Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify ban Infowars' Alex Jones

[DamianTV]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...m_medium=email

Mon 6 Aug 2018 06.47 EDT

All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”.

Facebook’s removal of the pages – the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page – comes after the social network imposed a 30-day ban on Jones personally “for his role in posting violating content to these pages”.

Following that suspension, a Facebook spokesperson said: “More content from the same pages has been reported to us – upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”

The spokesperson noted that, despite the focus on Jones’s role in spreading conspiracy theories around events such as the 9/11 attacks and Sandy Hook school shooting, “none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this”.

A few hours after Facebook announced its ban, YouTube also terminated Jones’s account on its platform. The company issued a statement that didn’t refer to Jones by name, saying only that: “All users agree to comply with our terms of service and community guidelines when they sign up to use YouTube. When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment, or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.”

The Guardian understands that the specific rationale for Jones’s ban was his habit of appearing in livestreams hosted on other channels on the site, despite being subject to a 90-day ban.

Facebook’s and YouTube’s enforcement action against Jones came hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.

...

Full article at link.

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Is Alex Jones protected by the First Amendment, or will the idea that Facebook and YouTube are "Private Property" and they can do what they want? Where is the Line drawn?

On the Technical Side. Hosting his content on their servers I can see as Private Property. What about DNS Records? DNS is Domain Name Service. The internet does not directly use names like ronpaulforums.com to transfer data back and forth. ALL that data needs to be changed into IP addresses. For example, the IP of ronpaulforums.com is 67.225.158.173 and ALL websites have this. What DNS does is changes the Name to an IP so your computer can talk to it. So, lets say Alex Jones hosts ALL of his content on his own servers. Since they are his servers, would he have a technical Right to say what he wants on his website? What he can not do all by himself is register his own DNS records. Not a legal thing, its just the way the internet works. Now, with that, would his DNS Host also have a "Right" to shut him down? I could see that would be reasonable if the bills were not paid, and that is fine. But would his DNS Host (a.k.a. Domain Name Registrar) have a "Right" to deny him service based on the content he provides on his own servers?

So two possible Debates here, first is Free Speech in general, and the second is the Technical side of web and how stuff works, as well as who has "authority". Debate.

[Anti Globalist]

Pretty soon Alex Jones will be banned from the entire planet.

[Swordsmyth]

The Post Office should provide neutral DNS service that can't be withdrawn except in cases of criminal activity and government should stop supporting the tech giants.

[phill4paul]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...m_medium=email



Full article at link.

---

Is Alex Jones protected by the First Amendment, or will the idea that Facebook and YouTube are "Private Property" and they can do what they want? Where is the Line drawn?

On the Technical Side. Hosting his content on their servers I can see as Private Property. What about DNS Records? DNS is Domain Name Service. The internet does not directly use names like ronpaulforums.com to transfer data back and forth. ALL that data needs to be changed into IP addresses. For example, the IP of ronpaulforums.com is 67.225.158.173 and ALL websites have this. What DNS does is changes the Name to an IP so your computer can talk to it. So, lets say Alex Jones hosts ALL of his content on his own servers. Since they are his servers, would he have a technical Right to say what he wants on his website? What he can not do all by himself is register his own DNS records. Not a legal thing, its just the way the internet works. Now, with that, would his DNS Host also have a "Right" to shut him down? I could see that would be reasonable if the bills were not paid, and that is fine. But would his DNS Host (a.k.a. Domain Name Registrar) have a "Right" to deny him service based on the content he provides on his own servers?

So two possible Debates here, first is Free Speech in general, and the second is the Technical side of web and how stuff works, as well as who has "authority". Debate.

Another debate might be why all of them have banned a single eindividual at one time. Collusion or the same entity?

[DamianTV]

Another debate might be why all of them have banned a single eindividual at one time. Collusion or the same entity?

Their timing has definitely validated the conclusions of every conspiracy theorist out there. Whether there is or is not, what is expected is that we believe there is no such thing as a conspiracy. All anyone would expect from anyone else is to merely entertain the possibility that there really is a conspiracy.

One of the problems is that the people that are a part of the conspiracy may not believe what they are doing is a conspiracy, just as Bernie Madoff would have believed that he deserved to financially benefit from exploiting his clients. I would say that Bernie Madoff had engaged in an actual conspiracy, but if you were able to dig into his mind, he genuinely would not think he was doing anything wrong. This is not much different than those in high positions of power who think they are doing the "right thing" when they are in fact actively engaged in conspiracies themselves. It only goes to show different levels of involvement of real conspiracies. Most people just think what they are told to think, including those at the top, who dont believe in conspiracies both in general, as well as their own involvement. And since Censorship has a huge part to play in telling people what to think, they really are just as much a part of the actual conspiracy whether they believe it themselves or not.

[enhanced_deficit]

Although AJ crossed the line in his opposition to Trump's (Ivanka driven?) bombing of Syria. But despite some conspiracy theories, there is no proof that GOP-Jarvanka wing is secretly behind synchronized muzzling of AJ by various left wingy neoconish social media.

So Alex Jones FINALLY has enough of Trump? "He just crapped all over us!"

The Post Office should provide neutral DNS service that can't be withdrawn except in cases of criminal activity and government should stop supporting the tech giants.

Trump will probably soon tweet to support AJ's free speeching rights and that could be game changer for these socials.

[jct74]

[Marenco]

Not much of a Chomsky fan but he does make a good point here...

[pcgame]

Although AJ crossed the line in his opposition to Trump's (Ivanka driven?) bombing of Syria. But despite some conspiracy theories, there is no proof that GOP-Jarvanka wing is secretly behind synchronized muzzling of AJ by various left wingy neoconish social media.

So Alex Jones FINALLY has enough of Trump? "He just crapped all over us!"





Trump will probably soon tweet to support AJ's free speeching rights and that could be game changer for these socials.

going to be honest, Ivanka would probably make a better president than Donald. (although I do not endorse an interventionist foreign policy)

[newbitech]

You can run an internet site without dns. ICANN is a globalist idea anyways. The problem as it has always been is distribution. This is where you get into the realm of telcos. The reason content gateways like the big socials and searches are monopolized is because individuals have by choice coagulated themselves around these services. Where the telcos come in is with their actual physical control. If you want to see this problem end, you need to put your attention on the distribution network. Basically it's like tv used to be when there were only like 5 channels. The network that could provide more channels earned more audience attention share cause more options. Problem is all of our telcos are basically nationalized and commodotized thanks to over abundance of regulation. Allow telcos to throttle bandwidth on per market basis. Let the content providers adapt. Will it suck that in some neighborhoods it will be impossible to join the best call of duty server 800 miles away? Yup, but it will also create a market for local content, which is what is sorely missing in today's news cycle. We need unfederated content, not central clearing which is what the socials provide.

[AuH20]

The mother of all false flags could be approaching with this recent purge. The general population is far too unruly.

[Origanalist]

In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship



Last year, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed on the US Senate floor that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

Yes, this really happened.

Today Twitter has silenced three important anti-war voices on its platform: it has suspended Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, suspended Scott Horton of the Scott Horton Show, and completely removed the account of prominent Antiwar.com writer Peter Van Buren.

I’m about to talk about the censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars now, so let me get the “blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones” thing out of the way so that my social media notifications aren’t inundated with people saying “Caitlin didn’t say the ‘blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones’ thing!” I shouldn’t have to, because this isn’t actually about Alex Jones, but here it is:

I don’t like Alex Jones. He’s made millions saying the things disgruntled right-wingers want to hear instead of telling the truth; he throws in disinfo with his info, which is the same as lying all the time. He’s made countless false predictions and his sudden sycophantic support for a US president has helped lull the populist right into complacency when they should be holding Trump to his non-interventionist campaign pledges, making him even more worthless than he was prior to 2016.

But this isn’t about defending Alex Jones. He just happens to be the thinnest edge of the wedge.

As of this writing, Infowars has been censored from Facebook, Youtube (which is part of Google), Apple, Spotify, and now even Pinterest, all within hours of each other. This happens to have occurred at the same time Infowars was circulating a petition with tens of thousands of signatures calling on President Trump to pardon WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who poses a much greater threat to establishment narratives than Alex Jones ever has. Assange’s mother also reports that this mass removal of Infowars’ audience occurred less than 48 hours after she was approached to do an interview by an Infowars producer.

In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. Because legalized bribery in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations has given wealthy Americans the ability to control the US government’s policy and behavior while ordinary Americans have no effective influence whatsoever, the US unquestionably has a corporatist system of government. Large, influential corporations are inseparable from the state, so their use of censorship is inseparable from state censorship.

This is especially true of the vast megacorporations of Silicon Valley, whose extensive ties to US intelligence agencies are well-documented.

continued..https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/08...te-censorship/

[shakey1]

In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship



Last year, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed on the US Senate floor that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

Yes, this really happened.

Today Twitter has silenced three important anti-war voices on its platform: it has suspended Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, suspended Scott Horton of the Scott Horton Show, and completely removed the account of prominent Antiwar.com writer Peter Van Buren.

I’m about to talk about the censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars now, so let me get the “blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones” thing out of the way so that my social media notifications aren’t inundated with people saying “Caitlin didn’t say the ‘blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones’ thing!” I shouldn’t have to, because this isn’t actually about Alex Jones, but here it is:

I don’t like Alex Jones. He’s made millions saying the things disgruntled right-wingers want to hear instead of telling the truth; he throws in disinfo with his info, which is the same as lying all the time. He’s made countless false predictions and his sudden sycophantic support for a US president has helped lull the populist right into complacency when they should be holding Trump to his non-interventionist campaign pledges, making him even more worthless than he was prior to 2016.

But this isn’t about defending Alex Jones. He just happens to be the thinnest edge of the wedge.

As of this writing, Infowars has been censored from Facebook, Youtube (which is part of Google), Apple, Spotify, and now even Pinterest, all within hours of each other. This happens to have occurred at the same time Infowars was circulating a petition with tens of thousands of signatures calling on President Trump to pardon WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who poses a much greater threat to establishment narratives than Alex Jones ever has. Assange’s mother also reports that this mass removal of Infowars’ audience occurred less than 48 hours after she was approached to do an interview by an Infowars producer.

In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. Because legalized bribery in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations has given wealthy Americans the ability to control the US government’s policy and behavior while ordinary Americans have no effective influence whatsoever, the US unquestionably has a corporatist system of government. Large, influential corporations are inseparable from the state, so their use of censorship is inseparable from state censorship.

This is especially true of the vast megacorporations of Silicon Valley, whose extensive ties to US intelligence agencies are well-documented.

continued..https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/08...te-censorship/

[Origanalist]

So does anyone here use Gab?

[CaptUSA]

Is it any wonder that the biggest proponents of Net Neutrality are now censoring the internet??

I hope you all see that they're using Alex Jones as a pawn. It was almost too easy for them. "Oh, you're going to roll back the Net Neutrality regulations that we spent so much money lobbying for??? Guess what, we'll start censoring people we don't like and see how the public reacts!!"

Don't fall for this trap.

Keep the internet free. We all know that these companies are heavily influenced by the government (to say the very, very least), but we mustn't allow that turn into us calling for tighter controls! I agree wholeheartedly with Originalist's post http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...30#post6664030, but we have to tread carefully. They're setting up a trap and I see many of you falling into it.


ETA: I wonder if AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can weigh in on this battle?? Perhaps they should throttle those companies that censor or charge them more if they do it?? Could that be a free market answer to keeping this crap in check???

[dannno]

He's still on periscope

There is also an inforwars app now

[Origanalist]

Alex Jones sighting..

[Anti Federalist]

[CaptUSA]

Yes. And Yes.

Please see post 15 as I don't think the trap can be stressed enough.

[juleswin]

Is it any wonder that the biggest proponents of Net Neutrality are now censoring the internet??

I hope you all see that they're using Alex Jones as a pawn. It was almost too easy for them. "Oh, you're going to roll back the Net Neutrality regulations that we spent so much money lobbying for??? Guess what, we'll start censoring people we don't like and see how the public reacts!!"

Don't fall for this trap.

Keep the internet free. We all know that these companies are heavily influenced by the government (to say the very, very least), but we mustn't allow that turn into us calling for tighter controls! I agree wholeheartedly with Originalist's post http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...30#post6664030, but we have to tread carefully. They're setting up a trap and I see many of you falling into it.


ETA: I wonder if AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can weigh in on this battle?? Perhaps they should throttle those companies that censor or charge them more if they do it?? Could that be a free market answer to keeping this crap in check???

Just for the record, there is nothing in the Net neutrality reg that would have spared Infowars from this ban. I guess maybe it would have prevented ISP from throttling the connection speed to their website but that is it.

I think some people claiming these social media sites are public utility and should abide by the first amendment should be very careful. I have heard people like AuH20 make the connection that since some social media websites got tax breaks from govt should be treated as a public utility. Those same people should know that the same arguments can be made to justify net neutrality. I know the precedent set here would likely to come back and hurt me but I will still defend the right of the public company to boot infowars from their platform.

[AuH20]

Just for the record, there is nothing in the Net neutrality reg that would have spared Infowars from this ban. I guess maybe it would have prevented ISP from throttling the connection speed to their website but that is it.

I think some people claiming these social media sites are public utility and should abide by the first amendment should be very careful. I have heard people like AuH20 make the connection that since some social media websites got tax breaks from govt should be treated as a public utility. Those same people should know that the same arguments can be made to justify net neutrality. I know the precedent set here would likely to come back and hurt me but I will still defend the right of the public company to boot infowars from their platform.

I think they should have their tax breaks stripped. I don't want to control them. They can discriminate without tax breaks if they choose to do so.

[Swordsmyth]

In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship



Last year, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed on the US Senate floor that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

“Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

Yes, this really happened.

Today Twitter has silenced three important anti-war voices on its platform: it has suspended Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, suspended Scott Horton of the Scott Horton Show, and completely removed the account of prominent Antiwar.com writer Peter Van Buren.

I’m about to talk about the censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars now, so let me get the “blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones” thing out of the way so that my social media notifications aren’t inundated with people saying “Caitlin didn’t say the ‘blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones’ thing!” I shouldn’t have to, because this isn’t actually about Alex Jones, but here it is:

I don’t like Alex Jones. He’s made millions saying the things disgruntled right-wingers want to hear instead of telling the truth; he throws in disinfo with his info, which is the same as lying all the time. He’s made countless false predictions and his sudden sycophantic support for a US president has helped lull the populist right into complacency when they should be holding Trump to his non-interventionist campaign pledges, making him even more worthless than he was prior to 2016.

But this isn’t about defending Alex Jones. He just happens to be the thinnest edge of the wedge.

As of this writing, Infowars has been censored from Facebook, Youtube (which is part of Google), Apple, Spotify, and now even Pinterest, all within hours of each other. This happens to have occurred at the same time Infowars was circulating a petition with tens of thousands of signatures calling on President Trump to pardon WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who poses a much greater threat to establishment narratives than Alex Jones ever has. Assange’s mother also reports that this mass removal of Infowars’ audience occurred less than 48 hours after she was approached to do an interview by an Infowars producer.

In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. Because legalized bribery in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations has given wealthy Americans the ability to control the US government’s policy and behavior while ordinary Americans have no effective influence whatsoever, the US unquestionably has a corporatist system of government. Large, influential corporations are inseparable from the state, so their use of censorship is inseparable from state censorship.

This is especially true of the vast megacorporations of Silicon Valley, whose extensive ties to US intelligence agencies are well-documented.

continued..https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/08...te-censorship/

Good article but they have things a little wrong, it is not corporate speech that is the problem, it is corporate welfare and competition limiting taxes and regulations that are the problem, Trump is also to blame in a small way along with other high profile influencers, they should have abandoned twitter etc. when the censorship first started, I fault Rand and some of our other public personalities as well.

[Origanalist]

So does anyone here use Gab?

Just started a account, no idea if i'm going to post much there yet. https://gab.ai/Origanalist

[euphemia]

Alex Jones has been using other people's platforms for a long time. He can always buy his own media.

[dannno]

Alex Jones can always buy his own media.

Ya, the most popular platforms on the web don't need anybody promoting peace, what they need is non-stop war mongering and leftist horse tripe.

[dannno]

Trump is also to blame in a small way along with other high profile influencers, they should have abandoned twitter etc. when the censorship first started, I fault Rand and some of our other public personalities as well.

They should all be on multiple platforms in order to get the most views, but I agree it would be nice if they were more active and promoted more alternative platforms. The problem is that doesn't get them a lot of views. The point is to reach as many people as possible.

[euphemia]

I would not say Jones is all that peaceful. His tone and language are not peaceful at all. If he's worth what he and you all think he's worth, then he should be able to float his own company.

As much as I dislike it, YouTube, Apple, FB, and all the rest are either private entities, or publicly traded. They have BoDs and shareholders. They have to answer to the profit.

If we are libertarian, the that includes the right to run one's business the way one wants to. If that means Alex Jones needs to find another way, then that kind of tests the strength of his market.

[Swordsmyth]

They should all be on multiple platforms in order to get the most views, but I agree it would be nice if they were more active and promoted more alternative platforms. The problem is that doesn't get them a lot of views. The point is to reach as many people as possible.

I understand but this kind of censorship should be met with a public backlash, Trump in particular could start a mass exodus to non-censoring sites if he wanted, especially if he coordinated with Rand and others, imagine the effect if his final tweet was that he, Rand and a host of other politicians and celebrities were moving to Gab and other alternatives to MugBook etc.

[timosman]

I would not say Jones is all that peaceful. His tone and language are not peaceful at all. If he's worth what he and you all think he's worth, then he should be able to float his own company.

Great mental gymnastics.

[Anti Globalist]

Trump better say something about all these people getting banned.