7 ms·

You know who else breaks norms? Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by soc

You know who else breaks norms? Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. You can’t just pick and choose which norms you’re entitled to. That’s called being an asshole and 10 times out of 10 you will be shown the door. There’s a reason no one cried over him getting the boot. It isn’t an indication of some chilling dystopia. It’s society operating as it should.

isoskeles 6y ago
Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten?
- willis936 6y ago
  > Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten? Is this a genuine question? This is HN, so it should be. However, I’m not sure how you can be this far down into this chain and not know about Sandy Hook, since it is the very incident that pushed him over the line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
  - metrokoi 6y ago
    At the risk of sounding like a troll, I don't see anything in that link about Alex Jones threatening lives.
    - jimhi 6y ago
      I think they are saying Alex Jones is responsible because his followers ended up stalking and harassing the victims parents. One could argue he never directly said to do that so it isn't his responsibility, but he also has a big platform.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        By this logic Bernie Sanders endangered lives because one of his supporters shot Steve Scalise. To my knowledge Jones just said something like Sandy Hook was fake, which is clearly a bad thing to say, but it doesn't threaten people.
        jimhi 6y ago
        Similar arguments have been for Trump as well
        thomasmeeks 6y ago
        Alex hammered his Sandy Hook conspiracy theory to the point of being sued for defamation, and losing (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=alex+jones+sandy+hook+lawsuit&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=alex+jones+sandy+hook+lawsu...). Families were forced to move multiple times, unable to visit graves. When the families faced hardship, Alex doubled down on his claims. He never took a moment to ask his supporters to back off or seek a calmer resolution. Whereas Bernie immediately denounced the shooter and reached out to Steve Scalise. Steve does not blame Bernie for having a deranged fan (https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sanders-2017-alexandria-congressional-baseball-1252274 https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sande...). Bernie did not imply Steve deserved to be harassed or shot. He has, in fact, asked his supporters to back off (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-email-supporters-799468/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-s...). These two things are obviously not equivalent.
        drak0n1c 6y ago
        Not quite "never". You may not be aware because the Joe Rogan podcast was the only outlet that covered his apologies and regret for his behavior. For years since the incident he's been telling his followers in his own show that he was wrong about it and to not harass the families. It's still the case that he changed his attitude too late, only after some of his listeners acted and the escalation became real.
        afiori 6y ago
  - nailer 6y ago
    > Is this a genuine question? Incredulity is not an argument, nor does the link you provided have any information on Alex Jones threatening anyone's life.
- perilunar 6y ago
  > Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten? Well he recently threatened to eat his neighbours! "I'm ready to hang them up and gut em and skin em and chop them up" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts
quantummkv 6y ago
> You know who else breaks norms? Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. Sounds like a average silicon valley person to me. Google, facebook, twitter, reddit, etc, all of them peddle lies and refuse to play be society's rules. Uber and Doordash are busy destroying local economies and social cohesion to turn a profit. Amazon for all intents and purposes runs a slave operation in it's warehouses. What really grinds my gears is that these companies engage in such blatant, open hypocrisy while trying to project themselves as some sort of saints.
- willis936 6y ago
  What are you talking about? We’re talking about a person getting kicked off of platforms for breaking rules of society. What do companies have to do with anything? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > What are you talking about? The "breaking of norms", from your comment.
chroma 6y ago
I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make. I don't care about Alex Jones. I care about collateral damage: Deleting "communist bandits" comments.[1] Banning the Podcast Addict app.[2] Banning other apps.[3][4] I didn't have to look very hard to find these examples. There are certainly dozens more if one cares to delve into the issue. There are people who we don't know about who are currently having their views suppressed. A few of them probably hold views that future societies will endorse. But because they don't have a voice, it will take longer to make moral progress. Compared to that, Alex Jones is a rounding error. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073
- willis936 6y ago
  > Alex Jones is a rounding error I will not support any legislation that needlessly endangers individuals. Society needs to protect people. You don’t need everyone to go through a tragedy before a society is illegitimate, just anyone. I can’t speak for the latter three threads, but I was active in the first one, arguing the same position. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990
darawk 6y ago
Nobody wants to be in the position of defending Alex Jones. He's totally indefensible. But that is always how these things start. Once you start regulating content on the basis of factual accuracy, you put these companies in the position of making decisions about political truth, and that is an extremely dangerous thing. These are really hard ethical questions, and I think both views are reasonable and understandable. But ultimately I think it's more dangerous to put Google in charge of regulating truth. It feels like a win in the short term to ban Alex Jones, and it is a win in the short term. But the long term consequences of things like this are really really important, and the fact that they're obscured by distance doesn't make them any less so.
- bildung 6y ago
  > But that is always how these things start. There is no automatism. In many countries hate speech is forbidden, without them devolving into a dictatorship.
  - darawk 6y ago
    I think that's pretty arguable. Hate speech laws in the UK have been used in pretty questionable ways: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-conviction-shames-scotland https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-convic... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-islam-belfast-preacher-james-mcconnell-says-will-go-jail-protect-free-speech https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-isla... This is just a small selection. Obviously the UK has not "devolved into a dictatorship", but it is clearly censoring non-violent political speech.
    - gadders 6y ago
      Count Dankula was a big case as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest
      - 6y ago
raverbashing 6y ago
People here don't "understand" why Alex Jones is being ostracized because they (or the people they support) are not the target of their antics. What if instead of persecuting 5G installers he was peddling persecution of FAANG employees? Would that be cool with the audience here?
- chroma 6y ago
  I have a neighbor who has a "Queers Hate Techies" sticker on his car. I don't like it, but I don't want him banned from YouTube or Twitter or wherever he's saying crazy stuff.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    A generic statement like that is "fine" in my opinion. But it would become a problem if it turned into violent action or the statements would be more targeted and specific. (and I give a 50% chance of that person with the sticker being a techie themselves)
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    If you had a sticker saying the exact opposite - would you expect to get banned?
    - willis936 6y ago
      There’s this strange thing that often happens online, where it is implied that the people who promote tolerance don’t do so in an equitable fashion. You’ll be surprised, then, when the answer to your question is “yes”.
    - chroma 6y ago
      I’d want Westboro Baptist Church to be able to have a YouTube channel. Cloudflare still does TLS termination and DDoS protection for their website https://godhatesfags.com https://godhatesfags.com so it doesn’t seem totally out of the question.
luckylion 6y ago
> He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. You can’t just pick and choose which norms you’re entitled to. This is "a murderer has not granted others the right to not be killed, so why should we not just hang him right here and now?", make no mistake.
YayamiOmate 6y ago
You are so wrong and you dont see it. You just identified society as corporation and corporation is dictatorship. He didn't got booted by society and collective ostracism but by a business decision. That's a corporation making decision for the peoole which information the society should be exposed to. If the society is not resistant to stupid ideas and need to rely on corporations and politicians to police information, that's a malfunctioning society. Also, ToS are not society rules.
AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
Alex Jones shouldn't have been banned. He's a crank, certainly, but ultimately, he's just speaking. And either we believe that people have the right to speak or we don't. I know what side I fall on.
nailer 6y ago
> Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. Do you think Alex Jones should not have been talking about Epstein having a pedophile island, or promote a study by MIT about the effect of groundwater pollution on animals?

isoskeles 6y ago

Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten?

willis936 6y ago
> Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten? Is this a genuine question? This is HN, so it should be. However, I’m not sure how you can be this far down into this chain and not know about Sandy Hook, since it is the very incident that pushed him over the line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
- metrokoi 6y ago
  At the risk of sounding like a troll, I don't see anything in that link about Alex Jones threatening lives.
  - jimhi 6y ago
    I think they are saying Alex Jones is responsible because his followers ended up stalking and harassing the victims parents. One could argue he never directly said to do that so it isn't his responsibility, but he also has a big platform.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      By this logic Bernie Sanders endangered lives because one of his supporters shot Steve Scalise. To my knowledge Jones just said something like Sandy Hook was fake, which is clearly a bad thing to say, but it doesn't threaten people.
      - jimhi 6y ago
        Similar arguments have been for Trump as well
      - thomasmeeks 6y ago
        Alex hammered his Sandy Hook conspiracy theory to the point of being sued for defamation, and losing (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=alex+jones+sandy+hook+lawsuit&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=alex+jones+sandy+hook+lawsu...). Families were forced to move multiple times, unable to visit graves. When the families faced hardship, Alex doubled down on his claims. He never took a moment to ask his supporters to back off or seek a calmer resolution. Whereas Bernie immediately denounced the shooter and reached out to Steve Scalise. Steve does not blame Bernie for having a deranged fan (https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sanders-2017-alexandria-congressional-baseball-1252274 https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sande...). Bernie did not imply Steve deserved to be harassed or shot. He has, in fact, asked his supporters to back off (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-email-supporters-799468/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-s...). These two things are obviously not equivalent.
        drak0n1c 6y ago
        Not quite "never". You may not be aware because the Joe Rogan podcast was the only outlet that covered his apologies and regret for his behavior. For years since the incident he's been telling his followers in his own show that he was wrong about it and to not harass the families. It's still the case that he changed his attitude too late, only after some of his listeners acted and the escalation became real.
        afiori 6y ago
- nailer 6y ago
  > Is this a genuine question? Incredulity is not an argument, nor does the link you provided have any information on Alex Jones threatening anyone's life.
perilunar 6y ago
> Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten? Well he recently threatened to eat his neighbours! "I'm ready to hang them up and gut em and skin em and chop them up" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts

quantummkv 6y ago

> You know who else breaks norms? Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. Sounds like a average silicon valley person to me. Google, facebook, twitter, reddit, etc, all of them peddle lies and refuse to play be society's rules. Uber and Doordash are busy destroying local economies and social cohesion to turn a profit. Amazon for all intents and purposes runs a slave operation in it's warehouses. What really grinds my gears is that these companies engage in such blatant, open hypocrisy while trying to project themselves as some sort of saints.

willis936 6y ago
What are you talking about? We’re talking about a person getting kicked off of platforms for breaking rules of society. What do companies have to do with anything? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy
- mistermann 6y ago
  > What are you talking about? The "breaking of norms", from your comment.

chroma 6y ago

I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make. I don't care about Alex Jones. I care about collateral damage: Deleting "communist bandits" comments.[1] Banning the Podcast Addict app.[2] Banning other apps.[3][4] I didn't have to look very hard to find these examples. There are certainly dozens more if one cares to delve into the issue. There are people who we don't know about who are currently having their views suppressed. A few of them probably hold views that future societies will endorse. But because they don't have a voice, it will take longer to make moral progress. Compared to that, Alex Jones is a rounding error. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073

willis936 6y ago
> Alex Jones is a rounding error I will not support any legislation that needlessly endangers individuals. Society needs to protect people. You don’t need everyone to go through a tragedy before a society is illegitimate, just anyone. I can’t speak for the latter three threads, but I was active in the first one, arguing the same position. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990

darawk 6y ago

Nobody wants to be in the position of defending Alex Jones. He's totally indefensible. But that is always how these things start. Once you start regulating content on the basis of factual accuracy, you put these companies in the position of making decisions about political truth, and that is an extremely dangerous thing. These are really hard ethical questions, and I think both views are reasonable and understandable. But ultimately I think it's more dangerous to put Google in charge of regulating truth. It feels like a win in the short term to ban Alex Jones, and it is a win in the short term. But the long term consequences of things like this are really really important, and the fact that they're obscured by distance doesn't make them any less so.

bildung 6y ago
> But that is always how these things start. There is no automatism. In many countries hate speech is forbidden, without them devolving into a dictatorship.
- darawk 6y ago
  I think that's pretty arguable. Hate speech laws in the UK have been used in pretty questionable ways: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-conviction-shames-scotland https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-convic... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-islam-belfast-preacher-james-mcconnell-says-will-go-jail-protect-free-speech https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-isla... This is just a small selection. Obviously the UK has not "devolved into a dictatorship", but it is clearly censoring non-violent political speech.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Count Dankula was a big case as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest
    - 6y ago

raverbashing 6y ago

People here don't "understand" why Alex Jones is being ostracized because they (or the people they support) are not the target of their antics. What if instead of persecuting 5G installers he was peddling persecution of FAANG employees? Would that be cool with the audience here?

chroma 6y ago
I have a neighbor who has a "Queers Hate Techies" sticker on his car. I don't like it, but I don't want him banned from YouTube or Twitter or wherever he's saying crazy stuff.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  A generic statement like that is "fine" in my opinion. But it would become a problem if it turned into violent action or the statements would be more targeted and specific. (and I give a 50% chance of that person with the sticker being a techie themselves)
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  If you had a sticker saying the exact opposite - would you expect to get banned?
  - willis936 6y ago
    There’s this strange thing that often happens online, where it is implied that the people who promote tolerance don’t do so in an equitable fashion. You’ll be surprised, then, when the answer to your question is “yes”.
  - chroma 6y ago
    I’d want Westboro Baptist Church to be able to have a YouTube channel. Cloudflare still does TLS termination and DDoS protection for their website https://godhatesfags.com https://godhatesfags.com so it doesn’t seem totally out of the question.

luckylion 6y ago

> He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. You can’t just pick and choose which norms you’re entitled to. This is "a murderer has not granted others the right to not be killed, so why should we not just hang him right here and now?", make no mistake.

YayamiOmate 6y ago

You are so wrong and you dont see it. You just identified society as corporation and corporation is dictatorship. He didn't got booted by society and collective ostracism but by a business decision. That's a corporation making decision for the peoole which information the society should be exposed to. If the society is not resistant to stupid ideas and need to rely on corporations and politicians to police information, that's a malfunctioning society. Also, ToS are not society rules.

AlgorithmicTime 6y ago

Alex Jones shouldn't have been banned. He's a crank, certainly, but ultimately, he's just speaking. And either we believe that people have the right to speak or we don't. I know what side I fall on.

nailer 6y ago

> Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. Do you think Alex Jones should not have been talking about Epstein having a pedophile island, or promote a study by MIT about the effect of groundwater pollution on animals?