Free speech.

[Katman]

Do you not understand, that the Guilt of Alex Jones in breaking site rules, has nothing to do with what others have done or may not have done.

You're very particular about site rules, aren't you?

Particularly when they can be used in an attempt to silence an opinion you don't like.

[Ocean1]

Can you point to the reasons why his account was terminated? It's a rather simple question...

You're suggesting the rules are applied with bias AND not completely transparent?

To be fair, historically the first has usually required the second.

[TheDemonLord]

Can you point to the reasons why his account was terminated? It's a rather simple question...

It's also a completely irrelevant question.

[TheDemonLord]

Do you not understand, that the Guilt of Alex Jones in breaking site rules, has nothing to do with what others have done or may not have done. So going on and on about it gets you nowhere. This opinion of yours is irrelevant.

And I've never made that argument. Try again.

All of these companies ie twitter, Youtube, Facebook are private companies. They can ban anyone they wish to, for what ever reason they wish. Its their right. Its their site.
Your feelings about it are also completely irrelevant.

That is indeed the starting position, however I'll again point to Trump's twitter account, it's now considered a Public Space and bound by the protections of the 1st Amendment.

The follow on question is whether, as a platform upon which an increasing amount of Political debate occurs, needs protection.

And I'll re-iterate the solution - they need to correct their internal biases and apply their existing ToS evenly. No one would have an issue if they did that.

These organisations have a right and a obligation to shield themselves from potential laws suits and they do this by determining what content is appropriate or not on their own sites. They are a business that sells add spaces.

Ah yes, and how is that working out for them? I believe the phrase is "Get Woke, Go Broke".

I'll clarify the distinction - No one would complain about them removing illegal content. People are complaining about them censoring Political content. And those two things are not the same.

So therefor the content that is hosted on their sites is a reflection on them and their ability to conduct business.

Fundamentally incorrect. It's the traffic numbers (unique visitors) that is a reflection on them and their ability to conduct business. And so far the uptick in membership from sites such as minds.com, Full30.com etc. with each wave of political purges from the main sites has been huge.

They dont care about your individual opinion nor should they, they will do what they want which is whats in the best interest of their shareholders, at the moment is distancing themselves away from a nutjob Alex Jones and his cult of idiots. They balance that with the money they could make out of having him hosted on their sites
Lastly who cares what Jones followers think about banning him, they are conspiracy theorists and nutjobs.

And what is best for their shareholders?

Well, that would be to have the highest count of unique visitors, registered users etc. consider that Alex Jones had about ~2-3 Million subscribers, Most people have heard of him. Content either supporting, discussing or Mocking him runs at about 50:1 (so for every video he does, there are 50 or so posted of clips, rebuttals, support etc.)

His reach is realistically somewhere in the 10s of Millions, possibly even over 100 Million - which happens to be significant.

So what happens - well, Alex Jones will go over to his preferred alternative provider. His dedicated fanbase will follow him there. Undoubtedly, that fanbase will start to make content on that alternative platform - which will be linked, shared, sent, Posted on KB etc. which will then drive more content. I'm not saying this will be the end of Youtube, but it will have an impact.

And that is all traffic and content that Youtube et al could be leveraging for Ad content.

Distancing themselves from a popular content creator comes at a cost and it's certainly not good for business. It's just the same as when TelstraClear stopped serving adult content on their cable network. Principled stands are almost never good for business.

[husaberg]

You're very particular about site rules, aren't you?
Particularly when they can be used in an attempt to silence an opinion you don't like.

Not really, i just know the difference between free speech and hate speech.
I also know the difference between stating an opinion and being abusive.
If someone opinion is getting silenced because of the sites rules ,it's because they are choosing to behave outside them.
Its pretty simple, If they dont like the site rules they can leave the site or set up their own.

[husaberg]

And I've never made that argument. Try again.



That is indeed the starting position, however I'll again point to Trump's twitter account, it's now considered a Public Space and bound by the protections of the 1st Amendment.

The follow on question is whether, as a platform upon which an increasing amount of Political debate occurs, needs protection.

And I'll re-iterate the solution - they need to correct their internal biases and apply their existing ToS evenly. No one would have an issue if they did that.



Ah yes, and how is that working out for them? I believe the phrase is "Get Woke, Go Broke".

I'll clarify the distinction - No one would complain about them removing illegal content. People are complaining about them censoring Political content. And those two things are not the same.



Fundamentally incorrect. It's the traffic numbers (unique visitors) that is a reflection on them and their ability to conduct business. And so far the uptick in membership from sites such as minds.com, Full30.com etc. with each wave of political purges from the main sites has been huge.




And what is best for their shareholders?

Well, that would be to have the highest count of unique visitors, registered users etc. consider that Alex Jones had about ~2-3 Million subscribers, Most people have heard of him. Content either supporting, discussing or Mocking him runs at about 50:1 (so for every video he does, there are 50 or so posted of clips, rebuttals, support etc.)

His reach is realistically somewhere in the 10s of Millions, possibly even over 100 Million - which happens to be significant.

So what happens - well, Alex Jones will go over to his preferred alternative provider. His dedicated fanbase will follow him there. Undoubtedly, that fanbase will start to make content on that alternative platform - which will be linked, shared, sent, Posted on KB etc. which will then drive more content. I'm not saying this will be the end of Youtube, but it will have an impact.

And that is all traffic and content that Youtube et al could be leveraging for Ad content.

Distancing themselves from a popular content creator comes at a cost and it's certainly not good for business. It's just the same as when TelstraClear stopped serving adult content on their cable network. Principled stands are almost never good for business.

All of this was covered and disproved in the last page.
The trump twitter is different hes a public official using it as an official information source

Peaceful public speech and demonstrations in those venues cannot be stopped based on what is being said without a compelling government interest. Twitter, however, is not a real-world space. And it’s run by a private company.
The judge’s ruling found, however, that the company has less control over the @realDonaldTrump account than Trump himself and White House social media director Dan Scavino – also a public official. Their power includes the ability to block people from seeing the account’s tweets, and “from participating in the interactive space associated with the tweets,” in the form of replies and comments on Twitter’s platform.
Also key was the fact that the @realDonaldTrump account is used for governmental purposes. Specifically, the judge found that “the President presents the @realDonaldTrump account as being a presidential account as opposed to a personal account and, more importantly, uses the account to take actions that can be taken only by the President as President” – such as announcing the appointments and terminations of government officials.

In a statement on the decision to remove Jones’s content from its site, Facebook said that the company was not doing so because Jones was a conspiracy theorist, but because he was “glorifying violence” and “using dehumanizing language” against minorities:

As a result of reports we received, last week, we removed four videos on four Facebook Pages for violating our hate speech and bullying policies. These pages were the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the InfoWars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page. In addition, one of the admins of these Pages – Alex Jones – was placed in a 30-day block for his role in posting violating content to these Pages.

Since then, 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 dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies... While much of the discussion around Infowars has been related to false news, which is a serious issue that we are working to address by demoting links marked wrong by fact checkers and suggesting additional content, none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this.

More recently, Jones has been embroiled in a series of lawsuits filed by people about whom he has made repeated false assertions, like Marcel Fontaine: Infowars declared him to be the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (despite the fact that Fontaine had never even visited the state of Florida). There’s also Leonard Pozner, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, Noah Pozner, whose family has endured endless harassment by followers of Jones who believe that Pozner’s son never existed.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Jones has been sued for making outrageous false statements. But now, supporters of his victims have started going after not just Jones but the platforms that host him and broadcast his messages — like Facebook.

Facebook and all the others are in the business to sell advertising they decide whether the number of views is worth the legal action or the sponsors threatening to removes adds.

https://variety.com/2018/digital/new...an-1202896074/
https://twitter.com/slpng_giants?ref...-1202896074%2F
https://www.recode.net/2018/9/3/1781...decode-podcast

[TheDemonLord]

All of this was covered and disproved in the last page.

Not at all - you've not provided any data that shows the banning of Alex Jones is good for business.

You've provided a moral argument that it should be good for business, but that requires a number of presuppositions to be true.

Presuppositions that I reject.

[husaberg]

Not at all - you've not provided any data that shows the banning of Alex Jones is good for business.

You've provided a moral argument that it should be good for business, but that requires a number of presuppositions to be true.

Presuppositions that I reject.

I have supplied plenty of information thats shows continuing to do business with Alex is bad for business.
Unless Youtube like to be the subject of legal action?
Unless of course youtube like to have sponsors withdraw adds?

In reality, the fact that tech companies acted now, after tolerating Infowars on their platforms for years, has much more to do with mounting outside pressure. One of the groups that put a spotlight on Facebook, YouTube and Apple helping to distribute Infowars content had been Sleeping Giants, a progressive activism group that has also been organizing advertiser boycotts against other far-right media outlets.
Earlier on Monday, the group singled out YouTube for not doing enough to prevent Infowars from distributing hate speech on its platform.

How a Twitter account convinced 4,000 companies to stop advertising on Breitbart
https://www.recode.net/2018/9/3/1781...decode-podcast

Last week, YouTube said that some of the warnings and bans handed down to some right-wing channels might have been mistakes from human moderators, but despite the walk back, some companies have begun pulling ads from Infowars’ The Alex Jones Channel.
CNN reports that numerous companies, including Nike, Moen, Expedia, Acer, ClassPass, Honey, Alibaba, and OneFamily, have pulled their ads after learning that their ads were running on Jones’ channel.
Advertisers can also prevent ads from being run on specific channelsThe shooting and its aftermath have led some companies to pause their advertising and support of the National Rifle Association, such as software giant Symatec, Delta, and United. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/4/17...iracy-theories

https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/03/tec...nes/index.html
Advertisers flee InfoWars founder Alex Jones' YouTube channel
March 3, 2018
A Nike spokesperson said the company was "disturbed to learn that we appeared on [The Alex Jones Channel]." It has since asked YouTube to address why the channel wasn't flagged by a filter it had enabled.

Nike, like some of the other brands, opted in to a "sensitive subject exclusion" filter to better control where its ads appear. The exclusion filters include, according to YouTube: "Tragedy and Conflict;" "Sensitive Social Issues;" "Sexually Suggestive Content;" "Sensational & Shocking;" and "Profanity & Rough Language."
A Grammarly spokesperson said on Saturday the company had not been aware of the ads. "We have stringent sensitive subject exclusion filters in place with YouTube that we believed would exclude such channels. We've asked YouTube to ensure this does not happen again."
A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox said the company was unaware its ad had been placed on an InfoWars YouTube channel and after learning it had, immediately took it down. The company believes that it existing filters should have prevented it showing on the InfoWars channel.

The company is now having further conversations with YouTube, the spokesperson said, "to make sure this never happens again," and has asked for a refund.
A spokesperson for Mozilla told CNN, "We have explicit exclusions set up for our YouTube campaigns and should absolutely not have appeared alongside this content. We are disappointed to learn that YouTube's filters are not as effective as promised in preventing advertisements running alongside objectionable content. We've since reached out to Google and paused our advertising on the channel."

A spokesperson for USA for UNHCR said that this was the group's first time running ads on YouTube, and that it would now pull its ads from all of YouTube, and has asked for money spent on InfoWars-related channels back.

And a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told CNN it has paused the specific ad campaign that ran on an InfoWars YouTube channel, and are looking into whether other ad campaigns are similarly affected.

Major brands suspend YouTube ads on Infowars channel 3-3-18 http://thehill.com/homenews/news/376...fowars-channel
A number of the country’s major brands are pushing to remove their ads from YouTube channels for far-right website Infowars and its founder Alex Jones, saying they were unaware the ads were placed there, CNN reported Saturday.
CNN reported that ads from several major companies and organizations — including Nike, 20th Century Fox, the Mormon Church, Expedia, Alibaba and the National Rifle Association — were being featured on Infowars's channels on the platform.
Many of the brands said they were unaware of the situation and canceled their ads on the channel after CNN reached out for comment. Several said they have reached out to YouTube about the situation.

More recently, Jones has been embroiled in a series of lawsuits filed by people about whom he has made repeated false assertions, like Marcel Fontaine: Infowars declared him to be the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (despite the fact that Fontaine had never even visited the state of Florida). There’s also Leonard Pozner, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, Noah Pozner, whose family has endured endless harassment by followers of Jones who believe that Pozner’s son never existed.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Jones has been sued for making outrageous false statements. But now, supporters of his victims have started going after not just Jones but the platforms that host him and broadcast his messages — like Facebook.

In December, Welch showed up to Comet Ping Pong on a Sunday afternoon armed with a AR-15 assault rifle and revolver and fired multiple times following a panicked evacuation by workers and customers. His shots struck a locked closet door, which had computer equipment inside.
The conspiracy alleged that the ring operated in the basement the pizza restaurant, where Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, sometimes ate.

[TheDemonLord]

The trump twitter is different hes a public official using it as an official information source

Or is he a private Citizen using his personal Twitter account? Afterall, there is an official @POTUS account...

The judges ruling is very flimsy - because although they point out it's not a real world space, they acknowledge (implicitly) that it IS a space where "Peaceful public speech" is occurring.

They've already conceded that there is a place on Twitter that requires the Government to enforce the protections of the first Amendment.

Facebook and all the others are in the business to sell advertising they decide whether the number of views is worth the legal action or the sponsors threatening to removes adds.

So, show me the data that Alex Jones was good for business.

Because I'm pretty sure it will result in decrease in Revenue for Youtube and Facebook. As I said, Get Woke, Go broke.

[TheDemonLord]

I have supplied plenty of information thats shows continuing to do business with Alex is bad for business.
Unless Youtube like to be the subject of legal action?
Unless of course youtube like to have sponsors withdraw adds?

All you've posted is that they've Kowtowed to some screeching banshees (SleepingGiants).

Breitbart is still up and running, with Ad Revenue.

Furthermore, Consider this - Pornhub.com gets no Ad Revenue from mainstream businesses - yet it's 27th in the list of most visited websites - if your presupposition is correct, then there is no way for a site like Pornhub to exist, and yet....

In regards to the lawsuits - Tish and Pish - there are multiple lawsuits from and against big companies like that at any given time. But need I remind you of why they went after them? Their actions as behaving in an editorial manner has opened them up to this kind of lawsuit...

Which proves my point - it's not good for business, it's bad for business.

[husaberg]

Or is he a private Citizen using his personal Twitter account? Afterall, there is an official @POTUS account...

The judges ruling is very flimsy - because although they point out it's not a real world space, they acknowledge (implicitly) that it IS a space where "Peaceful public speech" is occurring.

They've already conceded that there is a place on Twitter that requires the Government to enforce the protections of the first Amendment.



So, show me the data that Alex Jones was good for business.

Because I'm pretty sure it will result in decrease in Revenue for Youtube and Facebook. As I said, Get Woke, Go broke.

All you've posted is that they've Kowtowed to some screeching banshees (SleepingGiants).

Breitbart is still up and running, with Ad Revenue.

Furthermore, Consider this - Pornhub.com gets no Ad Revenue from mainstream businesses - yet it's 27th in the list of most visited websites - if your presupposition is correct, then there is no way for a site like Pornhub to exist, and yet....

In regards to the lawsuits - Tish and Pish - there are multiple lawsuits from and against big companies like that at any given time. But need I remind you of why they went after them? Their actions as behaving in an editorial manner has opened them up to this kind of lawsuit...

Which proves my point - it's not good for business, it's bad for business.

Maybe you should actually read what is written.

In reality, the fact that tech companies acted now, after tolerating Infowars on their platforms for years, has much more to do with mounting outside pressure. One of the groups that put a spotlight on Facebook, YouTube and Apple helping to distribute Infowars content had been Sleeping Giants, a progressive activism group that has also been organizing advertiser boycotts against other far-right media outlets.
Earlier on Monday, the group singled out YouTube for not doing enough to prevent Infowars from distributing hate speech on its platform.

How a Twitter account convinced 4,000 companies to stop advertising on Breitbart
https://www.recode.net/2018/9/3/1781...decode-podcast

Last week, YouTube said that some of the warnings and bans handed down to some right-wing channels might have been mistakes from human moderators, but despite the walk back, some companies have begun pulling ads from Infowars’ The Alex Jones Channel.
CNN reports that numerous companies, including Nike, Moen, Expedia, Acer, ClassPass, Honey, Alibaba, and OneFamily, have pulled their ads after learning that their ads were running on Jones’ channel.
Advertisers can also prevent ads from being run on specific channelsThe shooting and its aftermath have led some companies to pause their advertising and support of the National Rifle Association, such as software giant Symatec, Delta, and United. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/4/17...iracy-theories

https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/03/tec...nes/index.html
Advertisers flee InfoWars founder Alex Jones' YouTube channel
March 3, 2018
A Nike spokesperson said the company was "disturbed to learn that we appeared on [The Alex Jones Channel]." It has since asked YouTube to address why the channel wasn't flagged by a filter it had enabled.

Nike, like some of the other brands, opted in to a "sensitive subject exclusion" filter to better control where its ads appear. The exclusion filters include, according to YouTube: "Tragedy and Conflict;" "Sensitive Social Issues;" "Sexually Suggestive Content;" "Sensational & Shocking;" and "Profanity & Rough Language."
A Grammarly spokesperson said on Saturday the company had not been aware of the ads. "We have stringent sensitive subject exclusion filters in place with YouTube that we believed would exclude such channels. We've asked YouTube to ensure this does not happen again."
A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox said the company was unaware its ad had been placed on an InfoWars YouTube channel and after learning it had, immediately took it down. The company believes that it existing filters should have prevented it showing on the InfoWars channel.

The company is now having further conversations with YouTube, the spokesperson said, "to make sure this never happens again," and has asked for a refund.
A spokesperson for Mozilla told CNN, "We have explicit exclusions set up for our YouTube campaigns and should absolutely not have appeared alongside this content. We are disappointed to learn that YouTube's filters are not as effective as promised in preventing advertisements running alongside objectionable content. We've since reached out to Google and paused our advertising on the channel."

A spokesperson for USA for UNHCR said that this was the group's first time running ads on YouTube, and that it would now pull its ads from all of YouTube, and has asked for money spent on InfoWars-related channels back.

And a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told CNN it has paused the specific ad campaign that ran on an InfoWars YouTube channel, and are looking into whether other ad campaigns are similarly affected.

Major brands suspend YouTube ads on Infowars channel 3-3-18 http://thehill.com/homenews/news/376...fowars-channel
A number of the country’s major brands are pushing to remove their ads from YouTube channels for far-right website Infowars and its founder Alex Jones, saying they were unaware the ads were placed there, CNN reported Saturday.
CNN reported that ads from several major companies and organizations — including Nike, 20th Century Fox, the Mormon Church, Expedia, Alibaba and the National Rifle Association — were being featured on Infowars's channels on the platform.
Many of the brands said they were unaware of the situation and canceled their ads on the channel after CNN reached out for comment. Several said they have reached out to YouTube about the situation.

More recently, Jones has been embroiled in a series of lawsuits filed by people about whom he has made repeated false assertions, like Marcel Fontaine: Infowars declared him to be the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (despite the fact that Fontaine had never even visited the state of Florida). There’s also Leonard Pozner, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, Noah Pozner, whose family has endured endless harassment by followers of Jones who believe that Pozner’s son never existed.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Jones has been sued for making outrageous false statements. But now, supporters of his victims have started going after not just Jones but the platforms that host him and broadcast his messages — like Facebook.

In December, Welch showed up to Comet Ping Pong on a Sunday afternoon armed with a AR-15 assault rifle and revolver and fired multiple times following a panicked evacuation by workers and customers. His shots struck a locked closet door, which had computer equipment inside.
The conspiracy alleged that the ring operated in the basement the pizza restaurant, where Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, sometimes ate.

I also note your opinion on legal matters is not exactly as relevant as a federal court judges

Peaceful public speech and demonstrations in those venues cannot be stopped based on what is being said without a compelling government interest. Twitter, however, is not a real-world space. And it’s run by a private company.
The judge’s ruling found, however, that the company has less control over the @realDonaldTrump account than Trump himself and White House social media director Dan Scavino – also a public official. Their power includes the ability to block people from seeing the account’s tweets, and “from participating in the interactive space associated with the tweets,” in the form of replies and comments on Twitter’s platform.
Also key was the fact that the @realDonaldTrump account is used for governmental purposes. Specifically, the judge found that “the President presents the @realDonaldTrump account as being a presidential account as opposed to a personal account and, more importantly, uses the account to take actions that can be taken only by the President as President” – such as announcing the appointments and terminations of government officials.

Also your views on the continued success of Beibart is not reflected by the facts.

'Breitbart' Loses Half Its Readership https://www.mediapost.com/publicatio...eadership.html
In February, the site had 7.8 million visitors, a 49% dip from 2017. The site had 15 million unique visitors last October.

Breitbart lost 90 percent of its advertisers in two months:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/

[Katman]

I also know the difference between stating an opinion and being abusive.

Really?

So why have you never been quite so eager to play Hall Monitor when others on here have repeatedly thrown around the words "you're a fuckwit"?

[husaberg]

Really?
So why have you never been quite so eager to play Hall Monitor when others on here have repeatedly thrown around the words "you're a fuckwit"?

I have no idea what you are talking about, But you seem to be miffed about something.

[Katman]

I have no idea what you are talking about

Just pointing out your selective agenda.

[husaberg]

Just pointing out your selective agenda.

No you havent you have not pointed out anything.... You made a few vague generalizations and an insinuation.
You made a remark that was not backed up by any actual supporting data that was based on a assumption made by you that was and still is apparently incorrect.
Reading between the lines , it appears you seem miffed you cant abuse people on a forum anymore, All i can say is. That's apparently nothing to do with me but everything to do with your lack of ability to control your emotions.