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Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
121–130 of 153 posts
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#122One of the most difficult issues with the style of bans that large tech companies perform is that there is no hope for them to have strong consistency. For them to be consistent they would have to ban anyone that has been an equal or worse offender, while not banning anyone that is a lesser offender. This is obviously far-fetched, especially with decisions that are made by humans on a case-by-case basis. Regardless o…
It's OK to be inconsistent, because tech companies aren't governments and their rules aren't laws. They are allowed to control their platform however they want. Everyone is welcome to create their own "free-er" Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.
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Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#123Here is the video he broadcast that got him banned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_wFdA-1oU Alex Jones seems seriously unwell. That being said, apart from acting like a complete jackass and harassing that man it was not exactly a racist rant and not 'as bad' as some of his other comments. Not sure why he got banned specifically for this to be honest. Edit: not sure how that link got mixed up with another video...
Just the continuous directed stream of invective. For 1 minute you can keep watching, but it keeps on going as Alex Jones invents new insult after new insult. I actually started to feel nauseated.
In previous centuries, one could have credibly challenged him to a duel after just a few seconds of this. I wonder if we can find some other similar escape valve in the modern age.
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was aware of it, but I couldn’t have told you about it without prompting. I didn’t remember it that well. As soon as someone mentioned what it was it made perfect sense to me. Yeah, that’s the complex part of all of this. As you said context is king here, and Jones is very well known for making implicit or explicit derogatory remarks about Jewish people. There really isn’t room for him to claim “I didn’t know that“…
> After the hearing and his behavior immediately after I’m guessing they were tired of defending him and having to answer these questions AGAIN. Did you listen to the hearing? Jack was being questioned for unfairly silencing conservatives.
I know with the hearing was about. And I know they’re desperately trying to say that they are not silencomg conservatives. Jones has been a very obvious case of someone who has stayed on the platform despite violating the TOS multiple times.
And then after the hearing: Jones went up to a reporter from CNN, screamed in his face, made anti-Semitic remarks about him, AND POSTED IT TO TWITTER.
They was supposed to continue to let the TOS violations go? He probably chose the worst possible time/place to misbehave.
The only thing that would make any sense is that he PURPOSEFULLY did this to get kicked off as “proof” he’s being censored. I’m sure that’s the narrative he’s pushing.
Did he know the end was coming anyway and decided to make the best of it? Did he think they were “losing“ the hearing and he needed to provide “proof”?
Or is he just that incapable of controlling himself/behaving?
Doesn’t matter. He explicitly chose to shoot himself in the foot. I don’t see how Twitter had a choice.
“Do we want all the Democrats mad at us over Jones plus all the Republicans over ‘censorship’... or do we want to enforce our TOS, say he didn’t give us a choice, and be no worse off than yesterday (slightly better with Ds)?“
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? I’d say no matter what you think of Jones you should be celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies. The nonsense of banning people for X, unless they famous, unless they’re the wrong KIND of famous, or are being attacked by someone and asking “Why do they get to say X to me” stuff is a mess. How can anyone run a platform if the rules are in constant flux on a per day/user/…
> celebrating this as it means Twitter is holding to their own published policies. Have they banned the racist New York Times editor yet?
We already know certain people get special treatment. They were explicitly said it for the president. Jones certainly got it.
I’m not sure who you’re talking about or what they did but I’ve always gotten the feeling that Twitter is very careful about messing with people who have any amount of power/fame.
My position? Apply the rules to everyone who violates them no matter what.
Twitter has shown that won’t do that. But I’ll take 40% enforcement over 5% enforcement.
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#126I never watched infowars or read anything Jones said or wrote. But to think there are people who believe his crazy sh*t is really scary. Like the guy shooting up a pizza shop because of Pizzagate. I compare him to the World Weekly News (next to the People magazines) from way back where they'd show a picture of space aliens shaking hands with the president. Why does anyone believe this crap?
There are a lot of people who have lost faith in the system of government that has largely forgotten them. Their kids are drug addicts. Their towns look like war zones. They have no ability to earn a living. They seek to be recognized and valued. They seek to matter to someone. In Alex Jones they find a leader who understands their issues and makes it easy to understand who to blame. If we want to disarm Alex we need…
The government didn't forget about them.
They stole their money through inflation and stole their kids through corporations and prison.
They created massively scalable surveillance that watches everyone all over the world. Most people wish government would forget about them.
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#127For the past few years, whenever a company demonstrates that it is actively working against a culture of free speech, I block its URL in /etc/hosts. In this case, I already added Twitter long ago, so no change necessary. Not only do I have less time wasters around, but I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result.
Given that this very site moderates quite heavily, why is it not in your /etc/hosts file?
Because I don't equate moderation with "actively working against a culture of free speech". If HN was an enemy of it as a cultural norm, then I could not in good conscious support it with my traffic/content/etc.
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some insults are simply worse depending on who they are targeting. It is the difference between calling GW Bush a monkey because he occasionally looked like a monkey and Obama being called a monkey as a racial slur. The former is a childish insult that is easy to ignore. The latter is a form of bigotry that shouldn't be tolerated.
> Some insults are simply worse depending on who they are targeting. That's just an ideological step that is unwise to adopt. Taking that as a philosophy, anything you say is an intolerable statement because of who might get offended by it. This is antithetical to free speech as prior restraint. I don't know why anyone would subscribe to such a viewpoint. Every philosophy has boons and banes, but that doesn't mean th…
It's called "context".
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that this very site moderates quite heavily, why is it not in your /etc/hosts file?
Because I don't equate moderation with "actively working against a culture of free speech". If HN was an enemy of it as a cultural norm, then I could not in good conscious support it with my traffic/content/etc.
I think it could be argued that good moderation helps preserve free speech.
Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars
#130For the past few years, whenever a company demonstrates that it is actively working against a culture of free speech, I block its URL in /etc/hosts. In this case, I already added Twitter long ago, so no change necessary. Not only do I have less time wasters around, but I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result.
HN also actively moderates its content and its users. An Alex Jones would last about a day here before being banned. > I noticed that the internet is far less angry of a place as a result I would think it would be quite the opposite: the likelihood of being censored creates inhibition.
> I would think it would be quite the opposite: the likelihood of being censored creates inhibition.
I suspect that it's due to general interest social media sites being unhappy places. For example, I was definitely exposed to a constant stream of negativity when actively using Twitter. That might be because both sides see them as the front lines in culture and political wars.