Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
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Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#2I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands.
At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themselves be pressured into) censuring speech more than has ever been seen in the modern West. This strikes me as an odd paradox, coming from a country where people get taught from primary school onward to "disagree with what you say but fight for your right to say it".
I wonder where all this is going to lead, especially since these few companies control so much of global information flow. Are Facebook, Google and Twitter, once self-titled champions of free information flow, going to be the forces that end America's freedom of expression (in practice at least)?
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#3"The New York Times reports that Jones tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their “battle rifles” ready against media and others"
Turns out that there is a limit, and it's making really overt death threats. I'm surprised he didn't get banned over the "Democrats are going to have a revolution" stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/07...
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#4I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands. At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themse…
What does this have to do with "America"? It's a private company enforcing its own rules on its own platform.
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#5I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands. At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themse…
Because it is American companies operating these big social media sites? Believe it or not, companies react to outcries by consumers, and they calculate that it will be better to suspend some users than not to.
Had it been European companies operating big social media sites, you'd seen the same thing happen. Companies are companies, and they aim for profit less so principles. And more and more Americans view websites' hosting of controversial content as implicitly condoning that content.
Besides, the First Amendment only prevent governments from limiting speech, not companies.
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#6Its pretty insane that public businesses are forbidden from discrimination on most grounds (political views, religious views, etc) of who it employs, or who can enter their business, but its perfectly fine for FB, Google, Apple, Twitter, etc., to completely control the content of the conversation on their platforms.
It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, or as a Restaurant owner I can't open a 'straight white people only' restaurant, but Social Media giants can basically purge any and all far right content.
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#7I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands. At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themse…
> companies ... censuring [censoring?] speech more than has ever been seen in the modern West
More than the Hays Code or HUAC?
And those are just in America; I'm old enough to remember when certain UK elected members of Parliament were legally banned from speaking on television, resulting in the weird "words read by an actor" workaround.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%9394_British_broadc...
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#8I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands. At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themse…
I must say I have not been jealous of the US in this regard. In my opinion the state should be able to silence fascists and neo-nazis and jail them for hate speech. Unlike the US, people in Europe have experienced first hand what happens when you tolerate and enable them.
Also I don't think you can call it "absolute freedom of speech" as some speech, like calls for murder of the usual fire in a theatre exemple, are indeed not allowed. The US also has libel laws & copyright laws. To me the main difference with European style freedom of speech seems to be tolerance of extremist political/religious speech.
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#9Its pretty insane that public businesses are forbidden from discrimination on most grounds (political views, religious views, etc) of who it employs, or who can enter their business, but its perfectly fine for FB, Google, Apple, Twitter, etc., to completely control the content of the conversation on their platforms. It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, or as a Restaurant ow…
Isn't that part of the difference between customers and users? You cannot discriminate against customers, but you can against users.
Re: Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet
#10Its pretty insane that public businesses are forbidden from discrimination on most grounds (political views, religious views, etc) of who it employs, or who can enter their business, but its perfectly fine for FB, Google, Apple, Twitter, etc., to completely control the content of the conversation on their platforms. It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, or as a Restaurant ow…
Isn't that part of the difference between customers and users? You cannot discriminate against customers, but you can against users.
I'm not aware of any such distinction in the law.
The more significant legal concept would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group, I'd imagine. "Far right" isn't on the list. (Neither is far left, incidentally.)