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The Big Tech censorship storm has landed

The Big Tech censorship storm has landed

This battle is not about Alex Jones. Anyone who thinks it is, hasn’t been paying attention.

https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1026566865949093888?

Alex Jones was deplatformed on at least four major social media platforms in a day: Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify.

The Guardian reports:

All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”….

Facebook’s and YouTube’s enforcement action against Jones came hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.

Twitter hasn’t taken down Jones yet. How odd that Twitter, with its demonstrable shadow banning and Twitter Gulag for conservatives, has not capitulated yet.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1026984249960755200

The takedowns did not just happen.

The media pushed these social media giants to this result, as a Senior Media Reporter for CNN bragged on Twitter and in interviews:

Not content, CNN was pushing for Jones APP to be shut down by Google and Apple. Of course, CNN doesn’t say it that way, it just runs stories wondering why the APP hasn’t been shut down. Not very subtle.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1026910574532284417

The targeted takedown of Jones was strategic.

Few people want to defend the substance of his content. So CNN gets to wrap itself in self-righteousness, even though it was an act by CNN of political activism.

And yes, these are private companies who can do what the government cannot. We understand that. But they have taken on a role approaching public utilities, without whom we can’t communicate politically.

This is something we’ve covered a lot in the past year, how an oligopoly of left-leaning high tech firms control virtually all of our social media interactions. In my dreadful 9th Anniversary post, I wrote:

If the assault on the Electoral College was the game changer for me, a runner up was waking up to implications of the concentration of power in a small number of social media and internet companies who have been weaponized to shut down speech and expression. Google, Facebook, Twitter and two handfuls of other companies now completely control our ability to communicate with each other, while internet backbone companies are poised to block internet access altogether.

Imagine living in a repressive country in which the government blocked access to and suppressed internet content. You don’t need to move. It’s coming here but from private industry. This is, in many ways, more dangerous than government suppression of free speech because at least in the U.S. the government is subject to the First Amendment, and can be voted out of office.

The social justice warriors have moved from shouting down speakers on campus to pressuring high tech companies to expand the definition of “hate speech” and “community standards” to the point that anything right of center is at risk.

It’s no surprise then that Prager U, a completely mainstream conservative educational group, has been fighting a running battle with YouTube over restrictions on its popular videos.

The problem is not limited to social media. There were attempts after the Parkland shooting to deplatform NRA TV:

It should surprise no one that what starts with an attack on 2nd Amendment rights quickly moved to an attack on free speech via the handful of internet oligopolies. Leftists have identified a weak point — private entities are not constrained by the 1st Amendment the way the government is, but they perform on the internet quasi-governmental functions over internet infrastructure and access….

If you think the attacks on the NRA are only about the 2nd Amendment, then you haven’t been paying attention. These people are totalitarian in nature, and that nature is on full display.

These social justice censors start with neo-Nazis, then define everyone who opposes them as the equivalent of neo-Nazis. So they move on to Alex Jones, then the NRA, and won’t stop until mainstream conservatives are banned.

Yet lunatic leftist #Resistance conspiracies proliferate on these same social media platforms without hindrance.

One of the best comments I saw about the Jones takedown was from David Reaboi on Twitter:

When the only thing you’ve got to say about the deplatforming of Jones is, “it’s a private business”—for conservatives, it’s a tell.

It means you don’t see the larger fight about deplatforming and Left’s “hate speech” restrictions to expression. You don’t know what time it is.

That is spot on. There is a war being fought for the turf controlled by the big tech social media oligopolies, and when the openness of these forums is lost, we’re back to the equivalent of Samizdat.

The second best comment I saw was from John Haywood on Twitter:

Left-wing activists are not afraid of establishing non-governmental guild controls that would effectively ban “fake news,” “hate speech,” “dangerous ideas,” etc. because they are confident they will define those terms. The sword of New Censorship is not double edged.

Spot on as well. The new censorship is welcomed in big tech as it is on campus. Because the leftist censors get to define the terms.

This battle is not about Alex Jones. Anyone who thinks it is, hasn’t been paying attention.

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Comments

Time for some of us to learn who Alex Jones is…and gain a solid grasp of what has just been done to his social media presence.

    redc1c4 in reply to Rab. | August 7, 2018 at 9:38 pm

    i have a fairly solid grip on who Alex Jones is, and i am not a fan.

    but that is NOT the point: free speech applies to everyone, about almost everything, ESPECIALLY if you do not agree with the speaker or their message.

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Rab. | August 7, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    Corrupt government is not the only threat to our civil liberties.

    It seems that there is collusion between large corporate entities to control speech.

      Collusion between corporations and government is fascism, by definition. Go read about all the German corporations who willingly fed Hitler’s war machine.

      In our case, Silicon Valley is trying to form a shadow government in conjunction with the Democratic Party. That’s what all this has been about: constructing parallel sources of authority.

        DaveGinOly in reply to Matt_SE. | August 7, 2018 at 10:57 pm

        Actually, that’s national socialism. That’s a form of government in which the means of production are privately owned, but government controlled. (As opposed to communism, in which the government both controls and owns the means of production.) “Fascism” is a philosophy of government. It posits that the state is foremost and the people’s purpose is to serve the state. The two don’t always go together, but fascism’s most notorious iterations give the strong impression that they not only go together, but that they are the same thing or inseparable.

          Milhouse in reply to DaveGinOly. | August 8, 2018 at 2:05 am

          Actually the philosophy that the state is foremost and the people’s purpose is to serve the state is more national socialist than fascist. It was Hitler, not Mussolini, who said “Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz”, and not just because if Mussolini had said it it would be in Italian.

          You’re right that fascism is a more fully worked out philosophy than national socialism, because Mussolini was a genuine intellectual and Hitler was not. But one of the core ideas, if not the core idea of fascism is that big government, big business, and big labor should work together (i.e. collude) to make the whole country function well. The very name “fascism” comes from a bundle of sticks, representing the idea that when everyone works together they cannot be broken.

          At any rate, what makes both of these bad is the involvement of government. Collusion between corporations without government is not and cannot be fascism, again by definition, because they are unable to use force to compel people. That’s why cartels are almost impossible without government behind them.

          Diverso, ma uguale?! in reply to DaveGinOly. | August 8, 2018 at 11:52 am

          Millhouse isn’t always wrong ofc but he is such a smug little boomer.

          This is what Mussolini had to say about the state vs. the individual:

          “We were the first to state, in the face of demo liberal individualism, that the individual exists only in so far as he is within the State and subjected to the requirements of the state and that, as civilization assumes aspects which grow more and more complicated, individual freedom becomes more and more restricted.” (To the General staff Conference of Fascism, in Discorsi del 1929, Milano, Alpes, 1930, p. 280).

          https://archive.org/details/DoctrineOfFascism

        tom_swift in reply to Matt_SE. | August 8, 2018 at 3:48 am

        Collusion between corporations and government is fascism, by definition. Go read about all the German corporations who willingly fed Hitler’s war machine.

        That’s not a very useful definition of fascism. It’s a piece of it, but not obviously the most important or defining piece.

        I wouldn’t say that all the American corporations who willing fed FDR’s war machine constituted anything particularly fascist.

          Milhouse in reply to tom_swift. | August 8, 2018 at 5:40 am

          The New Deal was consciously fascist (before the war, and therefore before fascism became a bad word in America), and that fed into the wartime arrangements.

          many didn’t do so willingly. good example is diesel locomotive manufacturers during WW2, war time board would not let also, baldwin,fairbanks-morse produce engines used in them. only one allowed to make engines was emd with its 567 engine only due to it also being used in naval landing craft.
          this gave emd a huge jump in development and production when ww2 ended. also, baldwin,fairbanks-morse never really recovered. took GE decades to catch up and surpass emd. irony is in 2015 emd produced NO locomotives (for US use, exports were made and shipped) due to (yup a government program) epa tier 4 regs.
          norfolk western was not allowed to use roller bearings on their J class steam engines made during WW2 due to even selling them raw materials would have been illegal.
          screwed no matter what.

        MrE in reply to Matt_SE. | August 8, 2018 at 11:39 am

        I’m ready for a moratorium on the word “collusion”. 😉

      Government, not necessarily corrupt, is by definition the only threat to our civil liberties. Government has a monopoly on the use of force, and force is the only way civil liberties can be violated.

    Sky2u in reply to Rab. | August 7, 2018 at 10:48 pm

    To Rab: I also don’t follow InfoWars but what little I know is that he is a conspiracy theory nut. So when is Rosie O’Donnell banned for saying that (re: 9/11) was an inside job because “fire doesn’t melt steel”. How about banning the late nite radio show “Coast to Coast” which is chock FULL of conspiracy nuts (but a hoot to listen to on occasion)? George Orwell was prescient – instead of burning books – the lib-nazis now burn internet sites…

    Alex Jones was a lone voice in the wilderness crying out the alarm of the American (hello, rats of the GOEe) and foreign globalists trying to take our nation from us.

    He’s been right an awful lot.

    https://www.infowars.com/

this is what #fascism looks like.

and now, all but the blindest of the blind* know why they want the populace disarmed, or at least as close to it as they can get.

* the others are sure they will be part of the ruling class: boy are THEY in for a big surprise. 😎

FB is NOT a “private business”… it’s publicly traded.

i thought discrimination in the public realm by a business was illegal?

    Milhouse in reply to redc1c4. | August 8, 2018 at 1:24 am

    Bullshit. Publicly traded companies are private. They belong to their shareholders.

    And no, “discrimination in the public realm by a business” is not illegal, as I’ve told you at least a dozen times. Private entities, no matter how they’re traded, have the right to accept or turn down customers on any grounds that they see fit, except those specifically prohibited by law.

    Discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion, disability, age above 40, and a few others are banned by US law. Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is not, so it’s perfectly legal to refuse straight customers, or gay ones, depending on your preference, anywhere except where a state or local law happens to forbid it. There are a lot of states and/or localities that do forbid it, though.

    Discrimination on the grounds of political opinion, on the other hand, is only banned in a few places; in most of the US it is perfectly legal and the right of every person or entity. Unless you happen to be in one of those few places, you have every right to openly declare that you will not do business with Democrats. Or Republicans, if that’s your choice.

      V.Lombardi in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 6:06 am

      Hey everybody, read the sophistry Milhouse writes to this. Isn’t it OK to exclude certain types of people from a gold club? Watch how he dances around principles to assert that he is right and consistent.

        Milhouse in reply to V.Lombardi. | August 8, 2018 at 10:35 am

        What the hell are you talking about? Do you even know? Yes, of course it is OK to exclude anyone from a “gold club”, whatever that is, except on grounds specifically prohibited by law. Where did you get the idea that it wasn’t?

        Meanwhile I’m still waiting for your apology. People, this is the idiot who accused me of lying, when I pointed out the plain and obvious truth that aliens are just as subject as citizens to conscription.

      V.Lombardi in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 6:06 am

      Hey everybody, read the sophistry Milhouse writes to this. Isn’t it OK to exclude certain types of people from a gold club? Watch how he dances around principles to assert that he is right and consistent.

      MarkSmith in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 9:48 am

      Discrimination on the grounds of political opinion, on the other hand, is only banned in a few places; in most of the US it is perfectly legal and the right of every person or entity.

      I hate to say it but Milhouse is probably right about this. Just review Citizen United vs FCC.

      Personally, I think FB thinks they are more important they they really are. FB is for old people. They have done an excellent job of branding just like Starbucks convinced people to buy overly sugared coffee for 4 dollars when they could get the same thing some where else as a bottomless cup for 50 cents.

        So milhouse is right one out of ten times. But Alex Jones is right 3 out of 5 times.

        What millhouse is ‘right’ about in the scheme of things means little, if anything – except to his mother. What Jones is right about proves to be earth-shaking.

        Jones’ voice is needs to be heard.

          MarkSmith in reply to TheFineReport.com. | August 8, 2018 at 9:04 pm

          Totally agree that Jone’s voice needs to be heard. Problem is that Facebook does not have to provide the platform to do it. There are enough outlets where his voice can be heard.

          The question is, has the government actions prevented Jone’s from speech or has given FB an unfair advantage.

          I think Jones can do that. McDonalds is not the only hamburger joint these days and the same goes for FB.

It will be interesting to see if they take down the New York Times and CNN when the Russia conspiracy theory goes bust.

Both of them have unredacted documents proving the collusion claims were manufactured. So they are lying.

Take a look at the latest document haul.

    Milhouse in reply to Petrushka. | August 8, 2018 at 1:27 am

    It will be interesting to see if they take down the New York Times and CNN when the Russia conspiracy theory goes bust.

    Of course they won’t. They like the NYT and CNN, so why should they take them down? No, it’s not fair, but since when do they have to be fair? They’re private businesses, so they don’t have to be fair, any more than we do.

“The takedowns did not just happen. The media pushed these social media giants to this result, as a Senior Media Reporter for CNN bragged on Twitter and in interviews”

CNN claims credit for attacks for the same reason ISIS does.

“One of the best comments I saw about the Jones takedown was from David Reaboi on Twitter”
“The second best comment I saw was from John Haywood on Twitter”

And when Twitter censors us, you won’t see anything at all.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

– Martin Niemoller

The first step to addressing this de facto censorship by the loony left is to remove the section 230 protection from any platform that practices content control. If they are exercising editorial control then they are not entitled to any safe harbor protection for their actions. Call your congress persons and let them know how you feel about this.

Doesn’t de-platforming Alex Jones present another problem for FB, Apple, et al? Specifically, those who remain can say what they will about him and Jones can’t rebut them.

Perhaps Apple, FB, Twitter, et al, should be licensed by the FCC as broadcasters (of public opinion) and the FCC fairness doctrine should be restored.

    Mike H. in reply to MrE. | August 8, 2018 at 12:55 am

    Any tool created by man (physical or intellectual) can and will be misused. Be careful of what you wish for.

      MrE in reply to Mike H.. | August 8, 2018 at 11:04 pm

      Well taken. Would prefer an honor-based (respectful) system to Gov’t regulation of course, but then, we’re not dealing with honorable businesses in FB, Youtube, et al.

    Milhouse in reply to MrE. | August 8, 2018 at 1:33 am

    On what grounds could the FCC license them? Since when is it the FCC’s business what they do? The entire basis of the FCC’s authority is the fiction that the broadcast spectrum “belongs” to the public, i.e. the government, so they can impose restrictions on how it’s used. And the basis on which it’s alleged that the spectrum belongs to the public is that it’s a limited resource. Cable TV, for instance, is not limited, therefore it isn’t even alleged to belong to the public, and therefore no license is required for it and the FCC has no control over it. How is the world wide web different?

Savage had Alex Jones on today–very explanatory how he was picked out as the beta test to destroy all conservative voices by censorship–as in hate speech.

Help fight this censorship; it will be the death of all peaceful civil society, leads to brutal totalitarianism.

The ball is now in our court.

If you own an Apple product or service, get rid of it (or don’t replace it when it breaks.)

Get off iTunes.

Get off Amazon.

Get off wikipedia.

Get off Facebook.

Get off Netflix.

Get off them all.

Colonel Travis | August 8, 2018 at 12:02 am

I am convinced not enough people care. If they’ve even heard about this story, I believe too many assume Jones is the most vile person in America and deserved silence, because that’s how the media portray him.

I think Jones is a doofus, I’m not a fan whatsoever. But what I have seen of him is tame compared to the leftist. However, I do not think people see the big picture at all.

The left is scary as hell and will not stop unless someone stops them.

StandingAthwartHistory | August 8, 2018 at 12:26 am

Does anyone have any experience with alternatives to Big-Left social media (e.g., Gab, https://gab.ai)? It’s portrayed in the media/echo chamber as a bastion for rascals, which leads me to believe it must be worth checking out.

And yes, these are private companies who can do what the government cannot. We understand that. But they have taken on a role approaching public utilities, without whom we can’t communicate politically.

So what? How does that give us a right to dictate to them? What is this, need creates a claim over others?! That’s pretty much the essence of socialism in one sentence.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and two handfuls of other companies now completely control our ability to communicate with each other, while internet backbone companies are poised to block internet access altogether.

And they have the right to do so. It’s their property; we have no right to use it without their consent.

Imagine living in a repressive country in which the government blocked access to and suppressed internet content. You don’t need to move. It’s coming here but from private industry.

Which makes it entirely different.

These social justice censors start with neo-Nazis, then define everyone who opposes them as the equivalent of neo-Nazis. So they move on to Alex Jones, then the NRA, and won’t stop until mainstream conservatives are banned. Yet lunatic leftist #Resistance conspiracies proliferate on these same social media platforms without hindrance.

Yes, and it’s not fair. But private entities don’t have to be fair. You don’t have to be fair. If you choose not to be, all your victims have the right to do is complain; they have no right to force you to be fair to them. So why are facebook, twitter, etc. different?

Anyone who opposed net neutrality (and that includes me) has no right to object to this.

The whole point of net neutrality was to prevent this sort of thing. We opposed it on principle, because the owners of resources have the right to use them as they choose, and to charge whatever they like for their use, or to deny their use to their competitors or those they don’t like. Well, that’s what’s happening here. Either we were right then and should shut up now, or we should admit we were wrong then; but that would mean we choose our principles depending on whose ox is gored, which isn’t much better.

    Colonel Travis in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 2:10 am

    You’re the reason the forest/trees expression was invented.

    petefrt in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 8:44 am

    What about applying common carrier (net neutrality) law to qualifying individual platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter) instead of to the ISPs?

    Instead of regulating content, what about using anti-trust law to bust up digital oligopolies (as done with Ma Bell)and restore market competition?

      MarkSmith in reply to petefrt. | August 8, 2018 at 9:59 am

      I just say, check out the Citizen United ruling and also checkout that happened to Standard Oil with trust busting.
      Then take a look at GE. Folks if you are going to take a position, you better start thinking a little deeper about this.

      Outrage about FB is a surprise to be me. I would think that the best weapon against FB is an alternative counter product not government intervention.

      When I saw this about facebook, I laughed so hard and when I played this for my Millennial friends, they agree, Facebook is for old people.

      https://youtu.be/Uo0KjdDJr1c

      Milhouse in reply to petefrt. | August 8, 2018 at 10:41 am

      What net neutrality law? It’s gone, remember? And we all cheered when it was dumped.

      Antitrust laws are illegitimate and unprincipled “progressive” assaults on private property, which conservatives are supposed to be against. They were created by the “progressives” out of pure bloodthirsty hatred and envy for John Rockefeller.

        petefrt in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 12:12 pm

        Okay, forget anti-trust for now. What about applying common carrier law to platforms, rather than ISP’s?
        Alternatively, remove CDA Sec 230 immunity?

What’s the difference between demanding that facebook give one a platform and demanding that colleges give one free education, restaurants free dinners, landlords free housing, doctors free care, or the government free money?

    fishstick in reply to Milhouse. | August 8, 2018 at 5:33 am

    the biggest difference is these particular platforms have editorial protections under the law

    the Republicans could easily crush Facebook, Twitter, and the various internet platforms that want to censor against not-Left by opening them up to liability to anything and everything that is published on their platforms

    see right now – they have the right to editorial power without any of the drawbacks because no one can sue them for malcontent

    that means in layman terms is Twitter can have numerous flame wars with both sides spreading .01% of the truth in any tweet and Twitter could never be held accountable for that content published

    because they are protected as this “neutral” platform

    I think we can all agree – they stopped being neutral long before DJT became President so let us open them up to the courts

    if the Republicans start stripping the big internet giants like Facebook and Twitter of their “neutrality”, then this type of protest goes away

    because the alternative for Facebook and Twitter is to make their website like a news outlet which will require far more oversight

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | August 8, 2018 at 2:05 am

Amazon is right up there with the big tech companies in this.

Side note: Discovered today that Amazon’s Jeff donated $33 million to further DADA. (June/July 2018 Town and Country)

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | August 8, 2018 at 2:14 am

Public utilities are a different animal.

It’s as if the electric company or the city water department cut you off for practicing your free speech just because they don’t want to hear

    If they’re government entities, or enjoy a government-enforced monopoly, then they have to be fair, and they’re subject to the first amendment. But if the electricity company is completely private, and it’s lawful to compete with it, why should it have to sell electricity to people whose opinions it doesn’t like?

The only test of principles is whether you stick by them when they work to your detriment. If you only uphold them when they benefit you then they’re not principles at all.

The crisis here is not Big Tech controlling communication, inhibiting free speech, whatever. The issue is … what? Ad revenue?

When I set up and ran some bulletin boards/fora, they had nothing whatever to do with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc etc. So no action by any of these could inhibit my international readership. This situation persists—the WWW is far bigger than a few Big Tech outfits.

Now, I made no money off any of my sites, and never tried to do so. I never even tried to make them pay for themselves. Is that the problem? Are we all riled up about freedom of speech, or Leftoid suppression of the right to petition for redress of grievances? Or is the issue just about finances? Perhaps a new business model—one not so perilously dependent on the whims of our enemies— is the solution.

smalltownoklahoman | August 8, 2018 at 7:29 am

It’s a troubling situation and not one with an easy solution either. These social media platforms are a BIG part of how many people do business nowadays and to lose access to them can potentially ruin both people and the businesses they run. However as has been pointed out many of them are U.S. based private businesses and as such have a lot of leeway to control themselves the activity of their platforms. There’s almost nothing the U.S. government can do that won’t involve legislation and/or regulation to address the concerns raised here. The simple solution might be to require these companies to respect people’s 1st amendment rights but that might be unpalatable to anybody who can’t stand our government engaging in anything that might seem socialist or fascist in nature. There definitely are those who would view the U.S. gov doing anything of the sort as exactly that no matter how light a touch it uses.

https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/08/43-republicans-want-give-trump-power-shut-media/

There’s a lot of “I support free speech, BUT…” abroad in the land.

Let’s face it, Milhouse is correct. I am therefor officially switching my opinion on net neutrality. I have “evolved”, in Obama-speak. But even that is not perfect, since the FCC is a political body and can be just as partisan as YouTube. But at least when we get stuffed at the FCC there will be a public record, not the Star Chamber that currently exists.

At the same time I am taking the advice of FineReport; I have never been on FB or Twitter and will not start. I will never go back to YouTube (my biggest sacrifice) and I will start using Walmart.com instead of Amazon. As for Apple, I think I am trapped.

Alex Jones, you magnificent bastard! All of this banning you on social media platforms will increase your website traffic, making you into a marketable commodity.

Seriously.

My rule in following Alex Jones has been “divide by 6 to get the truth.” And there is much to be found, assuming you have the patience to wade through the minutiae/crap to find it.

But he should be sending “Thank You notes” to the Obamas and the Clintons as well as to the Alphabet Corporation, Apple, Facebook and the other social media companies for making him a soon to be very rich man.

Well played, sir.

The law (such as the Communications Decency Act) is structured so that you have two types of companies sharing content on the Internet: either “content providers” who have no editorial control over the content that is transmitted over their systems, and “publishers” who are liable for all content transmitted on their systems.

The line is when a company exerts any sort of editorial control. When they do they lose the safe harbor of laws like the Communications Decency Act. This makes them liable for every. single. byte of data that passes through their systems–for every copyright violation, for every license claim, for every patent claim. In essence it will make them liable as co-defendants–as they are now “publishers” rather than “content providers.”

Waiting for someone to drag Google or Facebook into a lawsuit over something completely unrelated seeking a deep pocket for their copyright lawsuit.

We allowed them to change the subject from Candace Owens pulling off perhaps the most brilliant tactical stunt from the Right I’ve seen in my career to now locking arms with a fraud most of us wouldn’t voluntarily grant a platform to, either. All because we let the Left bait us into its premise once again. We are now defending Jones’ indefensibility to defend ourselves, at the same contradicting our own arguments in support of Christian bakers and florists, and now a sizable chunk of us are even for the authoritarian government we’ve long fought from the Left, provided Trump does it.

My prayer is that if I hang around this movement long enough, we might actually figure out how we get cornered into responding to the Left’s false choices like this all the time. That prayer remains unanswered.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/on-alex-jones-we-fall-for-the-banana-in-the-tailpipe-again/

Some excellent points there…

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | August 8, 2018 at 10:38 am

Public corporations are not private.

DouglasJBender | August 8, 2018 at 11:55 am

Not that long ago, someone claiming that there was a “Deep State” effectively encompassing all the major U.S. intelligence agencies and much of the U.S. government, and claiming that said agencies colluded amongst themselves to defraud the American people of their preferred choice for President via coordinated lies and abuse of government rules and systems, would have been excoriated as a “conspiracy nut”.

The type of speech whether hate or free expression, is not the issue – it’s acts/actions taken in the name of said speech that’s the issue for libs. The standard being whether or not said speech triggers a liberal, or motivates someone to act contrary to liberal ideals. It really comes down to the silly notion of “don’t give ’em any ideas.”

I wish instead of hiding their motives behind nebulous standards of conduct, they had to publish something like an impact assessment; i.e., “Alex Jones content promotes … which incites … and thereby harms community …”, etc.

But then of course that would make it easy for conservatives to fight back by exposing liberals many double-standards (‘do as I say, not as I do’).

    Valerie in reply to MrE. | August 8, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    For me, the lack of quotes in the Washington Post article carried by my local paper was a dead giveaway. The headline for the article included the words “hate speech,” but included nothing about any such speech.

    That kind of echoing lack in a news article is a sure indicator that the real objection was to political speech, which is of course the protected variety.

      MrE in reply to Valerie. | August 8, 2018 at 11:24 pm

      Valerie, you’ve sparked a curiosity for me – specifically, when a local paper runs an article from a larger paper or the AP, do they run with the original (same) title, or does the editor generate a new one tailored to their demographic / political slant? Lord knows I’ve observed CNN tweaking headlines to make them more sensational / incendiary, etc. But I’ve always viewed their stuff as original / in house where they could edit on the fly, headlines included. I’ve never specifically looked at AP / WaPo articles for content / headline tweakage by re-print publications.

        Milhouse in reply to MrE. | August 9, 2018 at 2:22 am

        Headlines are always supplied by the publication, not the original source. Even for in-house pieces, the headline is not supplied by the writer but by a copy editor, who has not always bothered to actually read the piece first.

        Valerie in reply to MrE. | August 9, 2018 at 11:03 am

        Sometimes they change the headlines, mostly not. Sometimes the paper of origin changes the headlines.

        I don’t know why you view CNN stories as original with them. Much of their political reporting shows up first in the Washington Post or the New York Times, and yes, they frequently tart it up. I see no principled difference between CNN and Alex Jones, although I haven’t heard of Alex Jones doxxing any private citizens or encouraging violence against American voters.

          MrE in reply to Valerie. | August 9, 2018 at 12:07 pm

          Thanks. About CNN, I’m probably blurring the lines between CNN the channel and CNN the web site. I never watch CNN, or look at their site other than to check headlines to satisfy my curiosity of “what Trump hate do they have today?” That I am at all familiar with CNN has to do with my elderly father, who lived with me for several years and watched CNN 8 hours a day until he died. It took 6 mos. just to train him to turn it off when I came into his room to talk. That elder care is so exhausting, my political intake has been more or less limited to LI, NR, Hotair, Reason.

I had not heard of Alex Jones before this post. I read up on him a bit after this post and doesn’t all this just prove that he is correct? That there IS a big conspiracy against Conservatives?