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And Then They Came for Ricochet
Infowars represent Conservative media in the same way McDonald’s represents vegan health food. Alex Jones’ brand of “journalism” is anything but. Infowars purport tinfoil-hat conspiracies that are not only discredited and insulting to our intelligence but hurtful to those impacted by their clickbait headlines, such as calling the murders of Sandy Hook Elementary school children in Newtown, CT “fake”. It beggars the mind how this man and his organization can publish such drivel.
Today Infowars has been officially purged by Apple, Facebook, and Spotify. IW is still able to stream directly from its own servers, but these three major distribution channels succumbed to public pressure to have them removed. The reason: unspecified “hate speech.” Most everyone won’t miss something they never wanted to listen to, but this is where my disdain for Infowars yields to my greater concern over who is the arbiter of what is defined as hate speech and what is and isn’t allowed.
As reported on CNBC an Apple spokesman stated, “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users.”
“Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
Again, I don’t watch or listen to Infowars and recommend anyone else to not waste their time. But if we are going to play this game, first we must ask Apple, Facebook, and Spotify why they allow podcasts and videos from Antifa, which is a terrorist group. Why does Black Lives Matter have a forum when their members have advocated the killing of police officers and has lead to such? How is Louis Farrakhan, a reviled anti-semite, not banned? And how does the New York Times have a presence on social media when it hires a racist like Sarah Jeong?
Apple, Facebook, and Spotify: Do you stand against “hate speech” or against speech from outlets you hate?
If Infowars can be banned, what about other conservative media? Many on the extreme Left — who use bullhorns and whistles to turn away Trump officials, Candace Owens, and Charlie Kirk from restaurants — consider Turning Point USA, The Daily Wire, and perhaps Ricochet to be “hate speech.”
Are you ready for these people to control your media?
Charlie Kirk and I just got ATTACKED and protested by ANTIFA for eating breakfast. They are currently following us through Philly. ALL BLACK AND HISPANIC police force protecting us as they scream “f*ck the racist police”. pic.twitter.com/x5WUNr9mM6
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) August 6, 2018
When we allow a select few denizens from Silicon Valley to determine what speech is and isn’t “allowed,” don’t be surprised when they come for you.
Update: Monday morning, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest also banned Jones’ properties.
Published in General
Private companies acting within their rights of freedom of association. I see no problem here.
Today conservatives want to force companies to carry podcasts, next they’ll be demanding bakers bake cakes.
“Forced to carry” wouldn’t be the proper way to describe a Facebook or Twitter account, though, would it?
I mean, I agree about private businesses being able to refuse to do business with people, but . . . let’s call it the “bake the damn cake” dictum.
If you can’t refuse a gay cake, then you can’t refuse Alex Jones. Sorry, those are your rules, lefties. A shame you were such [redacteds] about it. But now that you’ve decided a private photographer is a public accommodation, then Facebook most definitely is.
Except you can.
Check back with me when Ricochet gets a little more dominant and denies it has a political perspective.
I thought that was decided, in our favor? Let’s cheer, accept that victory, and apply that same standard across the board, including the tech streamers.
Last thing I want is government swooping in to force a private business to bake a cake, or carry Alex Jones. Should be their decision right? I am a bit baffled why we’re in seeming disagreement on this one. I’ve already said a few times I think it’s chilling and rightfully gets some hairs standing up on our collective necks, but we’re either advocates of free speech or we’re not.
This is the rub, and I understand you are not supporting IW. I’m as big a Friedman style free-market advocate as you will meet. The problem lies with double standards. If we allow for these utilities, which most agree they are, to have editorial discretion, then if it must be applied at least make the attempt to show it’s even-handed, as mentioned in the OP.
But even then, assuming all things are ‘equal’ then it becomes subjective and open to biases, after all, these are human beings who write the algorithms, and we know what side of the debate most of them reside.
It should go much further than Jones. Many of the malefactors you mentioned need to get clipped as well, but Jones is as a good place to start as any.
Conservatives ought not show too much concern about a known liar and fraud like Jones getting taken down like this. Freedom of association, forbearance and basic decency all demand it. Playing the “What about XXX?” game is interesting only if you’re saying that Jones’ removal represents some sort of net negative.
It doesn’t. I’m not even interested in playing a tit-for-tat game with them on this because Jones isn’t a tit on our side and I don’t want his toxic ideology to be seen as sympathetic to conservative ideals.
How can these companies control my media when I don’t use any of their products?
I don’t use Spotify, Apple, or Facebook, etc.
So how can they control my media?
The billions of people who allow those companies to control their media do not have my sympathy. They have options, but they choose to use those companies.
That might be the problem laying beneath our weird disagreement on this whole thing. The proper role of the tech giants is sort of in a gray state. Right now they’re private entities, yet claim to be a free and open platform (I think most do anyway). So if they’re to be treated as a public utility, then let’s make it official, then we can scream to treat all sides the same. But if they’re private, then let it remain the decision of the company who they carry, but they should be made to remove any semblance of being free and open. Right now they’re enjoying the best of both labels.
Although it will likely mean some more lawyers getting some billable hours, the role of these tech giants in our society might have to be decided in the courts.
Defending the unpopular people is only way to defend universal ideas, either silly ideas are freely debated or you live in a tyranny. A private tyranny like the corporate boycott of Indiana undermines self government. The not a hill i am willing to die on argument what you hear from someone given to losing political debates. Giving ground a fifty fifty nation is silly and only invites more aggression.
Facebook doesn’t create Jones’s content. It distributes his content. The baker doesn’t have to design a gay cake, but he can’t prevent gays from patronizing his store. Of course, political viewpoint is not a protected class for bakers and others providing public accommodations, but it may well be for common carriers.
This is one of the greatest threats to our union. Some may laugh it off as Alex Jones is certainly an outlier. I personally cringe when he claims to be on the “right”. However, as @rightangles points to the Skokie, IL Nazis, as a Jew and the grandson of a POW who survived four years in a Nazi-occupied France work camp, I hated seeing this. But even as a teen, I knew the right to free assembly means I get to be a little uncomfortable.
These days our public square is online. Anyone has the right to be heard unless you are breaking the law (inciting violence, jihad, pedophilia, etc). Doesn’t mean we have to listen, and in IW, most don’t. Let the markets dictate an audience.
My level of trust for the FANG companies continues to diminish as they realize they cannot win at the ballot box or courts, so they will control the narrative through their platforms that underpin the flow of information.
This is silly, throwing out words like tyranny over a private company deciding to drop a channel? So if my cable company drops the golf channel I go grab my musket? Does McDonald’s have a right to stop selling french fries? Or if enough people online demand it, must they sell them under government threat in order to serve the greater good? So 3 streaming channels decided to stop carrying the Alex Jones show, it’s hard to take this threat to my liberty seriously.
Alex Jones is still doing his show, if enough people want to listen, it will be picked up by other outlets.
Can a private toll road deny access to whomever they want? There are a private ferrys on Lake Michigan- could they deny service to someone with a ‘Rainbow’ or ‘Bernie’or ‘Trump’ bumper sticker? Cab companies, pizza delivery drivers and UPS can deny service to bad neighborhoods? I’m not as sanguine as others here about these developments. These publicly traded companies are run by Leftists. We’re either all subject to same rules or not. Dennis Prager = Alex Jones but not the myriad Islamic snuff sites or Antifa or BLM?
Interesting point. I guess the difference, for me is twofold. There are many other places one can get that podcast. But primarily the difference lies in rhecfact that everyone can’t sell everything. Even Amazon. So every establishment sells products they choose. WXYZ is a hiphop radio station. This store sells dance apparel. That one liquor. The other Christian books. So if iTunes decides they don’t want to offer a particular product for sale that’s fine. I don’t expect the dance store to carry Redwing boots or the hip hop station to play Bach.
But in each store, all customers are treated the same. Or should be. On Twitter and Facebook, Alex Jones Grace Jones, and Tom Jones are all customers the same as anyone else. Twitter and Facebook offer a service and that should be the same across the board.
This isn’t a government banning speech. It’s a private company exercising their first amendment rights to freedom of association. They two things aren’t even remotely analogous.
2 billion users are on Facebook. Much of what you learn in the legacy media comes from social media. You may not personally use these platforms, but the reporters you rely on for your news do.
Shouldn’t we applaud them when they actually ban dangerous kooks, and criticize them when they ban someone incorrectly?
I don’t subscribe to the view that every person is entitled to having their views broadcast by every social media platform. It’s a good thing that Jones has been banned and it will be a good thing if/when Antifa is banned. That’s the pressure that should applied. Jones isn’t a martyr.
The complaint that “First they came for Jones and next they’ll come for us!” just confirms that we consider ourselves part of the same ideological family, which isn’t the case. At least not for me.
I both agree and disagree. I find Alex to be an over the top, uncontrolled bag of air.
However, sometimes the only way to get a certain point of view is to watch him. For instance, various people who stand in defiance of what the “experts” tell us on certain issues can only get a spot on C Span or on Alex to bring forth information that we need.
Freedom of the press is just that. Unless Alex has been saying we need to assassinate some Dems leaders or is advocating violence in any other ways, he gets to say what he wants. And to have the guests that he wants.
If he doesn’t have the right to air his views, then you can kiss ricochet good bye. First they came for a loony tunes guy on the right, then they came for…
There is a huge difference between a private membership group that aims to present a forum for people of a certain political persuasion and a tech giant like FB, twitter or google. All three of those entities have relied on close ties to the US military and surveillance apparatus’ agencies in order to get where they are.
It doesn’t have to be a government banning speech for it to be a threat to freedom of speech.
To quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “To taste the sea, one need only a gulp.”
The smallest taste of Alex Jones is worth an entire ocean of his bilge.
And nobody is denying him that. Here’s what they’re saying.
This is not completely true. President Obama called them into his office to get them started on this project, which means there is not a clean separation between government and private as there should be.
I’m sure many reporters are dummies, but I am not sure why you seem to think I rely on them for my news.
Re the “bake the cake“ issue. I think the decision rests on the request for a custom designed cake. If the gay customer had ordered a dozen doughnuts I think everyone agrees – even the bakery – that the bakery would have to provide them.
If a Catholic wants lamb kebabs from the halal food truck the operator has to serve him/her. If the same customer wants bacon wrapped kebabs the operator is not required to make those.
So as long as Twitter / Facebook aren’t being asked to assist in the production it’s like ordering a dozen doughnuts.
Sort of like the NFL banning kneeling?
These corporations have first amendment rights too: one of which is freedom of association.
Looking at these companies as publishers, they are completely within their rights to not publish some authors.
Is it right for them to do this in terms of their stockholders? No. It’s a stupid business move. But that’s for their stockholders to decide.
Years ago I belonged to an Internet greeting card company that most people have heard of: Jacquie Lawson. I paid something like $8 a year for unlimited access to her cards. I got to thinking about the company’s business model, and I became fascinated by the financial picture. Every time a customer sent out a greeting card, it was free advertising. Her company grew almost overnight. She started out as a one- or two-person operation in her home. She had a million customers within a year or two. That was $8 million a year. Holy cow. Very low expenses. Anyone can do this.
I read a great book in the late nineties called Secrets of Software Success, and in it the authors described a market phenomenon that was occurring among the computer businesses uniquely at that time. The programs (products) were essentially selling themselves. The more they sold, the more prospects they had. The reason was that consumers wanted their products to work with everyone else’s. We see this with Microsoft. Microsoft Office rules the word- and spreadsheet-processing markets: a whopping 83 percent of businesses use MS Office. The reasons are obvious: it’s a great product, and businesses can safely assume suppliers and customers are using it too so communication can happen easily.
My point is that competitors to the present tech giants are seeing an opportunity arising. If they move fast and intelligently, they have a real chance to exploit this weakness that Facebook and Spotify have just created for themselves. (Apple won’t be hurt because they have so many revenue streams.)
No, they’re being asked to post his bilge on their website, at which point they have a right (I would argue “responsibility”) to exercise editorial control over it.
Should not ISPs refuse him access to the internet, then?