a legal POV it couldn’t be much simpler. Only the government can censor.


(Just saw hizzoner’s comment saying the same thing. My bad).
“Remember I have said good things about benevolent despots before.” - Jimbo

Image

User avatar
Sneelock
Posts: 14077
Joined: 19 Nov 2011, 23:56
Location: Lincoln Head City

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Sneelock » 10 Aug 2018, 07:07

That dude is dangerous. I knew he was dangerous back when they were playing him late at night on Pacifica radio and failed to give generously as a result. I understand the appeal of someone who sees a snake in every garden but I also understand the danger of scared, angry people running around with golf clubs looking for snakes.

A random sampling of any five minutes of any broadcast shows you what Alex Jones is about - riling people up. In a sane world he would have been fined and shamed and afraid to show his face in public YEARS ago. Good riddance.

People who care about what he has to say won’t have any trouble hearing him. His followers are pissed that it will be harder to subject others to his maniacal ramblings. Fuck ‘em.
uggy poopy doody.

User avatar
never/ever
Posts: 26478
Joined: 27 Jun 2008, 14:21
Location: Journeying through a burning brain

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby never/ever » 10 Aug 2018, 09:05

Having seen that doco on Facebook by the BBC makes me wonder about the way that management team decides what constitutes free speech and what is breaching any regulations they have -i.e., leaving dangerous content up online if the membership is large enough to warrant them a protected status.

I haven't believed in free speech ever since social media started their own form of regulation and I wouldn't drive dicks like this underground either, feeding their righteous beliefs to what the law says.
kath wrote:i do not wanna buy the world a fucquin gotdamn coke.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 10 Aug 2018, 10:07

Just thinking how on little old BCB if I write one "forbidden" word I get shut out for some hours. How is it Facebook couldn't do the same?
Question authority.

User avatar
never/ever
Posts: 26478
Joined: 27 Jun 2008, 14:21
Location: Journeying through a burning brain

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby never/ever » 10 Aug 2018, 10:10

Jimbo wrote:Just thinking how on little old BCB if I write one "forbidden" word I get shut out for some hours. How is it Facebook couldn't do the same?



They have zlib compression disabled.
kath wrote:i do not wanna buy the world a fucquin gotdamn coke.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 10 Aug 2018, 10:14

never/ever wrote:
Jimbo wrote:Just thinking how on little old BCB if I write one "forbidden" word I get shut out for some hours. How is it Facebook couldn't do the same?



They have zlib compression disabled.


zlib is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm and used in their gzip file compression program
.

Of course! :?
Question authority.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 10 Aug 2018, 10:35

Jimbo wrote:
never/ever wrote:
Jimbo wrote:Just thinking how on little old BCB if I write one "forbidden" word I get shut out for some hours. How is it Facebook couldn't do the same?



They have zlib compression disabled.


zlib is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm and used in their gzip file compression program
.

Of course! :?




Jimmy makes some good points here, one is that FB, YouTube and Twitter are so big they're pretty much the only game around and so should be considered monopolies and made into utilities regulated by the government with free speech guarantees. Also Jimmy thinks if Alex Jones or anyone online hurt you somehow, sue him, take him to court.
Question authority.

User avatar
the masked man
Schadenfreude
Posts: 27074
Joined: 21 Jul 2003, 12:29
Location: Peterborough

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby the masked man » 10 Aug 2018, 11:12

Ah yes, social media platforms regulated by the Trump government. What could possibly go wrong?

User avatar
Jimbly
Posts: 21957
Joined: 21 Jul 2003, 23:17
Location: ????

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbly » 10 Aug 2018, 11:13

Jimmy is talking shite
So Long Kid, Take A Bow.

User avatar
Sneelock
Posts: 14077
Joined: 19 Nov 2011, 23:56
Location: Lincoln Head City

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Sneelock » 10 Aug 2018, 16:25

Davey the Fat Boy wrote:But from a legal POV it couldn’t be much simpler. Only the government can censor.


(Just saw hizzoner’s comment saying the same thing. My bad).


mine too. it bears repeating.
I don't think Alex Jones is having his free speech folded, spindled or mutilated. on the contrary. I think Alex Jones Free Speech made him so toxic that people in the business of making money don't want to take a hit in their big, fat wallets.

it's the Free Market, Bay-Buh!
uggy poopy doody.

User avatar
Sneelock
Posts: 14077
Joined: 19 Nov 2011, 23:56
Location: Lincoln Head City

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Sneelock » 10 Aug 2018, 21:38

The internet has done a lot of things. One of the things it’s done is mainstream the FUCK out of incendiary rhetoric. He’s a hate jockey, man. fuck that guy.
uggy poopy doody.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 11 Aug 2018, 01:33

Taibbi: Beware the Slippery Slope of Facebook Censorship

The social network is too big and broken to properly function, and these “fixes” will only create more problems
By Matt Taibbi

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... es-705766/
Question authority.

User avatar
Sneelock
Posts: 14077
Joined: 19 Nov 2011, 23:56
Location: Lincoln Head City

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Sneelock » 11 Aug 2018, 18:51

Thanks for posting. I always enjoy reading Matt Taibbi.

I share many of his concerns, especially regarding the Atlantic council and Ye Olde “National Security” canard. I have a simple rule of thumb: it’s never a good thing when people decide what should be secret IN SECRET.

Something MT doesn’t bring up that also concerns me is the arbitrary nature of who gets regulated and who doesn’t. If I understand correctly Black Lives Matters does - any number of Holocaust denial groups don’t.

I think this harkens back to what’s been said or implied earlier in the thread. Facebook doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what Alex Jones says. They are covering their ass. Yes, the Communications Deceny Act is an umbrella but I think, given many current events, it’s a weak little Wile E. Coyote umbrella. It’s just a matter of time before Facebook gets hit in the wallet one way or the other and it is MZ’s prime directive to keep that from happening.

Everybody who reads Snopes with any regularity knows what minah birds people are with what they read on the internet. Maybe the magazine stand example is a good one. Well, this magazine stand sticks articles from “Soldier of Fortune” between the covers of “Cat Fancy”

It’s true, you can’t force people to be informed. People still want to think Abe Lincoln said something he didn’t say even after being corrected more than once.

I think people who are interested in what idjits like Alex Jones have to say have every right to soak their heads in it. I think people mostly looking at cat videos being subjected to his ramblings is a problem. I’ll agree that working with the government in secret wouldn’t be my choice of how to deal with it. An angry man saying things that aren’t true in a format resembling public affairs programming is a problem. I think that sort of stuff should have been marked with disclaimers years ago.

Why wasn’t it? Well, I think they were making a lot of money off people who wanted to cross pollinate stuff like that. It was a concerted and deliberate effort to confuse and misinform people. I’ll assume the checks cleared. Facebook will look first to the money gods before they do anything. These are fickle Gods. Who knows how things will look by election time?

I thought this was a good NYT article about the nuts & bolts of juking the media platforms.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... llers.html
uggy poopy doody.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 12 Aug 2018, 13:21

sneelock wrote:
I think people who are interested in what idjits like Alex Jones have to say have every right to soak their heads in it.



I am reminded in this PCR essay that everything Jones spouts is not wrong or fake. Over the years AJ has told a lot of truth especially about the encroachment of the government over our lives and the loss of our liberties. And that, argues PRC, is why they went after Jones.


Apple, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Subvert the US Constitution, Free Speech, and American Liberty
August 7, 2018 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article Print This Article

Apple, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Subvert the US Constitution, Free Speech, and American Liberty

Paul Craig Roberts

The coordinated attack on widely watched Info Wars host Alex Jones by Apple, Facebook, Google/Youtube, and Spotify is all the proof that we need that the total failure to enforce America’s anti-trust laws has produced unaccountably powerful firms that are able to exercise far more censorship, not only in America but also abroad among Washington’s vassal states, than the Nazi Gestapo or Stalin’s NKVD were ever able to achieve.

Recently the progressive Rob Kall and I discussed on his show the implications of a trillion dollar company, which Apple now is. A day or two afterward, Rob Kall wrote an article on his website OpEdNews in which he made a case that a trillion dollar company had too much power for our continuation as a free people. I agree with him. Only 16 countries out of 195 countries in the world, a mere 0.08 percent, have a GDP equal to or larger than one trillion dollars.

Think about that. Apple is larger than the GNP of almost every country in the world. In other words, Apple has the power of a major government. Apple could be a member of the G-20. Apple could institute its own currency and be part of SDR drawing rights. Apple could participate as a backer of IMF and World Bank loans. Apple could have its own military and secret service.

No sooner than Rob Kall made his case than Apple proved it, along with the other tech monopolies: Google/Youtube, Spotify, and Facebook. https://www.rt.com/usa/435259-infowars- ... er-reacts/

In the US almost everything has been monopolized—the digital world; 90% of the print and TV media owned by 5 or 6 companies; 90% of bank deposits in 5 large banks “too big to fail; Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes which have abolished independent community family stores; auto parts franchises that have abolished family businesses; restuarant franchises that have destroyed family restaurants; pharmacautical and chemical monopolies. It is endless. The monopolization of the American economy was done under the rubric of “globalism.” The dogma is that you can’t compete globally unless you are large enough to be a monopoly or near-monopoly.

The digital revolution combined with Identity Politics has made it easy to curtail free speech. Any attention to issues that the ruling elite doesn’t want mentioned, any truth-telling that exposes hidden agendas, is branded “conspiracy theory” or “hate speech” and shut down. That monopoly power is what Apple, Facebook, Gogle/Youtube and Spotify have now exercised against Alex Jones.

Alex is just the beginning. He is outspoken and at times over the top. But he puts into the limelight issues that the ruling powers want kept in the shadows. This, and only this, is the reason that the ruling elite are attempting to shut him down. The hate speech charge is a fabricated joke.

What Apple, Facebook, and the rest of the American Gestapo mean is that the Truth Is Hate Speech. This is straight out of George Orwell’s 1984.

The deception of the American people by censuring truth-tellers is now the official policy of Apple, Google/Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Spotify.

The print and TV media have already fired all the real journalists, such as Robert Perry, Chris Hedges, and Sy Hersh. Now that Alex Jones is being driven off the Internet, the elite’s determination to control all explanations will spread over the Internet until every truth-teller is shut down. It is just a matter of time.

Indeed the censorship is rapidly spreading. Twitter has now banned the presence of Scott Horton who is the editorial director of antiwar.com and Daniel McAdams who is director of the libertarian Ron Raul Institute. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08- ... g-ron-paul Tommy Robinson has had his Instagram page removed. https://www.rt.com/uk/435312-tommy-robi ... agram-ban/ Former State Department official Peter Van Buren has been banned from Twitter, apparently because he told us that government officials lie to us.

Identity Politics, which helped to impose speech codes and to create the catgegory of “hate speech” which any member of a “victim group” can turn against white males, is one source of the censorship that is destroying free speech throughout the Western World. However, in the United States the most powerful force for censorship is the fact that the agendas of the rulingj elite are unacceptable to the American people. The ruling elite fear that their cover stories are so thin that even those who have been brainwashed will see the light if any truth continues to shine.

In the Western World today nothing is more endangered than truth. No public or private institution, whether the CIA, FBI, or Justice (sic) Department, or Facebook, Apple, Google, Youtube, or Twitter, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, New York Times, or Washington Post has any respect whatsoever for truth.

Truth is in the way of hidden agendas. The presstitutes serve the hidden agendas, not the truth.

Nothing is less welcome in Western political systems than the truth. Yet the Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian, and Indian governments still puruse meaningless agreements with Washington, agreements, like the Iranian one, that have no possibility whatsoever of being kept by Washington.

Washington intends to exercise hegemony over the world. The neoconservatives, who together with Israel with whom the neoconservatives are solidly allied, control US foreign policy and are firmly committed to US hegemony over the world. If the governments of Russia, China, Iran, India, and North Korea do not understand this, they are in for a hard ride.

What can we do? Never purchase another Apple product. Desert Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify. Terminate all Google email accounts and never use a Google search engine. These firms are Nazi Gestapo firms. They deserve our condemnation. These despicable companies should be nationalized or abolished or arrested for aiding the plot to overthrow the President of the United States.

They are the agents of evil.

There are alternative portals. Turn to them and support the ones that refuse to censor free speech. Hopefully, the anti-democratic actions by Facebook, Twitter and the rest will destroy their business model, and their place will be taken by new firms that respect the Constitution’s protection of free speech.

Are Americans so stupid that they do not see what is unfolding in front of their eyes? Our ruling elite have agendas that they cannot defend. People like Alex Jones expose these agendas. The ruling elite have to shut this exposure down, so they misrepresent and demonize Alex Jones. Those brainwashed into Identity Politics and the presstitute media are manipulated and used to instigate a campaign against Alex Jones, just as they have been used against President Trump, Julian Assange, Snowden, and many others. Indeed, PropOrNot was used against 200 independent-minded websites.

Once they get Alex, who they made a target, they will make a target of the rest of us, and all truth will disappear from the entirety of the Western World. Indeed, truth has a scant presence in the existing Western World. The ruling elites have no interest in truth. At some point the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Indians, and North Koreans will have to become aware of this fact.

Before you stupidly, as so many insouciant Americans will do, jump on the anti-Alex Jones bandwaggon, remember and think about the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller’s observation of his time under the Nazis:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

This time they are starting with Alex Jones.

Soon it will be all of us. In America free speech, which is essential to the discovery of truth, is being systematically exterminated. The idea that the United States is a free country is the greatest lie ever told.
Question authority.

User avatar
Sneelock
Posts: 14077
Joined: 19 Nov 2011, 23:56
Location: Lincoln Head City

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Sneelock » 13 Aug 2018, 19:05

well, everybody is entitled to an opinion. I think equating what Alex Jones does to what Chris Hedges does is spectacularly dumb.
"they came for an intolerant, unhinged Hate jockey who reposts racist and sexist diatribes and I did nothing because I am not an intolerant, unhinged Hate Jockey who reposts racist and sexist diatribes"
uggy poopy doody.

User avatar
mission
Posts: 2246
Joined: 04 Apr 2008, 13:39

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby mission » 14 Aug 2018, 00:30

Alex Jones is a despicable shyster who preys on the mentally deficient.

To describe him as "outspoken and sometimes over the top" is to break all lily gilding records.

This footage is extremely revealing - I know he had his lawyer define him as an actor or entertainer but here is a genuine "crisis actor" scurrying from the reality of his handiwork:

Goodness gracious me.

User avatar
bobzilla77
Posts: 16280
Joined: 23 Jun 2006, 02:56
Location: Dilute! Dilute! OK!

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby bobzilla77 » 14 Aug 2018, 19:28

Snarfyguy wrote:
Jimbo wrote:Why is he banned all of a sudden? That's where we need to get some specifics.

Wasn't it just last week that he appeared to be suggesting that Robert Mueller should be shot, while somehow keeping it just this side of incitement?

"It's going to happen, we're going to walk out in the square, politically, at high noon, and he's going to find out whether he makes a move, man make the move first, and then it's going to happen," Jones said as he pantomimed shooting at Mueller.

"It's not a joke. It's not a game. It's the real world. Politically. You're going to get it, or I'm going to die trying, bitch. Get ready. We're going to bang heads," Jones continued, pretending to fire a gun at Mueller.


I think it's not so much that I "don't like" him, but that this sort of thing clearly crosses a line. Private companies that own social media apps are of course free to arrive at the same conclusion. They all have terms of service and this kind of speech pretty clearly has no place on their platforms (unless they just don't give a f*ck and just want the money).


Jimbo you got pretty upset with me for insisting you were a Russian troll.

Imagine if I were calling for people to do violence against you. Then imagine BCB took me as seriously as the real world takes Alex Jones. All it takes is a couple of true believers.
Jimbo wrote:I guess I am over Graham Nash's politics. Hopelessly naive by the standards I've molded for myself these days.

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 14 Aug 2018, 20:00

bobzilla77 wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
Jimbo wrote:Why is he banned all of a sudden? That's where we need to get some specifics.

Wasn't it just last week that he appeared to be suggesting that Robert Mueller should be shot, while somehow keeping it just this side of incitement?

"It's going to happen, we're going to walk out in the square, politically, at high noon, and he's going to find out whether he makes a move, man make the move first, and then it's going to happen," Jones said as he pantomimed shooting at Mueller.

"It's not a joke. It's not a game. It's the real world. Politically. You're going to get it, or I'm going to die trying, bitch. Get ready. We're going to bang heads," Jones continued, pretending to fire a gun at Mueller.


I think it's not so much that I "don't like" him, but that this sort of thing clearly crosses a line. Private companies that own social media apps are of course free to arrive at the same conclusion. They all have terms of service and this kind of speech pretty clearly has no place on their platforms (unless they just don't give a f*ck and just want the money).


Jimbo you got pretty upset with me for insisting you were a Russian troll.

Imagine if I were calling for people to do violence against you. Then imagine BCB took me as seriously as the real world takes Alex Jones. All it takes is a couple of true believers.


Not that Jones isn't a loathsome character, mock-threatening Mueller, as you show, blatantly antisemitic, a potential rabble rouser, but still it's the freedom of speech principal of the thing to which I object and the sudden timing which I suspect. Prior to but with more shut-downs to come, it isn't just Jones who are banned. Jones is the great buck head hung over the mantle but other anti-government narrative sites are being shut down or given strikes while lying mainstream sites like The Guardian go on to spout their propaganda. And like Jimmy Dore had pointed out, truly fake news sites like The National Enquirer or The Star with their two-headed baby stories can carry on. None should be blanketed and wholly shut down because in a free society dummies and eggheads are free to read and see what we like. As a compromise they can take down the "offensive" post.

As a conspiracy theorist the timing is even more worrisome. Governments, corporations, mainstream media, along with the Googles, etc., are getting their ducks in a row to do all they can to carry on with their capitalist war agenda and capture the minds of fucking everyone! Jones was anti-war, do you know that? The genie is out of the bottle you may think but think again, they hold the bottle and the stopper. I'll bet they look at the limited Chinese internet with envy. We frogs are in the water and my guess is the water is about to boil.
Question authority.

User avatar
toomanyhatz
Power-mad king of the WCC
Posts: 29992
Joined: 07 Apr 2005, 00:01
Location: Just east of where Charlie Parker went to do some relaxin'

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby toomanyhatz » 14 Aug 2018, 20:30

other anti-government narrative sites are being shut down or given strikes


Name 'em.

I can't think of a single one of your "sources" that's been shut down or even silenced in any way. Jimmy Dore keeps right on yelling at me.
Footy wrote:
The Who / Jimi Hendrix Experience Saville Theatre, London Jan '67
. Got Jimi's autograph after the show and went on to see him several times that year


1959 1963 1965 1966 1974 1977 1978 1981 1988 2017* 2018 2020!! 2023?

Jimbo
Dribbling idiot airhead
Posts: 19645
Joined: 26 Dec 2009, 21:22

Re: Internet Platform Removals, i.e. Alex Jones

Postby Jimbo » 14 Aug 2018, 20:42

toomanyhatz wrote:
other anti-government narrative sites are being shut down or given strikes


Name 'em.

I can't think of a single one of your "sources" that's been shut down or even silenced in any way. Jimmy Dore keeps right on yelling at me.


Dore and others have been "demonitized." They've fucked with algorithms where sites like Syria and Red Helmet-outing sites like 20th Century Wire come up many pages back in searches. Scott Horton had his podcast muted. And funnily when I open my YouTube page five out of ten times Rachael Maddow is my first recommendation. There are others I've heard of, Hillary, but how about you Google banned sites and see what you get.

The good news is our Soma is still on tap. By Soma I mean porn.
Question authority.


Return to “Nextdoorland”