31–40 of 191 posts
And of course right now he's atop today's Google searches:
https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=...
From Wikipedia: "The InfoWars website receives approximately 10 million monthly visits, making it more visited than some mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek." This bothers me. Say what you like about his content, but it is not fringe. He is the preferred "thinker" of a significant fraction of the population. If you think the solution is to deplatform him, you're thinking about the problem wron…
Why? He and his followers are "not even wrong". I wouldn't argue with any of them for any longer than I would any (other) anti-science person. It's simply not worth the effort (they aren't in reach of reason) and possibly harmful besides (it validates/confirms for them that their views have credibility enough to merit rebuttal).
I have mixed feelings about this. I fear it will actually make Jones' brand of demagoguery and crackpot theories more appealing and sexy. The best thing to do might be to let far-right conspiracy theory propaganda die in the mainstream, since the mainstream is where things go to die.
More likely it makes him harder to find and limits his reach more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Raise his platform. Discuss him. Debunk his ideas one by one. You use whichever tools appeal to you" You are assuming this would actually have an effect. Given recent history I am pretty sure people would A) Not see your debunking because it isn't in their little echo chamber of targeted fitlered online news and content. B) Wouldn't believe you or critically think about any debunking anyway. There is a reddit bot th…
If you can't persuade his base, then I guess you're not the person whose job it is to persuade his base. Be patient. One will come.
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From Wikipedia: "The InfoWars website receives approximately 10 million monthly visits, making it more visited than some mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek." This bothers me. Say what you like about his content, but it is not fringe. He is the preferred "thinker" of a significant fraction of the population. If you think the solution is to deplatform him, you're thinking about the problem wron…
This is a man spouting off that there is evidence that Michelle Obama is a man [1]. If that's not a fringe idea I'd like to know what you think one is. To me a fringe idea is one that is so obviously wrong that it is not worth considering its merits.
Doubtless there are many fools willing to consider the 'facts' surrounding Michelle Obama's gender but they are wackos. His ideas are not worth debunking. They are prima facie false. Discussing his punditry gives credence to the notion that his ideas are worthy of consideration. They are not.
His followers will not see him for what he is. They are clearly impervious to facts and reasoning. Anyone willing to follow the rantings of a man spouting off Alex Jones' nonsense is beyond being able to be reasoned with.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alex+jones+says+michelle+obama+is+...
In other discussions about this action, I've seen lots of confusion about what the 1st Amendment guarantees. Too many people think it guarantees an outcome: that the government must protect your right to free speech and make sure you have a platform for free speech. When in fact it's almost the opposite: it prevents the government from interfering with free speech, specifically Congress can not pass any laws that int…
That power cannot be underestimated. Consider how the leaders of both China and Russia have overwhelming popular support and poll better than any democratic leaders in the world. Google doesn't have anywhere near the influence over media that the CCP does, but its influence is considerable and its reach is nearly global.
The thing is that most of the web and the printed word is spam that will actively confuse you the more that you read it. Compare the newspaper to a cookbook. The cookbook, if it's good, can be tested for effectiveness quite readily even allowing for variations in things like your ingredients and how your oven functions as compared to the one in the author's test kitchen.
The news isn't all that different from Maury Pauvitch and it seems to get worse every year. You would probably at least learn a little about how small claims court works by watching daytime TV but you learn less than nothing from having poorly sourced propaganda piped into your brain at 1080p/60fps. People who watch Maury aren't under the impression that they're being elevated, but people addicted to the news are suffering from that delusion.