4 ms·

Alex Jones? I think maybe censoring Hitler would have been a good idea, too, but what do I know.

by smm11 5y ago

COGlory 5y ago
Alex Jones has been right about a number of things. Of course, he's frequently wrong, too, but censorship isn't aware of the differences.
- choward 5y ago
  The Ministry of Truth knows the differences though.
choward 5y ago
Any specific examples? He had legal consequences recently for something he did recently. That should be enough. If not, make a new law.
DaltonCoffee 5y ago
Censoring/deplatforming/deleting Alex Jones was their first step towards banning vaccine documentaries, Fox news, the folk devil du jour, etc. Censoring Hitler looks like a great idea in hindsight but what babys would have gone out with that bathwater?
- khazhoux 5y ago
  Nearly 20 million babies (most in adult form) died under Hitler, so yeah... censoring him would almost certainly have been better.
  - DaltonCoffee 5y ago
    I stated that the (likely beneficial) censoring of Hitler would have also resulted in the censoring of other people (possibly not beneficial).
kardianos 5y ago
That's literally the argument of "Repressive Tolarence". And no, people taking a principled stand would have been best as soon as the scapegoating and othering started. If robust speech against Hitler had been possible that would be good too. But opposition was censored, wasn't it... Think about it.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  The mistaken premise in these debates is the implication that we're all equal in the public forum. Of course we aren't. That's why newspapers and media outlets of all kinds should be regulated. Any one individual's views are insignificant compared to the fourth estate firepower of think tank funders and media billionaires of all varieties. There is no equivalence here. The latter can dominate and define public conversations and opinions in a way that most of us can't even imagine, never mind match. Free speech and monopolistic concentrations of money and media power simply cannot co-exist. You can have one or you can have the other, but there is no way you can have both together. And without free speech all you have are distortions generated by very powerful people with very loud bullhorns, who will be front and centre about their views some of the time, but deniably covert the rest of the time. In that kind of environment the concept of censorship is a distraction, because the "freedom" to say what you want - as if it has any real influence at all - is an illusion anyway.
  - ahthat 5y ago
    What Hobbes appears to want is Free Speech, but only for the greatest denominator. That is not Free Speech. Free Speech is the open forum, where we trust in our fellow men and women to observe the voices of others, make up their minds, come to their own conclusions in good faith, and contribute where they can. If certain voices are louder than others, that is something we have to live with. It is not Free Speech to shut them up.
version_five 5y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
urthor 5y ago
Alex Jones and his ilk strongly reflect opinions that are incredibly widely held by tens of millions of Americans. That's his entire business model after all, he just says what his viewers think back to them so they feel happy someone famous agrees with them. If you disagree with Alex Jones, the only ultimate solution is to try and shift the opinions that tens of millions of his viewers hold. People complain a lot about Alex Jones style thought these days. But what it actually is is the spread of the opinions and views millions of "salt of the earth" folk have always held. The internet is forcing us to address the thoughts, beliefs and emotions of millions of non-college educated folk worldwide. Ultimately I think it's a very good thing.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Back when journalism was still a thing, "non-college educated folk" were very much part of the readership. And they were treated in a far less patronising way than they are today, by outlets like Fox - which wind them up for profit and political gain, but secretly have nothing but contempt for them.
  - urthor 5y ago
    I'd love to figure out how to quantify this. What you say must be correct some degree, but to what extent? I seriously wonder what percentage of US households in say, 1975, did not receive any newspaper subscription for example, what's the dataset you look at for that? Or even adult literacy in the United States. You could apply this same thinking to many non US parts of the world, but lets confine it to the US. I feel like it's stating the obvious that most major newspapers and media in 1975 did not reflect the true opinions of a blue collar, rural family in most parts of the United States. Setting bigotry aside, popular support for isolationism and far too many other issues ran extremely deep. My feeling is that generally speaking society as of 1975 was entirely predicated on a bottleneck of information flows. If your view was out of step with what the Ivy-League or flagship university educated editor was willing to publish, your views didn't make it into any form of mainstream media. Nowadays, we directly have to confront those blue collar views, whatever their form. I reckon that's probably good for humanity in the long term. 100-200 years from now addressing this information and political bottleneck will be good for society. But for now we are being directly exposed to the consequences.
malloc2048 5y ago
Since Hitler encouraged violence against a specific population I'd say they would even be legally obliged to remove him from their platform. From what I understand from Bongino is that he is a really popular conservative and was talking about a specific book that Youtube doesn't like. Can't find him removed for spreading hatespeech, nor inciting violence. And if it's true then that's incredibly disturbing to me. YouTube is so big that they really must try to refrain to remove people for their opinions etc.
syshum 5y ago
I will agree with Censoring Alex Jones, if you agree to censoring Rachel Maddow
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  That's not even an equivalency...but censure Tucker Carlson and you've got a deal.
  - syshum 5y ago

Alex Jones? I think maybe censoring Hitler would have been a good idea, too, but what do I know.

by smm11 5y ago

Alex Jones? I think maybe censoring Hitler would have been a good idea, too, but what do I know.

Alex Jones has been right about a number of things. Of course, he's frequently wrong, too, but censorship isn't aware of the differences.

choward 5y ago
The Ministry of Truth knows the differences though.

choward 5y ago

Any specific examples? He had legal consequences recently for something he did recently. That should be enough. If not, make a new law.

DaltonCoffee 5y ago

Censoring/deplatforming/deleting Alex Jones was their first step towards banning vaccine documentaries, Fox news, the folk devil du jour, etc. Censoring Hitler looks like a great idea in hindsight but what babys would have gone out with that bathwater?

khazhoux 5y ago
Nearly 20 million babies (most in adult form) died under Hitler, so yeah... censoring him would almost certainly have been better.
- DaltonCoffee 5y ago
  I stated that the (likely beneficial) censoring of Hitler would have also resulted in the censoring of other people (possibly not beneficial).

kardianos 5y ago

That's literally the argument of "Repressive Tolarence". And no, people taking a principled stand would have been best as soon as the scapegoating and othering started. If robust speech against Hitler had been possible that would be good too. But opposition was censored, wasn't it... Think about it.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
The mistaken premise in these debates is the implication that we're all equal in the public forum. Of course we aren't. That's why newspapers and media outlets of all kinds should be regulated. Any one individual's views are insignificant compared to the fourth estate firepower of think tank funders and media billionaires of all varieties. There is no equivalence here. The latter can dominate and define public conversations and opinions in a way that most of us can't even imagine, never mind match. Free speech and monopolistic concentrations of money and media power simply cannot co-exist. You can have one or you can have the other, but there is no way you can have both together. And without free speech all you have are distortions generated by very powerful people with very loud bullhorns, who will be front and centre about their views some of the time, but deniably covert the rest of the time. In that kind of environment the concept of censorship is a distraction, because the "freedom" to say what you want - as if it has any real influence at all - is an illusion anyway.
- ahthat 5y ago
  What Hobbes appears to want is Free Speech, but only for the greatest denominator. That is not Free Speech. Free Speech is the open forum, where we trust in our fellow men and women to observe the voices of others, make up their minds, come to their own conclusions in good faith, and contribute where they can. If certain voices are louder than others, that is something we have to live with. It is not Free Speech to shut them up.

version_five 5y ago

[flagged]

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

urthor 5y ago

Alex Jones and his ilk strongly reflect opinions that are incredibly widely held by tens of millions of Americans. That's his entire business model after all, he just says what his viewers think back to them so they feel happy someone famous agrees with them. If you disagree with Alex Jones, the only ultimate solution is to try and shift the opinions that tens of millions of his viewers hold. People complain a lot about Alex Jones style thought these days. But what it actually is is the spread of the opinions and views millions of "salt of the earth" folk have always held. The internet is forcing us to address the thoughts, beliefs and emotions of millions of non-college educated folk worldwide. Ultimately I think it's a very good thing.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Back when journalism was still a thing, "non-college educated folk" were very much part of the readership. And they were treated in a far less patronising way than they are today, by outlets like Fox - which wind them up for profit and political gain, but secretly have nothing but contempt for them.
- urthor 5y ago
  I'd love to figure out how to quantify this. What you say must be correct some degree, but to what extent? I seriously wonder what percentage of US households in say, 1975, did not receive any newspaper subscription for example, what's the dataset you look at for that? Or even adult literacy in the United States. You could apply this same thinking to many non US parts of the world, but lets confine it to the US. I feel like it's stating the obvious that most major newspapers and media in 1975 did not reflect the true opinions of a blue collar, rural family in most parts of the United States. Setting bigotry aside, popular support for isolationism and far too many other issues ran extremely deep. My feeling is that generally speaking society as of 1975 was entirely predicated on a bottleneck of information flows. If your view was out of step with what the Ivy-League or flagship university educated editor was willing to publish, your views didn't make it into any form of mainstream media. Nowadays, we directly have to confront those blue collar views, whatever their form. I reckon that's probably good for humanity in the long term. 100-200 years from now addressing this information and political bottleneck will be good for society. But for now we are being directly exposed to the consequences.

malloc2048 5y ago

Since Hitler encouraged violence against a specific population I'd say they would even be legally obliged to remove him from their platform. From what I understand from Bongino is that he is a really popular conservative and was talking about a specific book that Youtube doesn't like. Can't find him removed for spreading hatespeech, nor inciting violence. And if it's true then that's incredibly disturbing to me. YouTube is so big that they really must try to refrain to remove people for their opinions etc.

syshum 5y ago

I will agree with Censoring Alex Jones, if you agree to censoring Rachel Maddow

gremlinsinc 5y ago
That's not even an equivalency...but censure Tucker Carlson and you've got a deal.
- syshum 5y ago