Poll of the Day > Youtube "terminates" Alex Jones channel

(+) Yeah! (+)

My only concern is if this starts a domino effect and apple, fb and yt start mass censorship.

Who?
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wwinterj25 posted...

Who?

The guy behind infowars, a website that spreads conspiracy theories and fake news, like saying that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was fake.
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Ah. Well I can't say I care about the guy or his website. Still in answer to this these platforms just don't want someone like the on their platform. It's not a attack on free speech as he's free to say whatever he wants regardless. Someone, somewhere will host his website and all he needs to do is post his videos on that.
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This is a tough subject. On one hand if hosting him is hurting business, he is not entitled to share their platform. On the other their platform is a modern day street corner and I believe that people should be able to discuss their beliefs.

On there other other hand the guy was an admitted troll. On the other other other hand this sets a bad precedent on how they will handle accounts in the future and as you said give other sites the license to do similar things.
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If it exist a need for a website to host this kind of crap, then such a website will be created.
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slacker03150 posted...

On the other their platform is a modern day street corner and I believe that people should be able to discuss their beliefs.

What the fuck? No it's not.
This is like kicking a busker out of your house.
You don't have to provide this piece of shit a platform. You aren't the govt, this isn't a violation of his first amendment rights.

I don't like the precedent this sets when the Town square argument really can be made here, and with other recent shakeups with YouTube demonetizing channels, it raises questions of how we should handle communication in the digital age.

Good luck reaching out to the masses on the distant second platforms like Vimeo. Good luck raising funds without patreon, this deplatforming thing is a politicized weapon and those that weild it would be wise to think about that in the event of a tide change.

Sure Jones still has his Infowars and prison planet sites, but what about smaller voices when the thought police deplatform them? It's a slippery slope.
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They're all about the first amendment and free market until it works against them.

Those types of people aren't constitutionalists, they're poorly disguised totalitarians.
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I don't support him or his ideology personally, and I do agree that private businesses should have the right to silence or dump any content provider they want to for whatever reason, but at the same time it really bothers me when a given site or service starts to cherry-pick who gets to stay and who has to go solely on political/ethical/moral/philosophical/ideological values.

If I had any faith that YouTube was actually going to start policing their own service and remove extremist ideology across every side of the political divide, I might be more inclined to support it. But it feels more like this is just a case of someone higher up in YouTube management pulling the trigger because they personally disagree with his politics or ideology, and that's just petty bullshit.

There's also the fear that it's going to be the start of a push to support specific ideology via exclusion, while still maintaining plausible deniability, which is scummy in general and propagandistic as fuck.

Then again, YouTube finds new ways to fuck over its content creators and shit on its users every other week, so it's not as if any of this is really a new thing. There's a reason why a lot of content is jumping to Twitch, and even YouTube isn't monolithic enough that a competitor can't step in to start stealing market share if they keep squeezing and squeezing (doubly so if they ever get their wish and manage to find a way to convert the site to something more resembling a paid streaming service where they can reap revenue from other people's work and never need feed advertiser backlash again).


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minervo posted...

My only concern is if this starts a domino effect and apple, fb and yt start mass censorship.

Once enough people get "censored", the market will respond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e35AQK014tI" data-time="

minervo posted...

My only concern is if this starts a domino effect and apple, fb and yt start mass censorship.

And when that doesn't fuckin' happen?
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Alex Jones is an idiot but at this point fb and google basically own the internet so it's bordering on mass censorship

its not an attack on free speech.

jones is free to start up his own platform to put his videos on.

argonautweakend posted...

its not an attack on free speech.

jones is free to start up his own platform to put his videos on.

It's not an attack on his right to free speech but it does stop him speaking freely.
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that it does.

lol, of course not. People/organizations are not obligated to provide a stage for others to speak on.
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If people don't like what the man has to say, they can just downvote the video, tell the guy to die in a fire in the comment section and move on to a different channel. This isn't a good reason to shut down the channel completely.

VeeVees posted...

lol, of course not. People/organizations are not obligated to provide a stage for others to speak on.

But there IS an argument to be made that certain forms of media do have an obligation to do so, or to at least avoid signal-boosting some people's voice over others.

There's a reason why TV networks have this in place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule


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I like when people act as if Alex Jones was dropped for his political views and not his repeated illegal harassment by he and his fans of the parents of dead children.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

VeeVees posted...

lol, of course not. People/organizations are not obligated to provide a stage for others to speak on.

But there IS an argument to be made that certain forms of media do have an obligation to do so, or to at least avoid signal-boosting some people's voice over others.

There's a reason why TV networks have this in place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

He's not a candidate and harassing the parents of dead children isn't a political platform.
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Hes still free to upload his show to the internet, but you cant expect private websites to publish his content if they dont want to
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If ya'll are concerned about free speech you should probably look closer to home first. GameFAQs is way more intolerant of differing opinions than YouTube is.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

VeeVees posted...

lol, of course not. People/organizations are not obligated to provide a stage for others to speak on.

But there IS an argument to be made that certain forms of media do have an obligation to do so, or to at least avoid signal-boosting some people's voice over others.

There's a reason why TV networks have this in place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

What's he running for? And how is his show part of that campaign?
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1. Free speech doesn't apply to private businesses who can provide service to whoever they please.
2. Society is not obligated to provide a venue for people who spread blatantly false information masquerading as truth.
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kangolcone posted...

I like when people act as if Alex Jones was dropped for his political views and not his repeated illegal harassment by he and his fans of the parents of dead children.

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faramir77 posted...

1. Free speech doesn't apply to private businesses who can provide service to whoever they please.
2. Society is not obligated to provide a venue for people who spread blatantly false information masquerading as truth.

It is censorship, according to Wikipedia:

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" as determined by a government or private institution.

according to Wikipedia

All you need to know
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minervo posted...

faramir77 posted...

1. Free speech doesn't apply to private businesses who can provide service to whoever they please.
2. Society is not obligated to provide a venue for people who spread blatantly false information masquerading as truth.

It is censorship, according to Wikipedia:

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" as determined by a government or private institution.

When did I say it wasn't censorship? Are private companies not allowed to censor? Do you realize that not allowing private companies to censor is, in itself, censorship? And is censorship always a bad thing?
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knivesX2004 posted...

slacker03150 posted...

On the other their platform is a modern day street corner and I believe that people should be able to discuss their beliefs.

What the fuck? No it's not.
This is like kicking a busker out of your house.
You don't have to provide this piece of shit a platform. You aren't the govt, this isn't a violation of his first amendment rights.

It's arguable that youtube, twitter, and similar platforms are a 'public forum'. We just haven't had any cases like that go to court yet.

Malls for instance, though they are private property, are considered public forums. Thus it's illegal for a mall to kick protesters and what not out of common areas.
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Smarkil posted...

It's arguable that youtube, twitter, and similar platforms are a 'public forum'. We just haven't had any cases like that go to court yet.

We have, Twitter has been deemed a public area in UK courts.
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Alex Jones is dumb.
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slacker03150 posted...

This is a tough subject. On one hand if hosting him is hurting business, he is not entitled to share their platform. On the other their platform is a modern day street corner and I believe that people should be able to discuss their beliefs.

On there other other hand the guy was an admitted troll. On the other other other hand this sets a bad precedent on how they will handle accounts in the future and as you said give other sites the license to do similar things.

It's already a precedent. Youtube has a terms of service and you better believe he isn't the first guy to be banned for breaking it.

Also if I had a dime for everyone who said "It's a slippery slope" unironically I could quit my job. You realize it's called the slippery slope fallacy, right? Not the slippery slope cogent argument.
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Good riddance!
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youtube is a company, they can take down whatever they want.
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It wasn't just Youtube, he was basically purged from the internet. Apple, Spotify, Twitch, damn near everything has yanked his stuff recently.

The only thing I'd entertain people being concerned about is the uneven enforcement of this (i.e., Alex Jones certainly isn't the only one violating Youtube's ToS), but the counter argument to that is that the sheer pervasiveness and viciousness of Jones' hate makes him a unique case.

And the gatekeepers are always going to be scattershot with how they enforce this stuff. Really, Trump should have been banned from Twitter forever ago, since he's violated basically ever clause in their ToS, but yet here we are.
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Tomba42 posted...

It's already a precedent. Youtube has a terms of service and you better believe he isn't the first guy to be banned for breaking it.

Also if I had a dime for everyone who said "It's a slippery slope" unironically I could quit my job. You realize it's called the slippery slope fallacy, right? Not the slippery slope cogent argument.

The slippery slope fallacy is only a fallacy when it leads to an unlikely conclusion. It's really not a fallacy in this case when a number of other similar personalities have been deplatformed for similar reasons while others, though in violation of the same rules, have not been.

Youtube, Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. are all private entities and they're entitled to follow their own ideology, but this does appear to be affecting not only their guest platforms but it also appears to be affecting their business practices. For example, see the James Damore et al. v Google lawsuit.

I think they're also putting themselves into waters that may be legally untenable down the line. Currently, any public entity that allows user generated content has no legal liability to police that content. However, if they continue to police that content aggressively, they may get to a point where they can be held legally liable for criminal activities that occur on their platform. That would be terrible.
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The main problem with this is less funny videos of him bein weird
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gguirao posted...

Good riddance!

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I think BPS has a good video on the matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEYkux0YNEE" data-time="
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man,you people are really pissed over this huh,lol!

kangolcone posted...

He's not a candidate and harassing the parents of dead children isn't a political platform.

It is when they only claim that it's fake because of "gun control."

faramir77 posted...

Do you realize that not allowing private companies to censor is, in itself, censorship?

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/suppress
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The only answer to 1984 is 1776.
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Anyone who seriously thinks this is "an attack on free speech" needs to go back to Middle School to relearn about the Government and it's laws/amendments. If they even learned in the first place.
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Cruddy_horse posted...

Anyone who seriously thinks this is "an attack on free speech" needs to go back to Middle School to relearn about the Government and it's laws/amendments. If they even learned in the first place.

You know free speech exists outside America, right?
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Cruddy_horse posted...

Anyone who seriously thinks this is "an attack on free speech" needs to go back to Middle School to relearn about the Government and it's laws/amendments. If they even learned in the first place.

You should really watch that video joemodda linked if you think the issue is as black and white as you claim it is. These tech companies are setting themselves up in a really ugly grey area with practices such as this.
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

Cruddy_horse posted...

Anyone who seriously thinks this is "an attack on free speech" needs to go back to Middle School to relearn about the Government and it's laws/amendments. If they even learned in the first place.

You should really watch that video joemodda linked if you think the issue is as black and white as you claim it is. These tech companies are setting themselves up in a really ugly grey area with practices such as this.

kangolcone posted...

I like when people act as if Alex Jones was dropped for his political views and not his repeated illegal harassment by he and his fans of the parents of dead children.

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WhiskeyDisk posted...

Cruddy_horse posted...

Anyone who seriously thinks this is "an attack on free speech" needs to go back to Middle School to relearn about the Government and it's laws/amendments. If they even learned in the first place.

You should really watch that video joemodda linked if you think the issue is as black and white as you claim it is. These tech companies are setting themselves up in a really ugly grey area with practices such as this.

The left is terrified of videos like that. But they'd be linking to them if someone they like was purged from the internet.

Golden Road posted...

I like when people act as if Alex Jones was dropped for his political views and not his repeated illegal harassment by he and his fans of the parents of dead children.

While I believe his Alex Jones' position on this to be ridiculous nonsense, I didnt realize he was calling them at home to harass them... harassment requires direct contact. On the internet you can easily block content you dont want to see

How many topics about this do we really need? >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I don't support him or his ideology personally, and I do agree that private businesses should have the right to silence or dump any content provider they want to for whatever reason, but at the same time it really bothers me when a given site or service starts to cherry-pick who gets to stay and who has to go solely on political/ethical/moral/philosophical/ideological values.

If I had any faith that YouTube was actually going to start policing their own service and remove extremist ideology across every side of the political divide, I might be more inclined to support it. But it feels more like this is just a case of someone higher up in YouTube management pulling the trigger because they personally disagree with his politics or ideology, and that's just petty bullshit.

There's also the fear that it's going to be the start of a push to support specific ideology via exclusion, while still maintaining plausible deniability, which is scummy in general and propagandistic as fuck.

This, tbh, as well as the fact that it emboldens the pro-censorship crowd.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUEy55r49fY" data-time="

This guy was a psycho plain and simple he makes guys like Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck look like they are the most rational people on the planet.
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