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Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
- minimaxir 8y agoOfficial statement: https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 > Today, we permanently suspended @RealAlexJones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/abusive-behavior https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/abusive-behav...
- astrodust 8y agoSomehow this is just the babiest of baby steps. Infowars has a lot more than one Twitter account, and there's a lot of accounts other than Infowars that need to be thrown off Twitter.
- goostavos 8y agoI also have some speech I disagree with that I would like silenced. Is there a form somewhere?
- astrodust 8y agoAre you the government? No, you can't. Are you a private individual or corporation? Yes, you can, that ability to moderate is protected free speech.
- BayesStreet 8y agoI would agree, but something to think about is Twitter and facebook govern the behaviour of the people around me more than my country's government, probably.
- astrodust 8y agoTwitter and Facebook are private companies and they're free to govern their platforms however they see fit provided they don't run afoul of discrimination laws. Being a racist jackass is not a protected class of individual.
- manicdee 8y agoOn Twitter: https://help.twitter.com/forms/abusiveuser https://help.twitter.com/forms/abusiveuser Note this won't result in speech being silenced, only access to one audience being denied. If you want to actually silence someone, and you are in the USA you can hop down to your local supermarket and buy an AR-15 like all the other terrorists.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoHonestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones usually says, and seems like weak grounds for termination. He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.
- darpa_escapee 8y agoThe thing about persecution complexes is that those who have them will find persecution in anything, so it's kind of a waste of energy to worry about what might trigger those prone to thinking in such a way.
- GW150914 8y agoThe thing about persecution complexes is that those who have them will find persecution in anything, so it's kind of a waste of energy to worry about what might trigger those prone to thinking in such a way. Interestingly enough, that’s probably why Twitter feels comfortable ignoring the screams of outrage from the “this is censorship, and the internet is now dooooomed” crowd. When the only thing a group has to stand on is a slippery slope of their own invention, ignoring them is a safe option. People who can only accept their own rigid interpretations at the direct expense of everyone else are impossible to engage with, and a global megacorporation simply doesn’t have the luxury to try. The banning of Alex Jones from one platform doesn’t spell the end of freedom, or the rise of unfettered censorship, it’s just the application of the most bedrock, basic standards of both intellectual honesty and human decency. The idea that freedom can only exist if we require something like Twitter to lend their platform to the likes of Jones is intellectually bankrupt. It’s also ironic on Hacker News, which explicitly exists as the result of strong curation and moderation. Having standards isn’t censorship, and just as a newspaper doesn’t owe you and everyone else their own page, no other outlet does either.
- bachbach 8y agoSo as seems likely - suppose a schism opens up that pushes 'those people' off some platforms. The next step is to prevent DNS resolution working. I assume that like myself you would see that as a step too far. The problem is that the average millennial will not see a meaningful distinction between being blocked on plaform X and being prevented from using a protocol. There is a good chance of that happening I think - it's a matter of time before somebody develops a 'fake news' list and the wrongthinkers are effectively not part of the web for nearly everybody. What will happen then is a big expansion of that other portion of the internet, and eventually citizens will go there to 'find out what really happened' on event x.
- aklemm 8y agoHe should start a blog or a magazine. Marginalizing harmful and admitted liars is fine.
- astrodust 8y agoA magazine would be great, as that's going to be the quickest way to bankruptcy. Will not shed a tear when Q makes Alex Jones look like a lame mainstream reporter and his audience, seeking the "truth", moves on from him to the latest, greatest purveyor of utter nonsense.
- have_faith 8y agoQ?
- astrodust 8y agoYeah, go and punch that into Google and see what you get.
- malvosenior 8y ago> “Those are the eyes of a rat,” There's no way they can ban him for saying that yet still claim to enforce the rules equally for all political affiliations. There have been thousands (maybe more) tweets by people with blue verification checkmarks calling Trump an orange oompa loopa and much worse. No one has been banned for that (rightfully so imo). There's been a ton of pressure on Twitter to ban Jones but using this tweet as an excuse shows they are in no way politically neutral. This comes one day after Dorsey stood in front of congress and said they don't have a political agenda and previous examples of right wing censorship were "a mistake". Ironically, one of the only places you can see actual footage of Dorsey saying this is on Infowars: https://www.infowars.com/watch-rep-markwayne-mullin-reads-sarah-jeongs-bigoted-tweets-to-jack-dorsey/ https://www.infowars.com/watch-rep-markwayne-mullin-reads-sa... This is not an Infowars endorsement, it's seriously the only place I can find this video aside from Breitbart.
- achompas 8y agoI did not downvote you, but the official statement claims this was the last straw, and not a response to a single offense: https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593
- malvosenior 8y agoThank you for replying instead of downvoting. The problem I have is how subjective all of this is, and while they say they are trying to increase transparency I don't see it. This action suggests they keep tabs on accounts and there's some threshold they can reach over a period of time that will flip a ban on even if the actual action that causes the ban wouldn't be bannable in isolation. I've not seen this policy discussed around any of their other bans. The timing is also very suspicious as all the other big social media platforms banned Jones recently. That suggests that there's some level of coordination and/or Twitter is caving to outside pressure and not actually acting on their own internal policy in a consistent manner.
- MBCook 8y ago
- funkythings 8y agoNo matter what you think of Jones: Silicon Valley is digging their own grave with their blatantly obvious double standards towards "hate speech" and other forms of harassment.
- aqme28 8y agoAgreed. They should have banned him far sooner.
- MBCook 8y agoReally? I’d say no matter what you think of Jones you should be celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies. The nonsense of banning people for X, unless they famous, unless they’re the wrong KIND of famous, or are being attacked by someone and asking “Why do they get to say X to me” stuff is a mess. How can anyone run a platform if the rules are in constant flux on a per day/user/reason/moon phase basis? Half the problem over the last few years is the quicksand of rules. Punishments applied unevenly start to look an awful lot favoritism even when there isn’t any there.
- sheepmullet 8y ago> celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies. Have they banned the racist New York Times editor yet?
- MBCook 8y agoWe already know certain people get special treatment. They were explicitly said it for the president. Jones certainly got it. I’m not sure who you’re talking about or what they did but I’ve always gotten the feeling that Twitter is very careful about messing with people who have any amount of power/fame. My position? Apply the rules to everyone who violates them no matter what. Twitter has shown that won’t do that. But I’ll take 40% enforcement over 5% enforcement.
- sheepmullet 8y ago
- jpm_sd 8y agoToo little, too late, Twitter.
- Ataraxy 8y agoI'm surprised they held out so long considering the seemingly orchestrated removal of him from other platforms. Bit bizzare thing to remove him for regardless of the person when you consider how much just total grbage exists on twitter in general.
- ourmandave 8y agoI never watched infowars or read anything Jones said or wrote. But to think there are people who believe his crazy sh*t is really scary. Like the guy shooting up a pizza shop because of Pizzagate. I compare him to the World Weekly News (next to the People magazines) from way back where they'd show a picture of space aliens shaking hands with the president. Why does anyone believe this crap?
- colpabar 8y agoYour first statement may give you a clue towards your closing question.
- godzillabrennus 8y agoThere are a lot of people who have lost faith in the system of government that has largely forgotten them. Their kids are drug addicts. Their towns look like war zones. They have no ability to earn a living. They seek to be recognized and valued. They seek to matter to someone. In Alex Jones they find a leader who understands their issues and makes it easy to understand who to blame. If we want to disarm Alex we need to recognize there are real problems in America outside of the coastal areas.
- noobermin 8y agoThe more people conflate the working class with Trump supporters, the more it feels like a plot to further discredit them. Not all of the rural areas or working class whites care about Alex Jones or even know who he is.
- shredprez 8y ago> If we want to disarm Alex we need to recognize there are real problems in America outside of the coastal areas. And inside the coastal areas as well. Still, none of this stress and anxiety condemns a reasonable human being to become a psychotic racist caricature (or a follower of the same). Desperation just turns up the dial on a person's fundamental system of values. It exposes the prejudice; it doesn't create it. Solving the problems listed would calm their rage to the benefit of all, but let's not kid ourselves that it would change any hearts or minds.
- orf 8y agoHere is the video he broadcast that got him banned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_wFdA-1oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_wFdA-1oU Alex Jones seems seriously unwell. That being said, apart from acting like a complete jackass and harassing that man it was not exactly a racist rant and not 'as bad' as some of his other comments. Not sure why he got banned specifically for this to be honest. Edit: not sure how that link got mixed up with another video...
- Kim_Bruning 8y agoJust the continuous directed stream of invective. For 1 minute you can keep watching, but it keeps on going as Alex Jones invents new insult after new insult. I actually started to feel nauseated. In previous centuries, one could have credibly challenged him to a duel after just a few seconds of this. I wonder if we can find some other similar escape valve in the modern age.
- bm3719 8y agoFor the past few years, whenever a company demonstrates that it is actively working against a culture of free speech, I block its URL in /etc/hosts. In this case, I already added Twitter long ago, so no change necessary. Not only do I have less time wasters around, but I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result.
- bdcravens 8y agoHN also actively moderates its content and its users. An Alex Jones would last about a day here before being banned. > I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result I would think it would be quite the opposite: the likelihood of being censored creates inhibition.
- LocalH 8y agoHN also has much less influence on the greater world, as opposed to Twitter.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoHow so? I mean, what is your thinking here?
- LocalH 8y agoThe general public uses Twitter on a massive scale. They don't generally even know HN exists.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoThanks.
- MBCook 8y agoI don’t think that really addresses his point. Hacker news, like basically anything, is trivial in size compared to Twitter. Despite that hacker news, like MANY other sites, moderate the content it gets posted in an attempt to maintain some level of decorum/sanity/functioning community. Why would a larger site need LESS of that? I think would be the other way around. In smaller sites very basic social norms seem to be strong enough to prevent problematic behavior. Once a site gets big enough that other users are seen as “other people” as opposed to “one of us” things go downhill fast if you don’t start doing something.
- ve55 8y agoOne of the most difficult issues with the style of bans that large tech companies perform is that there is no hope for them to have strong consistency. For them to be consistent they would have to ban anyone that has been an equal or worse offender, while not banning anyone that is a lesser offender. This is obviously far-fetched, especially with decisions that are made by humans on a case-by-case basis. Regardless of what actions they take, many parties will feel slighted, and rightfully so, as anyone will be able to cherry-pick correct examples about why various platforms are not fair with their bans, because complete fairness is impossible. So we can have many equally valid "They banned X but not Y, this is unfair" from one side, but also "They banned A but not B, this is unfair" from an opposing side, with both complaints being valid examples that demonstrate some type of bias or inconsistency.
- hbosch 8y agoIt's OK to be inconsistent, because tech companies aren't governments and their rules aren't laws. They are allowed to control their platform however they want. Everyone is welcome to create their own "free-er" Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.
- influx 8y agoI'm curious what you think about the cake shop denying service to a gay couple? Is that ok since they are free to create their own non-bigoted cake shop?
- ProfessorLayton 8y agoDiscrimination is fine and dandy for any business as long as it isn't part of a protected class (Whether it makes business sense to do so is another argument). The cake shop argument is whether LGBT people fall under a protected class, and the courts have continued to sidestep that issue. I firmly believe LGBT people should be a protected class like race, and sex, but ultimately we need to have a ruling on that.
- 8y ago
- chad_strategic 8y agoI'm over news. I'm over fake news. I'm so over this whole internet and social media experiment. (I do checkout a few sites... hence this post.) Wake up, it's 1984, and everybody is at the party. (left and right, liberals and conservatives..etc...) It just looks a little different than what you read. Thankfully, I can think for myself.
- eip 8y ago"Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal animal. I walk the corner to the rubble that used be a library line up to the mind cemetery now. What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'. They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em while arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells."
- vzaliva 8y agohttps://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 says they "permanently suspended" his accounts. Merriam Webster defines "suspend" as "to debar temporarily". So what it is, twitter? Permanently or Temporarily? It may be just sloppy writing or they are leaving a way for themselves to restore the accounts?
- WalterGR 8y agoThe Twitter founder addressed concerns about Jones’ conspiracy-mongering, and tasked journalists with refuting his bogus claims. “Accounts like Jones' can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it’s critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions,” Dorsey tweeted. “This is what serves the public conversation best.” Wow. Putting the burden of proof on anyone but the person making a claim is ridiculous. Any video with John or Joan Q. Qanon will have someone saying something to the effect of, “Well, you don’t have any proof that it’s not true!” Also, Jack Dorsey is a closet believer in the Tooth Fairy. He’s been known to dress up as the Tooth Fairy and to participate in Tooth Fairy-related rituals. I encourage anyone to disprove that.
- Jesus_saves 8y agoThis IS censorship, and is FAR more dangerous than anything Jones has ever said. Even if you don't agree with Jones, you should still fight against this attack on free speech. It is an attack. Today it's the right getting censored, but if it's allowed, it will soon be a much broader spectrum of people. It will be used to control the public, by censoring out truth's, and pushing lies. If you let them control what you choose to read, they will control you!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- boxspam 8y agoIt is becoming clear to me that Alex Jones is connected to the Russian influence on the US elections. Intelligence agencies launder their findings through conspiracy theorists and memes. Qanon shows clear signs of grassroots hacking. Memes like Pizzagate, false flags to take away our guns, Seth Rich murder, deep state, they all see increased activity days and hours before a nasty piece on Trump is published. They are too structured, too organized, too powerful. I think it is 20-50 soldiers/intelligence analysts in a basement somewhere using sockpuppet accounts and controlling bots. Any opposing view is countered by trolling, painting the opposer as a shill, or worse. The news also shows its true colors. Ask: "Who do you think controls the news?" and you are labeled an anti-semite. Say: "This guy has rat eyes" and you are labeled an anti-semite. It shows the bias and incapability of assuming "good faith". Alex Jones did not make the connection to religion or race. Meanwhile, feel free to diss Christianity for its backwards views on homosexuality and abortion. Feel free to portray Trump as a giant inflatable rat. Just don't say anything bad about Islam, because then the Conservatives might agree with you, and we can not have that! Is it anti-semitic to state that CNN is largely run by Jewish people? That they have a huge presence in Hollywood and in the big five? Looking at Russian influence over the election is fair game, but calling out Israeli influence over the election is a big taboo. That investigation is delegated to the far-right, where it is easy contained and marginalized as racist. While the war drums keep beating to attack Iran. That Twitter is left-leaning (or that leftist views are safer to espouse than conservative views) shows in my feed. No retweets of Alex Jones content, no opposing views, just people plotting to put pressure on advertisers to muzzle someone they don't agree with (just try the same by boycotting Israeli products in protest and see what happens). Congratulating Twitter on banning someone with a mental illness. While they don't even listen to or follow Alex Jones, they still want to take away his platform for his followers. This generation of the left completely alienated me from partisan politics. They've become all about social justice, identity politics, stifling free speech, calling for censorship and for their universities to ban speakers, because it triggers their fragile sensibilities. Meanwhile the right grows speakers that are composed, calm, and rational. But they are labeled alt-right, racist, misogynist. If it was someone's multi-generational plan to sow discord, confusion, alienation, and decoherence in the US, that plan is working, all right. CNN is not the enemy of the people, but they can't pretend anymore to be objective news outlet. They threaten to dox people for creating memes. They make headlines like: Alex Jones threatens to shoot Robert Mueller. Then when you see the actual video, you hear him say: "politicly", "political square duel". CNN is like what RT is for Russia, but for the Democrats. Jones is like one of those kooky tele-evangelists, but his religion is fighting the illuminati. But no freedom of speech or freedom of religion/political views for commercial platforms, right. Let's turn Twitter into a leftist Utopia, the best decisions and arguments come from complete agreement, right? It is better for the next elections to be influenced by commercial business, than by Russia, right?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]