Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones – Who’s Next?
“based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy”
The deplatforming of Alex Jones by social media sites should disturb you whether you are a fan or not. I’ve never been a fan of Jones or his Infowars site. I’ve never gotten past the time Jones led an angry mob against Michelle Malkin in 2008. Still, if this can be done to him it can be done to anyone.
Twitter was the last holdout of the Jones purge, but announced their decision yesterday.
Eli Blumenthal writes at USA Today:
Twitter bans conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Infowars from social network for violating ‘abusive behavior’ policy
Alex Jones has been kicked off of Twitter.
The controversial founder of conspiracy website Infowars was banned from the social network Thursday afternoon. Both Jones’ personal account and that of his website were removed by Twitter.
“Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” Twitter’s official Safety account tweeted. “We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations.”
Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations. https://t.co/gckzUAV8GL
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) September 6, 2018
We will continue to evaluate reports we receive regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and will take action if content that violates our rules is reported or if other accounts are utilized in an attempt to circumvent their ban.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) September 6, 2018
Oliver Darcy of CNN has been leading a one-man crusade to get Jones deplatformed, and Jones confronted him about it outside of a congressional hearing where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was testifying.
ABC News reports:
Twitter said Jones posted a video on Wednesday that violates the company’s policy against “abusive behavior.” That video showed Jones berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes in between two congressional hearings on social media. Dorsey testified at both hearings, but did not appear to witness the confrontation.
Jones heckled Darcy in a Capitol Hill hallway where reporters were waiting to enter the House committee room. He criticized the journalist’s reporting and appearance, referencing his “skinny jeans” and repeatedly saying, “just look at this guy’s eyes” and “look at that smile.”
At one point, he said Darcy was “smiling like a possum that crawled out of the rear end of a dead cow. That’s what you look like. You look like a possum that got caught doing some really nasty stuff — in my view. You’re a public figure too.”
Darcy has aggressively questioned social media companies about the forbearance they showed Jones, asking why they have allowed him to remain on their platforms for as long as they have.
You can see part of the confrontation below:
Wow.
Alex Jones keeps yelling at and insulting CNN college @oliverdarcy right in the Rayburn House Office Building right now #Crazytown pic.twitter.com/5tYRQDs1Su
— Fabian Reinbold (@fabreinbold) September 5, 2018
You may think Jones is just a conspiracy theorist so it doesn’t matter but where does this end, and who decides who gets to speak? Rosie O’Donnell is a 9/11 truther, as are many other celebrities. So is former Obama White House ‘green jobs czar’ Van Jones who now works for… CNN.
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Comments
We’re all next.
Trump has to find another medium besides twitter.
WE have got to completely eliminate twitter from our information diet, as well as dump anything to do with amazon, google, etc. – at least to the extent you are able.
This is serious stuff: there is an entanglement between the tech giants and government: that has to either end, or laws must be enacted extending First Amendment rights to any media or medium doing business with the government.
Example:
The Trusted Cloud for Government:
https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/government/
Rino wimps like McConnell and Ryan won’t do it. Nor will a rat like Sessions.
We need to take charge. Vote with your pocketbook.
There is a FREE SPEECH alternative to Twitter: http://www.Gab.Ai
I’m on it as CloseTheFed.
It’s the wild west and you are able to mute anyone you wish and I’ve muted plenty of folks. I don’t worry that I’ll be deplatformed.
Wish Trump would move over to it and kill Twitter. Trump gives it gas.
Do others here have experience with Gab.Ai?
I’ve looked at it, but there are very few people there whose thoughts I find interesting. Hopefully more folks will migrate over and it won’t be so full of “fringe” types.
Rick, I forgot to mention that the Ace of Spades morons have a group over there:
https://gab.ai/groups/00666130-79e9-42ed-af1f-e2d60f07c6ea
Have over 1,000 members in the group.
That is a good recommendation.
”
Abusive behavior
You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.
help.twitter.com”
All these tech companies and most news organizations are hypocrites and POS liars. There is widespread and sneaky censorship.
I have been involved in a number of censorship battles. While I generally am OK with attorneys, I have crossed swords with a number internet section 230 fights, where sleazy attorneys would use threats of SLAPP lawsuits to try and force material off the net.
While I have no interest in Alex Jones material, these companies censorship does need to be stopped.
like many I don’t care for jones or infowars.
unlike many in the above category the ban DOES bother me.
hamas, PLO, etc not banned yet he was.
odd……
I agree. But once the Leftists banned him I added InfoWars to my daily reading list. If they don’t want me to see it I wanna see it!
I really don’t get the deplatforming idea. Who sees your content except for those who follow you (a choice the follower makes) Youtube, facebook, all of them have the option to block or not see certain content. Who cares if its fake news, conspiracy theory, even foul language?
Stl, that’s not exactly how it works.
Let’s say I don’t follow Elon Musk on Twitter and he doesn’t follow me. I can still send a tweet to him. He may have so many people sending him tweets he never sees it, or he may catch it. He does not have to follow me for him to see my tweet to him.
Let’s say I follow him and he tweets a comment. I can then comment on his tweet, and he can see all the comments on his tweets, if he chooses to look. Even if he’s not following me, he can tweet to me.
Hope that is clear.
You have to remember that liberalism at its core is the uncomfortable feeling that somebody, somewhere, is enjoying freedom (thoughts, actions, machineguns, etc). It isn’t that they can choose to not read it, it is that someone else can choose to read it. They simply cannot have that. The irony is that the pro-choice people are most often anti-choice everywhere else.
I think we are doing all we can right now to all at least acknowledge this thing with Jones. He was the test to see if they could pick off people without anyone sticking up for them. I think they will hesitate on the next one and hopefully this stops here. If not they can see the heat they goes will each ban and this will threaten their social media monopoly very quickly.
No, Milo Y. was the test. And they got away with it.
I completely do not like the idea of bbn using “public accommodation” laws, disagree with their concept but, short of funding/building a new platform you could call these platforms virtual public squares and limit their ability to deplatform individuals free speech. Any other ideas?
It’s my understanding of the law that they are already considered “platforms” and not “publishers,” and because of that distinction, they are exempt from libel laws for what is posted on their platforms. So as I understand it, they are enjoying legal protection from suit because they aren’t making editorial type decisions, yet they are.
If their immunity from such suits was removed, Katy bar the door! They’d be blocking much more aggressively.
Think they just need to “enforce” the law, although the law may not have an actual enforcement mechanism included in it right now, so may require amendment for that. with treble damages, that would be kewl! I’d file that suit!
The difference is they would have to block Leftoid rage accounts equally. If they don’t, then they can be held civilly and criminally liable for allowing Hamas to keep their account.
You are referring to section 230, which prevents the platform form being sued, but there really is no protection for users from platform abuse. That is what is happening now. Even worse, is that users are being subjected to cross platform abuse, collusion among the major platforms.
What about the abusive behavior of Harris and Booker towards Kavenaugh?
I wonder if platforms such as Twitter that are no longer neutral deserve the CDA 230 protection they currently enjoy.
That’s what is going to happen, they will be sued to remove that protection. There’s been at least one class action filed in the past month to do exactly that.
If I were a stockholder of any of these companies (I am not) I would be furious at the BoD for allowing such a risky strategy as they seem to be embarking upon. Not only are they reducing their market and opening up opportunities for competitors but they are exposing the corporation to losing a protection key for continued operation (CDA 230).
There are content-neutral ways to police what is on these platforms. It won’t make the SJW mob happy to see their favorite racists (Sarah Jeong, for example) thrown off the platform but it certainly would be easy to do, imho.
Oh well, this particular battle is just starting. It will be fascinating to see it play out.
Section 230 protects service providers from nuscent lawsuit, it should not be removed, doing so would make the situation much worse. There needs to be a law which stops banning of speech on dominate platforms, especially when there is collusion between different platforms.
The question is does Alex Jones and Infowars have a case against Oliver Darcy and CNN for Tortious interference. For this non lawyer it sure seems like it.
Have to think about that one. . . .
Personally I think we should all file complaints to the fec for campaign violations against them.
Prvoiding service to one party and not the other.
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen or read anything by Alex Jones since around 2008. Well, I may have seen stuff, but skipped it by.
The people who hate him the most are like flies around a bugzapper. They head toward the light, get zapped, head back, get zapped, etc…
We select our social circles. He’s not in mine. At all.
Frankly, free speech is a civil rights issue.
If a baker has to provide service to everyone, Twitter, Facebook, etc, don’t have the right to prevent his voice being heard.
For years, I have walked into a store and have seen The National Enquirer. I disagree with it. I see magazines I won’t buy either and never have. Don’t need to mention them.
Still, I know the store sells things it may or may not agree with, but there is freedom of the press so they sell these publications.
So, they sell news publications that might be anti-Trump or pro-Hillary.
When a storefront, like Twitter, or Facebook, starts saying what I can and cannot consume as news because they disagree with it even though I am willing to purchase it from them, they have stepped over the line of providing a service into denying a service based on color, creed, race, or religion.
That, at its core, is a civil rights violation.
This is twitter shooting itself in the foot and opening a door for the next platform.
These platforms are NOTHING but their users. Alienate the users and the platform dies.
Andy, I called someone “mentally retarded” on twitter and they told me I’d have to delete the tweet to get back on.
Instead, I’ve moved to http://www.Gab.Ai. It’s format is like Twitter’s except they have fixed topics, groups, users can form topics you can post under….
I saw twitter was going to start copying some of Gab’s ideas.
Apparently in addition to his behavior to the CNN guy Jones was also being a real a$$ to Marco Rubio when he was talking to reporters. At one point Jones even put his hands on Rubio (just a quick pat on the back) which Rubio’s security was quick to make Jones remove his hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqh1RQ43oA&t=0s
Nearly forgot, the above linked video is a bit NSFW because of language. Wear headphones or wait until you can watch at home or someplace private.
I don’t care what Jones’ behavior in person was to Rubio. You don’t kick someone off an internet platform because he talked to a third party in a way you dislike.
That makes Dorsey either the biggest ninny of a nanny or the Big Brother of them all. Which kind of jerk does Dorsey want to be?
I can’t believe the condescension that he would Presume to Judge someone else’s behavior Off his platform. The arrogance! The condescension! Who died and made him lord?
And no sane person thinks Alex Jones would physically harm Rubio. Nobody.
Principles or not, it’s hard to find a milligram of sympathy for someone who is such a complete self aggrandizing, bullying, airheaded jerk. As far as I can tell his main function is to discredit anyone or anything he associates with.
That’s funny, cause I don’t see Jones that way at all. I remember watching his program once, and he had his son, about 11? doing a report. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I just loved it.
I do think he has too many commercials, which is one reason I don’t watch. I also had trouble figuring out how to find his live broadcast, which is weird. I’d go on Netflix (which I dumped) and couldn’t figure it out.
Should have gone to his site.
Beagle Ear, one other thing. Alex Jones discusses many things which I have zero interest in, but when he hits something relevant, I have to give him credit.
A couple of years ago, I was on YouTube and one of their videos was covering one of these elite group meetings, bilderberg or something like that… Anyway, i watched it. They asked this one fellow leaving when they were going to take over the internet, and I thought, “What the hell is he talking about? Has something happened, that I don’t know about, that it’s being taken over?” And I was thinking, well, ICANN is being made international is that it?
And turns out, they were talking to Alex Karp of Palantir, who was ignoring their questions of course.
So I started reading about Karp and Palantir, and I’ll tell you, it was utterly eye opening. Peter Thiel and Karp and some others founded it, and many many police departments around the country are using the software in ways you wouldn’t believe, so as far as I’m concerned Alex Jones and company performed a very useful service for me.
But this is not about Alex Jones; Twitter is just using him as cover. It’s about conservatives being steadily marginalized and forced out of public debate. Please remember that anyone having the temerity to admit support for the duly elected President is now a racist, classist homophobe. It may be Alex Jones today, but it will soon be all of us.
“complete self aggrandizing, bullying, airheaded jerk”
Aren’t many TV personalities the same?
Yeah, Shep Smith comes to mind.
Glad I bailed on cable and don’t see him anymore.
Yeah, but leave it to Shep to be discussing J Lo and real jobs and somehow come out with “BJs” instead. Even Freud would go “dude?” at that gaff. One of the classic moments of live TV forever preserved on the internet.