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Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

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Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#81

Post by ve55 »

hbosch wrote: post #60
ve55 wrote: post #47

One 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.

We all know tech companies can do what they want, they've been doing it from day one. But consistency is a desirable trait for a lot of reasons, not just for fairness or equality but also because it allows one to make predictions about what content will or will not be allowed.

Twitter may be their own company but we all know how large of an influence they are for public discourse, including important public and private conversations such as that between politicians and the citizens of their country, so suggesting that there cannot be an issue because there are no laws being violated is shotrt-sighted. As a thought experiment, imagine if Twitter decided to post fake tweets with any content they want from any Twitter account they wanted to. Is that 'okay'? After all, it's Twitter's platform, they can do whatever they want. I would argue it is not. You could easily construct much worse versions of this thought experiment if this one wasn't sufficient.

Although it's nice that with a free economy one is allowed to create alternative platforms, in practice this has been shown to be much more difficult than in theory, with many attempts being denied service at every level of their operations (banned from their cdn, domain proivder, payment provider, banks, all social media paltforms, etc). A lot of people hate Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Google, etc, but there are many reasons why these companies are still in complete control.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#82

Post by vzaliva »

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 says they "permanently suspended" his accounts. Merriam Webster defines "suspend" as "to debar temporarily". So what it is, twitter? Permanently or Temporarily? It may be just sloppy writing or they are leaving a way for themselves to restore the accounts?

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#83

Post by slg »

rhcom2 wrote: post #75
ArchTypical wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> anything you say is an intolerable statement because of who might get offended by it. That isn't what OP said though. I believe they were commenting that all words are not the same to every group of people and cultural and historical context matters.

Exactly. It has nothing to do with who might be offended. It has to do with a history of racial oppression. No one is going to complain if you compare a individual black person to a rat or an individual Jewish person to a monkey because there is no historical precedent of those insults being used as blanket attacks against those groups. It is when you flip those two that you will get in trouble.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#84

Post by anigbrowl »

dsfasfsdfff wrote: post #42
ourmandave wrote: post #36

I 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?

And yet, you seem to have managed to use the internet for years without ever having to read his stuff. So what exactly is the case for banning him? It seems the standard tools (follow/unfollow/mute/block) are sufficient for people being able to avoid him. Do we really want social media monopolists and search engines to decide on what is truth and what isn't? What makes them the authority? Obviously Twitter, as a priv…

I just find it sad that people don't find it grounds enough to switch to a more open network.

Not having to see Alex Jones as often is a feature, not a bug.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#85

Post by [deleted] »

noobermin wrote: post #66
bachbach wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a fan of Alex Jones but he is not an anti-semite. In fact I suspect you have it backward. Jones will be intimately aware of (some of) the far left and (some of) far right anti-semite culture - it takes some character to see the big picture and in my personal exhaustive experience with that world most people exposed to those cultures would become anti-semites fast. Jone's nemesis is altogether more abstract -…

I've seen clips of Alex Jones deriding Brian Stelter, zooming into his face, calling him a "devil" and a "demon" of all things. It was rather surreal. What could Alex Jones possibly getting at with that? I think it's possible many people don't have much experience with anti-semitism so it seems unrelated (as for me) but given Jones' track record and other clips I've seen of him, it's pretty clear he plays with anti-s…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#86

Post by bachbach »

noobermin wrote: post #66
bachbach wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a fan of Alex Jones but he is not an anti-semite. In fact I suspect you have it backward. Jones will be intimately aware of (some of) the far left and (some of) far right anti-semite culture - it takes some character to see the big picture and in my personal exhaustive experience with that world most people exposed to those cultures would become anti-semites fast. Jone's nemesis is altogether more abstract -…

I've seen clips of Alex Jones deriding Brian Stelter, zooming into his face, calling him a "devil" and a "demon" of all things. It was rather surreal. What could Alex Jones possibly getting at with that? I think it's possible many people don't have much experience with anti-semitism so it seems unrelated (as for me) but given Jones' track record and other clips I've seen of him, it's pretty clear he plays with anti-s…

I have a lot of experience with anti-semitism - I've followed many extreme forums over the years and it's one of the most consistent patterns - even in oppositional ideologies.

Alex Jones is influential enough that he could, to use the parlance 'name the jew' and most of his followers would follow along with it or he would get new ones. If you think that he would find himself marginalized you are absolutely wrong - that would only occur at one level of society and the polite part isn't close to being meaningful - there is a huge market for this.

Throwing all people you find objectionable into one bucket is an error.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#87

Post by goostavos »

astrodust wrote: post #38
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Official statement: https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593 > Today, we permanently suspended @RealAlexJones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/abusive-behav...

Somehow this is just the babiest of baby steps. Infowars has a lot more than one Twitter account, and there's a lot of accounts other than Infowars that need to be thrown off Twitter.

I also have some speech I disagree with that I would like silenced.

Is there a form somewhere?

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#88

Post by T4NG »

CharlesW wrote: post #7
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #3

Honestly, "Those are the eyes of a rat" is a fairly tame insult compared to the kind of toxic drivel Jones usually says, and seems like weak grounds for termination. He should've been kicked off long ago, but I fear that having this particular example be the "final straw" is only going to strengthen the alt-right's persecution complex.

It does seem tame, but a quick search suggests it may be an anti-semitic dog whistle.

"anti-semitic" really dude?

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#89

Post by P_I_Staker »

hbosch wrote: post #60
ve55 wrote: post #47

One 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.

I simply cannot agree with this logic. I'd compare this to saying, if you don't like TV censorship create your own channel. Don't like censorship in Hollywood? Simply open a major studio. I've been extremely critical of industry censorship elsewhere, so at least there's consistency. I don't like the MPAA telling me that female pleasure and homosexuality is worse than brutal gore and murder.

I'm glad to see Alex John's go, but I'm shocked by the lack of concern many people have on this issue. More and more communication relies on social media, and I'm terrified by the implications of ceding public discorse to any large organization. Yes there technically are other options, but we're talking about mainstream channels with sizeable audiences, which tend towards oligarchies. People are just happy that speach they find deplorable will be censored; conservatives were happy to have homosexuality censored. Obviously, in this case Twitter is being much more reasonable.

Re: Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones and Infowars

#90

Post by WalterGR »

The Twitter founder addressed concerns about Jones’ conspiracy-mongering, and tasked journalists with refuting his bogus claims.

“Accounts like Jones' can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it’s critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions,” Dorsey tweeted. “This is what serves the public conversation best.”

Wow. Putting the burden of proof on anyone but the person making a claim is ridiculous.

Any video with John or Joan Q. Qanon will have someone saying something to the effect of, “Well, you don’t have any proof that it’s not true!”

Also, Jack Dorsey is a closet believer in the Tooth Fairy. He’s been known to dress up as the Tooth Fairy and to participate in Tooth Fairy-related rituals.

I encourage anyone to disprove that.

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