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I don't think it's about ideas, I'm not sure where you're getting that from. The article explicitly says he's banned because of TOS violations. The article is

I don't think it's about ideas, I'm not sure where you're getting that from. The article explicitly says he's banned because of TOS violations. The article is not clear about what those are, but I assume they fall under hate speech and harassment. Specifically, I am guessing this has something to do with Jones taking legal actions against parents whose child was murdered. I don't think this has anything to do with his "ideas" - that is a severe misunderstanding of the facts of the case. There are still plenty of people with horrible ideas on Youtube. This has everything to do with Jones using his media power to attempt to silence, discredit, and harass parents whose children have been murdered. I mean, seriously, you don't get much lower than that.

dunpeal 8y ago
> The article explicitly says he's banned because of TOS violations. The article is not clear about what those are, but I assume they fall under hate speech and harassment. Not at all a fan of Mr Jones (the little I've seen makes him seem like a garden variety nutcase peddling inane conspiracy theories), but aren't we just a little bit concerned when someone is banned on the same day by all the major internet content shops due to some unspecified "TOS violations"? Did he violate all these various different TOS agreements on the same day? If so, how is it not extremely obvious which term he broke? I think this demonstrates the power of the internet's big content vendors. They can block anyone, at any time, for any reason. They're not accountable nor required to uphold any freedom of speech, yet it's how we all get our information now. There is still freedom of speech in physical public spaces, but a large and increasing share of our lives is spent on the privatized spaces of the internet, where corporations are the absolute arbitrators of our rights to express and consume speech. Jones is not a generally sympathetic figure, and few of us will be genuinely sorry to see him go. But what about the next guy marked for deletion? "First they came for the kooks..."
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Alex Jones has openly advocated for the murder of multiple people, including both our last president and his would-be party successor. He has openly incited violent acts against an innocent business, whilst also slandering their character and reputation, for profit. He has accused parents of murdered children of making it up, for profit. He hasn't just "said things", he's committed acts which have had resulted in significant harm to others. There's a very big difference between a blowhard who just says things and a blowhard who tries to have people killed. I really hope you can see that.
  - whatyoucantsay 8y ago
    Is prosecution underway? Much of what you mention is surely illegal, even in the US.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      For PizzaGate, Sandy Hook, and his many numerous other acts of slander and incitement against private individuals, he's being sued up the wazoo. (These acts are torts, not crimes.) For calling for Hillary's and Obama's assassination? The Secret Service investigated and determined that it would be too difficult to prosecute in the absence of someone actually taking Jones up on the offer. (If someone had, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now--he'd be serving life in a SuperMax for conspiracy.)
      - whatyoucantsay 8y ago
        That's surprising that publicly broadcasted calls to assassinate the president didn't result in arrest.
      - dunpeal 8y ago
        > (If someone had, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now--he'd be serving life in a SuperMax for conspiracy.) Pure speculation, and unlikely at that. There were dozens of assassination attempts against past presidents, not once has anyone been imprisoned for allegedly inciting the attempt. This comment, and your previous one as well, are trying to criminalize acts of speech that are protected by the First Amendment. Which is why there are no current criminal proceedings against Jones.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I play a mental version of what you list every time someone raises the "we should ban/disallow/make illegal..." concept. Generally, I'm hearing this about topics where I'm in strong agreement. Yes, we SHOULD take action against these attempts to exploit our inherent logical weaknesses for the promotion of values we disapprove of (sexism, racism, hatred, violence, etc). BUT...before I agree, I like to say "How is this different than banning speech/actions promoting something society generally favors but historically did not. Could the same rules have been/be used to prevent the end of slavery, to deny equal rights (including voting rights), to silence those complaining about abuse of power of raising awareness of injustices? Would the rules used to silence peddlers of lies like Alex Jones be used against, say, proponents of generally unpopular and uncomfortable opinions such as improved rights of life for animals, or polyamorous marriage rights? (The only commonality of those being that each has been used as an example by some of a concept treated as ridiculous on it's face). And here's the thing - I _don't_ ask these questions to try and reach a "enh, guess we should just let everyone be a-holes and eventually it will work out". I want to find a legit answer. Sometimes I can't, but most of the time I circle around some concept that DOES make a difference, even if it's hard to nail down in words. I think that's important because while civilization has generally moved in a positive direction over time, none of that has happened by just waiting it out - people made a fuss, took risks, raised awareness. Governments, churches, media, and other social bodies hashed out opinions and decided what was right, what was wrong, and what was unacceptably TOO wrong. Knowing that these processes can fail does not mean we should give up on them, instead we should work harder to find better success rates. We are not well equipped to handle societies at the scale we have them (see Dunbar's Number etc), but that does not mean we can't try to get better. As a result, things like this tend to fall into buckets for me: "Yeah, good idea, but we should be careful", "I wish, but only once we figure out how to distinguish the reasons", "I wish, but honestly there are still too many legit points to remove this from discussion", "Nah, this is important churn to work through" and "Are you crazy? They are right and should be amplified, not silenced".
  - pashamur 8y ago
    As someone mentioned below, look into the Paradox of Tolerance (and as practical example, although a bit overboard, the De-nazification of Germany post World War II, where all Nazi media/propaganda was forcibly suppressed and anyone associated with the Nazi regime removed from power by force) The paradox of tolerance: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." - Karl Popper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

dunpeal 8y ago

> The article explicitly says he's banned because of TOS violations. The article is not clear about what those are, but I assume they fall under hate speech and harassment. Not at all a fan of Mr Jones (the little I've seen makes him seem like a garden variety nutcase peddling inane conspiracy theories), but aren't we just a little bit concerned when someone is banned on the same day by all the major internet content shops due to some unspecified "TOS violations"? Did he violate all these various different TOS agreements on the same day? If so, how is it not extremely obvious which term he broke? I think this demonstrates the power of the internet's big content vendors. They can block anyone, at any time, for any reason. They're not accountable nor required to uphold any freedom of speech, yet it's how we all get our information now. There is still freedom of speech in physical public spaces, but a large and increasing share of our lives is spent on the privatized spaces of the internet, where corporations are the absolute arbitrators of our rights to express and consume speech. Jones is not a generally sympathetic figure, and few of us will be genuinely sorry to see him go. But what about the next guy marked for deletion? "First they came for the kooks..."

gamblor956 8y ago
Alex Jones has openly advocated for the murder of multiple people, including both our last president and his would-be party successor. He has openly incited violent acts against an innocent business, whilst also slandering their character and reputation, for profit. He has accused parents of murdered children of making it up, for profit. He hasn't just "said things", he's committed acts which have had resulted in significant harm to others. There's a very big difference between a blowhard who just says things and a blowhard who tries to have people killed. I really hope you can see that.
- whatyoucantsay 8y ago
  Is prosecution underway? Much of what you mention is surely illegal, even in the US.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    For PizzaGate, Sandy Hook, and his many numerous other acts of slander and incitement against private individuals, he's being sued up the wazoo. (These acts are torts, not crimes.) For calling for Hillary's and Obama's assassination? The Secret Service investigated and determined that it would be too difficult to prosecute in the absence of someone actually taking Jones up on the offer. (If someone had, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now--he'd be serving life in a SuperMax for conspiracy.)
    - whatyoucantsay 8y ago
      That's surprising that publicly broadcasted calls to assassinate the president didn't result in arrest.
    - dunpeal 8y ago
      > (If someone had, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now--he'd be serving life in a SuperMax for conspiracy.) Pure speculation, and unlikely at that. There were dozens of assassination attempts against past presidents, not once has anyone been imprisoned for allegedly inciting the attempt. This comment, and your previous one as well, are trying to criminalize acts of speech that are protected by the First Amendment. Which is why there are no current criminal proceedings against Jones.
ergothus 8y ago
I play a mental version of what you list every time someone raises the "we should ban/disallow/make illegal..." concept. Generally, I'm hearing this about topics where I'm in strong agreement. Yes, we SHOULD take action against these attempts to exploit our inherent logical weaknesses for the promotion of values we disapprove of (sexism, racism, hatred, violence, etc). BUT...before I agree, I like to say "How is this different than banning speech/actions promoting something society generally favors but historically did not. Could the same rules have been/be used to prevent the end of slavery, to deny equal rights (including voting rights), to silence those complaining about abuse of power of raising awareness of injustices? Would the rules used to silence peddlers of lies like Alex Jones be used against, say, proponents of generally unpopular and uncomfortable opinions such as improved rights of life for animals, or polyamorous marriage rights? (The only commonality of those being that each has been used as an example by some of a concept treated as ridiculous on it's face). And here's the thing - I _don't_ ask these questions to try and reach a "enh, guess we should just let everyone be a-holes and eventually it will work out". I want to find a legit answer. Sometimes I can't, but most of the time I circle around some concept that DOES make a difference, even if it's hard to nail down in words. I think that's important because while civilization has generally moved in a positive direction over time, none of that has happened by just waiting it out - people made a fuss, took risks, raised awareness. Governments, churches, media, and other social bodies hashed out opinions and decided what was right, what was wrong, and what was unacceptably TOO wrong. Knowing that these processes can fail does not mean we should give up on them, instead we should work harder to find better success rates. We are not well equipped to handle societies at the scale we have them (see Dunbar's Number etc), but that does not mean we can't try to get better. As a result, things like this tend to fall into buckets for me: "Yeah, good idea, but we should be careful", "I wish, but only once we figure out how to distinguish the reasons", "I wish, but honestly there are still too many legit points to remove this from discussion", "Nah, this is important churn to work through" and "Are you crazy? They are right and should be amplified, not silenced".
- pashamur 8y ago
  As someone mentioned below, look into the Paradox of Tolerance (and as practical example, although a bit overboard, the De-nazification of Germany post World War II, where all Nazi media/propaganda was forcibly suppressed and anyone associated with the Nazi regime removed from power by force) The paradox of tolerance: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." - Karl Popper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)