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Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

arstechnica.com

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Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#41

Post by pteredactyl »

joe_the_user wrote: post #24
ddtaylor wrote: post #2

Not that I agree with it but the safe strategy for any big company is to ban anything that seems risky since 95% of content most users consume is benign which is what keeps them on the platform.

I don't think banning anything provocative is a good strategy anymore. If anything, the triumph of Internet-logic over mainstream logic has involved a wide variety of people being willing to go out of their way to find provocative content. In a lot of ways, the broad mainstream seems like and often is bland, feel-good propaganda of its own - a product of both the cold war and media consolidation. Outrageous and destr…

Agreed.

And you should try hanging out with a bunch of Facebook, Google, or Apple employees on the weekend! Prepare for an exciting and novel conversation.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#42

Post by bassman9000 »

gammateam wrote: post #17
falcolas wrote: post #10

I believe the term being looked for is "martyr". Being banned from prominent platforms in a country which professes to believe in free speech (professes, because there's a bunch of caveats) is only going to boost the signal. This (in concert with the banning of certain DNS entries) is going to bite us in the ass. Of course, what else are we to do?

It is free expression for the privately run platforms to ban him.

Absolutely. And with rights come responsibility. If Jones' platform ends up boosted, it will be fair to say Facebook contributed to it.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#43

Post by pteredactyl »

amaccuish wrote: post #39
zouhair wrote: post #4

No it's not. Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms. You have to make it harder and harder for them to get a following.

Don't bother trying, this is an american site, your view will sadly not be popular.

Yes, America has the First Amendment of the Constitution.

It's a principle based approach to speech in that it's free unless it incites violence. Like Maxine Waters last week telling her followers to harass Trump supporters.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#44

Post by gammateam »

falcolas wrote: post #28
gammateam wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is free expression for the privately run platforms to ban him.

And there's one of the caveats I mentioned. Of course, it raises the concern - it's not the platform exercising free speech, it's a couple of individuals acting on behalf of the legal entity that owns the platform. Treating the platform, or the legal entity, as a being capable of expressing themselves - let's be honest with ourselves - is just a shield for the company owners to express themselves without being held a…

its those couple of individuals prerogative. it was never a discussion about the platform it was a discussion about the legal entity. what is there a need to be honest about, what segment of the society is confused about that, I'm personally not familiar with those people and it doesn't anything about what I understand is congruent with the constitutional social contract of the privately run platform to exercise their free expression to boot off someone is also exercising their free expression.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#45

Post by ocfx »

geofft wrote: post #19

> Booting someone like Jones from Facebook or YouTube altogether could easily turn him into a martyr among his paranoid fans. This would be significantly less of a problem if he didn't somehow have a legion of paranoid fans ready to consider him a martyr. Wonder how they got there. This article understates Jones' Sandy Hook activities, by the way: the parents of one of the victims have moved seven times because their…

> This would be significantly less of a problem if he didn't somehow have a legion of paranoid fans ready to consider him a martyr. Wonder how they got there.

So just ban everyone we disagree with before they get enough fans is the suggestion? Sounds like you're implying that here. For every vocal crazy person silenced by such a policy there are plenty of well intentioned people challenging the status quo who would also be silenced.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#46

Post by zouhair »

vorpalhex wrote: post #18
zouhair wrote: post #4

No it's not. Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms. You have to make it harder and harder for them to get a following.

> Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms MLK was a borderline enemy of the state in the 1950s because he petitioned for equal rights. Who gets to decide who is "dangerous"?

Are you equating a White Supremacist to MLK? Tolerating the intolerant is a stupid thing to do and is a recipe t destroy democracy.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#47

Post by zouhair »

atlantic wrote: post #12
zouhair wrote: post #4

No it's not. Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms. You have to make it harder and harder for them to get a following.

Obvious question: who decides who the dangerous people are? You?

White supremacists ideas are dangerous ideas, always.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#48

Post by zouhair »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #33
zouhair wrote: post #4

No it's not. Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms. You have to make it harder and harder for them to get a following.

Dangerous to whom, exactly? If you give the power to the government to allow or disallow deplatforming, then you end up with "dangerous to the state apparatus".

Yeah, silencing racists and white supremacist is the same as giving the government the right to silence everyone.

Giving these people a platform is what created Fox News and a made a clown President.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#49

Post by zouhair »

mistermann wrote: post #27
kweinber wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Also, freedom of speech doesn’t mean unlimited rights to all broadcast venues for speech. If these guys want to publish stuff on their own website, no one is stopping them.

Does that hold true for Europe?

Hate speech is extremely restricted in most democratic European countries. In France for example if you publicly deny the Holocaust you get to visit prison for some time.

Re: Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea

#50

Post by sctb »

influx wrote: post #8
masklinn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It's long been rather clear that giving crackpots a platform is very different from shining a spotlight on their crackpottery, and the last decade or so have confirmed it even further, platforming crackpots and handing them ways to reach a wider audience is a net detriment to society.

[flagged]

If you won't stop trolling we'll ban the account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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