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Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

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Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#101

Post by jessriedel »

bunderbunder wrote: post #87
jessriedel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that private stores can do what they want does not mean that they should do what they want or that consumers shouldn't demand otherwise. More generally, not all bad behavior is or should be illegal. The fact that the first amendment only legally applies to the government does not mean that free speech as a concept doesn't have moral force on other organizations. For instance, we expect universities to act as…

> we expect universities to act as neutral debate platforms for all sorts of views that are not endorsed by the university administration Public universities. I wouldn't dream of asking the same thing of Liberty University. The difference being, the one is a branch of government, and the other is not. Free speech is narrowly intended to be something that limits the government's ability to impose restrictions on non-g…

> Public universities.

Huh? Most universities in the US are private, including the large majority of the top ones that host controversial debates. (All the Ivys, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, etc.) These universities are held to rather high standard of neutrality even though it's not legally required for them to do so (modulo restrictions from government grants, which are empirically not the main drivers of their behavior with regard to free speech). They behave this way because the university professor and administrators believe the world is better for it, and because otherwise the public would lower their esteem as honorable places of learning (and good places for donations!).

> Free speech is narrowly intended to be something that limits the government's ability to impose restrictions on non-government entities for good reason

No! The First Amendment is intended to limit the government. Free speech is a much wider concept! If you don't understand why free speech is an idea that has important moral implications for individuals and private organizations, you should read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mills, the classic canonical defense of this. It's only 100 pages and available free.

https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liber...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#102

Post by 21 »

zaroth wrote: post #88

This is an interestingly coordinated move. It seems a most like each of the platforms was waiting for one of the others to make the first move at wiping InfoWars off their platform entirely instead of just censoring specific episodes, and then the dominoes fall. I’ve never listened to an InfoWars podcast, so I don’t know what I’m missing. But from what I gather Alex is an entertaining quack who is ultimately harmless…

Think about the Sarah Jeong way like this:

The NYT editorial board is mostly white man. While they are probably left leaning, they might probably have a streak of racism in them due to their "white privilege". So to counter balance that, you hire an overt anti-white racist.

This is the thinking in liberal left circles, they need vocal anti-white racists to balance the unconscious racist biases in the white liberal people:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/the-uti...

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#103

Post by raverbashing »

adrianN wrote: post #69
mgbmtl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing. Adding barriers to passive consumption, by vulnerable (misinformed) people, is probably also a good thing. It's not being censored/outlawed, just made slightly less convenient to access. Fake news are a threat to democracy.

Censoring "fake" news is not the way to a healthy democracy. Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need.

In theory people would have consciousness and would have time to evaluate good from bad sources

In practice that's not what happens.

So yeah, I'm not shedding a tear over IW (though they probably have a point, on one occasion or another. Other media address these points so it's not dependant on them)

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#104

Post by SonicSoul »

paulgb wrote: post #35

I agree with the comments that it's their store and they can do what they want with it, and Jones actively uses his platform to bully individuals so I'm not disappointed to see it diminished. That said, the trend of centralization of Podcasts worries me a bit. Podcasts were one of the few real success stories of an open syndication format that allowed an ecosystem of podcast apps to flourish. I've noticed a trend whe…

Whenever i try sharing an episode with someone I end up searching that podcasts website for archive with unique episode urls. This is not optimal because it makes users load it up in a browser instead of player, but seems the only reliable way to share an episode. Otherwise the "share" link is app specific (i.e. itunes) or just takes a user to the podcast instead of individual episode. Seems like a lack of open standard to offer deep linking using "default" podcast player. also fuck InfoWars

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#105

Post by bluthru »

mgbmtl wrote: post #15
tazjin wrote: post #2

With Apple, Facebook and Spotify doing this (and lots of reporting about it) I'd say ... cue the Streisand effect. Sometimes it's better to just not do anything, but I guess that doesn't get you PR points.

I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing. Adding barriers to passive consumption, by vulnerable (misinformed) people, is probably also a good thing. It's not being censored/outlawed, just made slightly less convenient to access. Fake news are a threat to democracy.

>passive consumption

It doesn't just show up in your podcast feed.

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#106

Post by rainbowmverse »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #86
rainbowmverse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird considering you submit the podcast as an RSS feed. I didn't know they uploaded the audio to their own servers.

I'm sure someone from Google will tell you it is to control the quality/experience. I remember back when I used iTunes that sometimes one podcast or another wouldn't download for a while, because their server was down or whatever, whereas most Google things it is reliably never the server's fault. Google would not be wrong to say it can ensure a better user experience if its providing the podcast over referring to an…

Sounds like AMP. "Google hosts it for performance reasons!"

I'm not too worried for myself since I plan to release it all in a Creative Commons album anyway, but I'll keep it in mind if I see someone talking up Google Podcasts.

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#108

Post by zaroth »

edkennedy wrote: post #91
zaroth wrote: post #88

This is an interestingly coordinated move. It seems a most like each of the platforms was waiting for one of the others to make the first move at wiping InfoWars off their platform entirely instead of just censoring specific episodes, and then the dominoes fall. I’ve never listened to an InfoWars podcast, so I don’t know what I’m missing. But from what I gather Alex is an entertaining quack who is ultimately harmless…

He was toeing the line of violence against journalists though, which is exactly when the take downs started to happen. "I don't condone violence buuuuuut..." https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/07/13/infowars-perso...

I didn’t watch the video, just read the transcript. Your quote is the headline but it’s merely paraphrasing what was actually said.

The transcript is talking about how media is trying to drum up a narrative that any violence against the media is Trump and InfoWars and Breitbart fault. This is seen as another means of censorship and blame gaming.

The specific example that comes to mind is of the attack in Baltimore Capital Gazette which just last week journalists were yelling “What about Baltimore?!” at Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when we know the gunman had specific personal animus and had even made Twitter threats against the paper, and yet CNN anchors claim it’s Trump fault for inciting violence against reporters....

Statements like this are purely political. There was no call for violence. This is discussing current events and the narrative around inciting violence against the media (“Acosta’s life threatened at Trump rally”) which is kind of an important story going on right now. But because they are on the “wrong” side of the narrative, we’ll find a way to call it hate speech and ban it?

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#109

Post by InTheArena »

I'm not familiar with Infowars, or the podcast. That said, I think we have to be very very cautious about allowing corporations, especially corporations as powerful as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple, to act as gatekeepers on speech. It's hard to get the balance right on speech issues, and that's when the determination is being governed by a democratic government. Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are in no way beholden to a representative electorate, and just because this particular instance makes sense, this is a massive shift of power from government to private corporation.

History has shown that this power has and will be abused. Even if it is not here, it will be in the future.

Re: Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory

#110

Post by firic »

untog wrote: post #30
wendy0x2 wrote: post #17

[flagged]

> There are plenty of offensive and overdramatic left-leaning podcasts How many of them accuse the victims of mass shootings of being false flag actors?

I can't find something that specific but here is a democratic elected official saying that her supporters should harass her political opponents https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sus_0zebE-k
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