In the future, the censorship comes from corporations
Alex Jones is either a lunatic or an actor. But he’s basically been banned from all social media. And one of the manosphere bloggers I’m unfamiliar with has had his books banned at Amazon.
I know, corporations own their platforms and all of that but it is a bit disturbing that they wield such an influence over people and their wallets.
September 11th, 2018 at 5:29 pm
And the segregationists owned the lunch counters. Google is far more dangerous than Bubba’s Diner.
September 11th, 2018 at 7:03 pm
And Conservatives keep saying things like, “it’s their property and their right” when completely ignoring the fact that there are no realistic alternatives.
They built those businesses using a lot of taxpayer dollars – infrastructure was just handed to them. Every single one of them utilizes public right-of-way to string private fibre and wire over and under our heads.
That’s a public utility they are using. Google has something like half a million miles of fiber running on public utility poles. Not, “we rent it from AT&T”, but they literally own the fibre for their own use.
You cannot compete with that. Nor can you complete with 90% domination of search, or 95% of advertising revenue (Google, Facebook, Twitter combined comes close).
The word “regulation” is not evil when it comes to regulating actual monopolistic entities that wield tremendous power to do evil against those from another culture or polity. These firms do not “have the right” to discriminate against The People while also expecting us to accept their domination of our rights. Not when they are monopolies that expect (and receive) special public benefit.
Break them up. Google has even made it easy for us, helpfully organizing their empire into one-letter firms under the tax umbrella of “Alphabet”.
A, B, C, D…
September 11th, 2018 at 9:04 pm
How do you think Kermit the Frog feels? Jones was his only advocate in stopping the gayifying of the frogs.
September 11th, 2018 at 9:35 pm
I don’t think this behavior from so many companies at once is an accident. Someone is calling the shots, and I wonder if that includes someone in government
September 11th, 2018 at 9:36 pm
The future is now. Anybody watching or reading anything from old media knows about controlling the message. And that’s really the only difference from new media…can’t have random yahoo’s (heh) using our tubes any more than our airwaves. Gotta fix that.
Control is power is money. Always follow the money.
September 11th, 2018 at 9:44 pm
Do libertarians really feel anti-trust law is wrong? These are monopolies abusing their market position to silence competition. Alex Jones is a loon, but he is also a competitor to Apple, Facebook and Google in several markets. Silencing him is illegal.
Charge up the trustbuster.
September 12th, 2018 at 7:41 am
You can go to his websites and download as much Alex Jones as you can stand. Infowars.com pops right up on the first page of a Google search. That’s hardly “silenced”.
Media platforms have been excluding content they thought was inappropriate since the invention of printing.
September 12th, 2018 at 7:59 am
Or you can just subscribe to his newsletters directly instead of using a social media feed. Is that really a huge burden?
September 12th, 2018 at 8:47 am
Politicians calling in favors. I guarantee you that is what is going on.
September 12th, 2018 at 9:31 am
“You can just go to Netscape.com and download their browser!”
Yeah? Microsoft was still convicted, and rightly so.
September 12th, 2018 at 1:42 pm
Joe says: “Politicians calling in favors. I guarantee you that is what is going on.”
Yes! It’s a defacto fascism. Left wing Dems calling for Internet and social media censorship of effective pro-Trump voices–and their tech allies complied. (Recall the Zuckerberg’s met with President Obama multiple times) Jones, a constitutionalist, pro-liberty, pro-gun, anti globalist type has usually opposed both major party presidents, but supported pro-American Trump. He’s most well known among non-MSM conservatives, so he’s the one they go after first since he brought in many who normally voted independent or 3rd party, especially for president.
September 12th, 2018 at 4:05 pm
@divemedic
Soros.
September 12th, 2018 at 4:43 pm
Lyford, and when his domain is dropped from the DNS registry, and no ISP will provide him with Internet service, then what? Do you really think the people trying to silence him will stop at social media?
September 12th, 2018 at 5:59 pm
@Richard, oh yeah, Soros.
I always thought the left wanted to get the “big money” outta politics. Not! When it’s on their side.
@Siegen, “Do you really think the people trying to silence him will stop at social media?” –or will stop with him?
September 12th, 2018 at 6:13 pm
Switch to Duck Duck Go. https://duckduckgo.com/ They don’t track your stuff or so they say.
September 12th, 2018 at 10:02 pm
Say Uncle, I’ve been your blog for years. You have just shown yourself as a libtard. Go to Alex’s website to find out what he actually says, not what the unfunny cowards like Colbert and the msm tell you he says. Wake up asshole.
September 12th, 2018 at 10:43 pm
@Mike G, you mean listen to what someone says instead of what someone else says they say? What a concept!
September 13th, 2018 at 12:21 am
Can anybody point me to anything he’s done other than foment shit? Otherwise he’s just another loud obnoxious attention whore.
September 13th, 2018 at 8:37 am
@JTC, easy fix, exercise freedom, don’t listen or watch. The fascist left who dominant the media fear freedom.
September 13th, 2018 at 9:24 am
Ron W, so the answer to the question is “no”?
Gets back to the “swallowing whole the spew” thing.
Just because someone is purportedly on “our” side doesn’t mean all they say, how they say it, and all of their theories and conclusions are anything more than playing to their audience and attention whoring for themselves, unless there is solid background and action backing it up…haven’t seen any of that from AJ.
I am not at all fond of my state’s R senator, “Little Marco”. But anybody who watched the haranguing of him by Jones outside chambers a few days ago has to agree there was nothing constructive, and quite a bit destructive, about that little show…and that’s all it was, nothing helpful or of consequence.
The proglodyte consortium including virtually all of the lamestream media, entertainment, and academia are all about nothing but hate, obstruction, and destruction of America and its real people…everything they say and do serves only that goal. Do we really want our spokespeople to be just an ersatz version of that?
September 13th, 2018 at 10:46 am
@JTC, I didn’t answer your question, like you didn’t say you agreed with my “exercise freedom” option. But that aside, I just say NO to fascist censorship for anyone on “our side” who are obnoxious in their methods while everyone on the other side doing the same and worse are allowed free expression. Because they are not stopping with Jones. A lesser known David Horowitz was recently banned. The Army Ranger who was a Benghazi defender who criticized Obama on Twitter referring to “Republican wild conspiracies” about Benghazi was another. Meanwhile, those on “their side” can go way beyond with “criminal threats” and be coddled. So I trust you are not excusing Jones’ censorship by the left? He may be obnoxious, but he’s not in with “hate and destruction of America”. That’s almost all on the left.
September 13th, 2018 at 12:20 pm
So like the famous Voltaire misattribution, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”…
I can get behind that (well, maybe not the death part, but yeah). Which of course the progs who claim 1A as their own want to be applied selectively and subjectively, much as they do the Amendment after it.
Of course his right to his spew is sacrosanct, but I do strongly dislike my rights, principles, and freedom being co-opted to get attention which I think is AJ’s only actual concern, much as I have said about T. Nugent’s act regarding my right to my guns.
I do think we are better than that, and adopting leftist methods does us more harm than good; people are seeing the truth through their shit more all the time, and we would do well to avoid having them begin to impugn our motives as they do the progs’.
AJ can say what he wants but that doesn’t mean I have to take his act as gospel, promote him or his views as mirroring mine, and not call him out for what I am convinced is purely disingenuous self-promotion…which I am doing now, ironically availing and implementing my own First Amendment rights.
September 13th, 2018 at 1:07 pm
@JTC, I pretty much agree. How you say it and how you act is important, but I look more at what is said. To me, the left goes way beyond that with criminal threats, public disruption, vandalism and violence against people, yet gets a pass by most social media and MSM because they are their allies. The left is into censoring content of ALL they oppose, by any means necessary, regardless of how it is presented.
But you’re right, the answer to speech you don’t like, or how it is said, is more speech, as you wrote, “implementing my own First Amendment rights”.
September 13th, 2018 at 2:01 pm
I keep pointing out that centralization is dangerous… and government is the most centralized thing of all.