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> Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others Alex Jones has a right to free speech, but if he's going to cl

by paulgb 6y ago

> Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others Alex Jones has a right to free speech, but if he's going to claim Sandy Hook was a hoax causing grieving parents to be harassed, nobody owes it to him to give him a platform. He can pay his own hosting fees.

gkoberger 6y ago
The “Right to Free Speech” just means the government can’t impede. Nobody is required to give him a platform, though.
- herostratus101 6y ago
  This is a fairly cheap argument. Presumably the reasons why it's bad for the government to ban speech are also largely applicable to platforms that are almost universally used to discover new viewpoints.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    You're free to make that argument and try to get a new law or amendment passed, but the existing laws and Constitution very clearly only apply to government.
    - herostratus101 6y ago
      You're completely missing the point. I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to. Incidentally, YouTube, Twitter, etc. should be subject to far stricter regulation when they enforce speech codes and don't behave as neutral platforms.
      - pengaru 6y ago
        > I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to. The same can be said of jackasses spouting harmful drivel within the confines of free speech.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    Why? In many perspectives, government is considered special because of the "monopoly on force." Having a compelling platform is very different from that. Nobody is saying "you can't say that under threat of force" they say "I choose to respond to you saying that by exercising my own rights." Do you think anyone who waves a sign on the side of an intersection should also be entitled to an editorial in the local newspaper, say? People today have fairly limited imaginations after a couple decades of "algorithmic search and recommendation" platforms. But the internet before Google was quite successful with organic word of mouth and hyperlinks. And nobody in that world was forced to provide links to anyone they didn't like either.
- lukifer 6y ago
  The Bill of Rights only covers negative rights: what Congress is explicitly forbidden from doing. Free Speech is a social norm as well as a legal construct; there are components of a civil society and Enlightenment values that have nothing to do with laws on the books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity Even if one concedes that any given platform has total authority over their private property (there is a case for regulating tech giants as utilities), one is still perfectly within their rights to vehemently disagree with those decisions, or find them to be grossly counter-productive.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  What is a government but a corporation that owns land and has a military? Why would you bar the government from impinging on free speech, but give nearly unbounded power to corporations to expand and snuff out free speech? If Google owned nearly everything, should we not be upset when they negate our rights?
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    The difference is the monopoly on the use of force. The government can legally send men with guns to make you comply, while a corporation can't.
    - ravenstine 6y ago
      Corporations might not be able to legally detain or use traditional force against people, but they can coerce and threaten people's livelihoods. Exile is an effective means of getting compliance.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        That's not even close to the same as the powers of the state. Walmart can't put me in jail. Walmart cannot kill me.
- odkamkfn 6y ago
  Oh fuck off, free speech is about more than american laws
whitehouse3 6y ago
I'm not sure OP would disagree with you. He made a separate point: > So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
- JohnTHaller 6y ago
  Every platform censors to at least some degree or they wouldn't continue existing as a platform. What matters to most folks is the degree of censorship. As YouTube is beholden to advertisers, it's kind of akin to cable TV in terms of what will and won't be shown.
  - herostratus101 6y ago
    You can have a fairly minimal degree of censorship limited to actual criminal speech. There's no reason why platforms can't adopt that as their standard.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      Except that they would then be taken over by spammers and trolls. They might see that as a problem.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      There is a reason, it's called money, which is why these platforms exist.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mythrwy 6y ago
Alex Jones is a much less serious threat then 2 or 3 large companies deciding what can discourse can be promulgated. (not a Jones supporter. nor can I imagine how anyone would be)
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
  I think the bigger threat is us enabling 2 to 3 large companies to the degree where their decisions can affect discourse. Alex Jones is a thoughtless jerk though, and can still find/provide his own hosting/distribution.
  - herostratus101 6y ago
    You presumably also would be in favor of domain brokers restricting speech (correct me if I'm wrong). Does every controversial political speaker also need to host his or her own ICANN domain? Or should they just promote their speech entirely offline?
    - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
      I'd like people to use a multitude of domains/providers/companies to minimize the ability of a small group of companies to influence discourse. Having said that, I understand that practically avoiding those companies is tough.
    - paulcole 6y ago
      There’s no shortage of companies who value money more than morals. Those affected can host their sites with one of them.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        All these cries of "censorship" misunderstand that what is happening is fundamentally a business decision. When Alex Jones gets pulled from Youtube, it's because he is effecting their business relationships and ability to make money.
ravenstine 6y ago
YouTube: You can pay your own hosting fees. Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address. AWS: You can run your own server hardware. Intel: You can build your own CPU. Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity. VISA: You can take payments in cash. Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.
- aeturnum 6y ago
  I mean, these are all true. Lots of people chose to avoid particular hosting platforms, components, utility providers and healthcare providers. Do you feel like Jones didn't have his proverbial "day in court"? He's had many, of course, and lost most of them. A basic google search tells me you can buy many books written by Alex Jones on his infowars shop. Even if he was kicked off the DNS system he would be able to host his page through TOR. I do not think that we must provide equal quality of service to all speech. Just like we kick teenagers off online games when they won't stop yelling slurs, there's nothing wrong with banning people from the public square for spreading harmful falsehoods.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    I don't know if he got his "day in court", and I'm not sure he deserved one since these platforms can do what they want on an individual basis. What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones. Though it seems reasonable to tell an undesirable to "find your own X", it's also a sentiment that can be taken too far and could be dangerous when taken to its logical extreme. I don't think most reasonable people believe that platforms shouldn't prevent someone from shouting "fire" in a crowded room, metaphorically speaking, but it shouldn't necessarily follow that the same can be said for anything that people may not like. I listen to Alex Jones occasionally. I don't listen to him because I believe what he says. I just think he's hilarious and I consider him to be a comedian. I can't say that anything that he says is dangerous, as ill informed or misleading some of it is. (maybe his stance on vaccines) Not everything that Alex Jones says is wrong. He is also often wrong. That said, depending on where the Overton window lies and the climate of politics, I don't like "find your own X" because it signifies a disdain towards dissidence, and we're not far off from saying "If you disagree with the WHO, go find your own platform." That's scary, but a lot of prominent figures in the media lump in skeptics of the WHO with the likes of Alex Jones, conservatives(i.e. heretics), and anti-vaxxers. When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas. Coordinated efforts to expunge people from the public square isn't something to be pleased with, even when Alex Jones is the target. Once we're told to find our own platforms, and that becomes the norm, there's nothing to stop that precedence from propagating to "find your own website" or "find your own payment processor". When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything, there's absolutely no guarantee that a company's privilege to ban users stops with people like Alex Jones. You might just do or say the wrong thing with good intention. There's a reason why we stopped excommunicating people who have committed no crime, and coordinated efforts to censor people is effectively modern day exile. If someone is to be expunged from the public square, the argument should be "they did (insert bad thing)", not simply "they can go elsewhere". Most people who think Alex Jones deserved to be banned don't seem particularly well informed about Alex Jones, other than that he's crazy and that he'd eat his neighbors.

by paulgb 6y ago

gkoberger 6y ago

The “Right to Free Speech” just means the government can’t impede. Nobody is required to give him a platform, though.

herostratus101 6y ago
This is a fairly cheap argument. Presumably the reasons why it's bad for the government to ban speech are also largely applicable to platforms that are almost universally used to discover new viewpoints.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  You're free to make that argument and try to get a new law or amendment passed, but the existing laws and Constitution very clearly only apply to government.
  - herostratus101 6y ago
    You're completely missing the point. I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to. Incidentally, YouTube, Twitter, etc. should be subject to far stricter regulation when they enforce speech codes and don't behave as neutral platforms.
    - pengaru 6y ago
      > I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to. The same can be said of jackasses spouting harmful drivel within the confines of free speech.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Why? In many perspectives, government is considered special because of the "monopoly on force." Having a compelling platform is very different from that. Nobody is saying "you can't say that under threat of force" they say "I choose to respond to you saying that by exercising my own rights." Do you think anyone who waves a sign on the side of an intersection should also be entitled to an editorial in the local newspaper, say? People today have fairly limited imaginations after a couple decades of "algorithmic search and recommendation" platforms. But the internet before Google was quite successful with organic word of mouth and hyperlinks. And nobody in that world was forced to provide links to anyone they didn't like either.
lukifer 6y ago
The Bill of Rights only covers negative rights: what Congress is explicitly forbidden from doing. Free Speech is a social norm as well as a legal construct; there are components of a civil society and Enlightenment values that have nothing to do with laws on the books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity Even if one concedes that any given platform has total authority over their private property (there is a case for regulating tech giants as utilities), one is still perfectly within their rights to vehemently disagree with those decisions, or find them to be grossly counter-productive.
ravenstine 6y ago
What is a government but a corporation that owns land and has a military? Why would you bar the government from impinging on free speech, but give nearly unbounded power to corporations to expand and snuff out free speech? If Google owned nearly everything, should we not be upset when they negate our rights?
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  The difference is the monopoly on the use of force. The government can legally send men with guns to make you comply, while a corporation can't.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    Corporations might not be able to legally detain or use traditional force against people, but they can coerce and threaten people's livelihoods. Exile is an effective means of getting compliance.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      That's not even close to the same as the powers of the state. Walmart can't put me in jail. Walmart cannot kill me.
odkamkfn 6y ago
Oh fuck off, free speech is about more than american laws

whitehouse3 6y ago

I'm not sure OP would disagree with you. He made a separate point: > So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.

JohnTHaller 6y ago
Every platform censors to at least some degree or they wouldn't continue existing as a platform. What matters to most folks is the degree of censorship. As YouTube is beholden to advertisers, it's kind of akin to cable TV in terms of what will and won't be shown.
- herostratus101 6y ago
  You can have a fairly minimal degree of censorship limited to actual criminal speech. There's no reason why platforms can't adopt that as their standard.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Except that they would then be taken over by spammers and trolls. They might see that as a problem.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    There is a reason, it's called money, which is why these platforms exist.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mythrwy 6y ago

Alex Jones is a much less serious threat then 2 or 3 large companies deciding what can discourse can be promulgated. (not a Jones supporter. nor can I imagine how anyone would be)

omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
I think the bigger threat is us enabling 2 to 3 large companies to the degree where their decisions can affect discourse. Alex Jones is a thoughtless jerk though, and can still find/provide his own hosting/distribution.
- herostratus101 6y ago
  You presumably also would be in favor of domain brokers restricting speech (correct me if I'm wrong). Does every controversial political speaker also need to host his or her own ICANN domain? Or should they just promote their speech entirely offline?
  - omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
    I'd like people to use a multitude of domains/providers/companies to minimize the ability of a small group of companies to influence discourse. Having said that, I understand that practically avoiding those companies is tough.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    There’s no shortage of companies who value money more than morals. Those affected can host their sites with one of them.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      All these cries of "censorship" misunderstand that what is happening is fundamentally a business decision. When Alex Jones gets pulled from Youtube, it's because he is effecting their business relationships and ability to make money.

ravenstine 6y ago

YouTube: You can pay your own hosting fees. Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address. AWS: You can run your own server hardware. Intel: You can build your own CPU. Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity. VISA: You can take payments in cash. Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.

aeturnum 6y ago
I mean, these are all true. Lots of people chose to avoid particular hosting platforms, components, utility providers and healthcare providers. Do you feel like Jones didn't have his proverbial "day in court"? He's had many, of course, and lost most of them. A basic google search tells me you can buy many books written by Alex Jones on his infowars shop. Even if he was kicked off the DNS system he would be able to host his page through TOR. I do not think that we must provide equal quality of service to all speech. Just like we kick teenagers off online games when they won't stop yelling slurs, there's nothing wrong with banning people from the public square for spreading harmful falsehoods.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  I don't know if he got his "day in court", and I'm not sure he deserved one since these platforms can do what they want on an individual basis. What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones. Though it seems reasonable to tell an undesirable to "find your own X", it's also a sentiment that can be taken too far and could be dangerous when taken to its logical extreme. I don't think most reasonable people believe that platforms shouldn't prevent someone from shouting "fire" in a crowded room, metaphorically speaking, but it shouldn't necessarily follow that the same can be said for anything that people may not like. I listen to Alex Jones occasionally. I don't listen to him because I believe what he says. I just think he's hilarious and I consider him to be a comedian. I can't say that anything that he says is dangerous, as ill informed or misleading some of it is. (maybe his stance on vaccines) Not everything that Alex Jones says is wrong. He is also often wrong. That said, depending on where the Overton window lies and the climate of politics, I don't like "find your own X" because it signifies a disdain towards dissidence, and we're not far off from saying "If you disagree with the WHO, go find your own platform." That's scary, but a lot of prominent figures in the media lump in skeptics of the WHO with the likes of Alex Jones, conservatives(i.e. heretics), and anti-vaxxers. When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas. Coordinated efforts to expunge people from the public square isn't something to be pleased with, even when Alex Jones is the target. Once we're told to find our own platforms, and that becomes the norm, there's nothing to stop that precedence from propagating to "find your own website" or "find your own payment processor". When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything, there's absolutely no guarantee that a company's privilege to ban users stops with people like Alex Jones. You might just do or say the wrong thing with good intention. There's a reason why we stopped excommunicating people who have committed no crime, and coordinated efforts to censor people is effectively modern day exile. If someone is to be expunged from the public square, the argument should be "they did (insert bad thing)", not simply "they can go elsewhere". Most people who think Alex Jones deserved to be banned don't seem particularly well informed about Alex Jones, other than that he's crazy and that he'd eat his neighbors.