And don’t @ me with any “well liberals do it too” nonsense because I don’t fucking care. If you can present to me an honest liberal actor promoting the same level of violence and hatred as Alex Jones with the same size of audience then yes, I agree, they should also be banned. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also ban Alex Jones in the meantime. That’s like not arresting someone just because some other guy who’s clearly guilty hasn’t been arrested yet. We should all have a baseline where people who are actively harmful to public goodwill don’t deserve a platform from which to spread that harm regardless of who’s side they’re supposedly on because they’re not on anyone’s side, they’re just assholes.
My worry comes from who gets to say what the baseline is for determining if people are actively harmful to the public goodwill. You? me? The president? Pelosi? Zuckerburg? Bernie? Ben Shapiro? Rachel Maddow? Congress? A focus group of 1,000 people from Missouri? The faculty at NYU?
I can agree that Alex Jones is a dick, but what happens when less offensive speech starts to become too much for a society that is increasingly losing the ability to deal with opinions and views that differ from theirs?
I don’t care. Alex Jones is obviously harming innocent people. There’s your baseline. This isn’t “let’s all pile on the conservatives” this is “Alex Jones is a disgusting human being and deserves to be vilified as such”. If banning Alex Jones is the tipping point where civilization collapses then we’ve failed as a species and deserve our destruction.
Twitter's statement seems super reasonable and I was about to say I agree. But the replies are just too true. Twitter is washing their hands of this, claiming there are other solutions, but there really aren't. At the end of the day they are culpable in Alex Jones's harassment of innocents (as well as making their own site a breeding ground for more).
Also, it's not like the twitter rules were handed down by god on stone tablets. It's a fucking EULA that the company made up that no one reads anyway. Change the rules!
Also, people. PEOPLE. Stop talking about the first amendment and its exceptions and shouting fire in a crowded theater. None of that applies here. This is private companies deciding what they want to allow on their platform. The constitution is not implicated in any way here. That would be like saying the bald move forum rule of "don't be a dick" infringes on my constitutional right to freely speak in as dickish a way as possible. Just cause these companies are big doesn't change any of that.
Edit - and as to the slippery slope argument, well, if facebook, twitter, et al ban enough individuals that the majority of society think are reasonable, people will stop using the platforms and better ones will spring up. It's how the free market works.
I mean the issue at hand is that social media companies can ban whoever they want to whenever they want to for any reason whatsoever. What the fuck even is the counter argument, the government should tell private business who they can and can’t ban? That’s the complete opposite of Republican principles.
And don’t @ me with any “well liberals do it too” nonsense because I don’t fucking care. If you can present to me an honest liberal actor promoting the same level of violence and hatred as Alex Jones with the same size of audience then yes, I agree, they should also be banned. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also ban Alex Jones in the meantime. That’s like not arresting someone just because some other guy who’s clearly guilty hasn’t been arrested yet. We should all have a baseline where people who are actively harmful to public goodwill don’t deserve a platform from which to spread that harm regardless of who’s side they’re supposedly on because they’re not on anyone’s side, they’re just assholes.
My worry comes from who gets to say what the baseline is for determining if people are actively harmful to the public goodwill. You? me? The president? Pelosi? Zuckerburg? Bernie? Ben Shapiro? Rachel Maddow? Congress? A focus group of 1,000 people from Missouri? The faculty at NYU?
I can agree that Alex Jones is a dick, but what happens when less offensive speech starts to become too much for a society that is increasingly losing the ability to deal with opinions and views that differ from theirs?
This is a good worry, but it shouldn't stop us from acting in the meantime. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." We can refine this process as we go; nothing is set in stone.
.. a society that is increasingly losing the ability to deal with opinions and views that differ from theirs?
How true is this? Is it everyone with all opinions who are unable to deal? Is it just one segment or group? What are the opinions that society is unable to deal with? Are those opinions helpful or harmful or neutral? This is an easy thing to say but a harder thing to quantify and seemingly the truth of it depends on your view of the culture itself and your opinion of people who disagree with you. I'd refer you back to the cartoon I posted on the previous page. If society is losing the ability to deal with bigotry and hatred, that's a net positive. It means progress can happen.
I honestly think there are certain viewpoints that shouldn’t be engaged with because they’re just wrong factually and giving someone the chance to argue a factually incorrect worldview is offering them some legitimacy that they don’t deserve. Explaining to someone arguing from bad faith why they’re wrong isn’t educating them because they don’t give a shit how eloquently you present your argument, they just want to scream ad naseum about how they’re always right. I don’t have to debate how the tents of Nazism are bad because we fought a fucking World War over that shit. It’s wrong, end of discussion. I don’t have to debate why Alex Jones is a fucking asshole, he’s a fucking asshole, end of debate. The idea that these people deserve a platform is like arguing that some idiot who thinks 2+2=10 or that the sky is fucking neon green deserve a stage at TED Talks or whatever. We shouldn’t defend plainly ignorant people’s ability to preach ignorence. Giving them the ability to reach wide appeal is just encouraging them to continue to be ignorant because they can see that they’re actually having a real effect on people, let them wallow in their ignorance and obscurity and they’ll either make an honest change or die as minor footnotes in history.
I miss the days of old Alex Jones when he was that crazy new guy that would come on Austin public access between The Show with No Name and Puppetose, and you'd sort of background watch him in between bong rips as he ranted about Bohemian Grove and showed you his secret ritual footage. He was still batshit crazy, but he wasn't full-tilt weaponized alt-right dickweed yet and people didn't actually take him seriously then.
You can slide a very long way down a slippery slope that starts with Alex Jones before impacting anyone with good intentions, decency, and something worth saying.
Alex Jones brand of “performance artistry” is bad for society, but you can be a bad performance artist and that’s fine. One of the many areas in which he crosses the line and becomes dangerous is the attacks on the Newtown parents and the resulting stalking, harassing, and threatening of those poor folks by his fanatic followers who actually believe that he speaks the truth. Pizzagate was another area where he crossed the line.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
Qanon and PIzzagate are projection tactics, accusing the other side of what you're guilty of. Trump launders money for global organized crime--that's human trafficking, kiddie porn, blood diamonds, drugs, guns, murder for hire, corruption, you name it. And it's all going to come out.
The Alex Jones case is not a "slippery slope" or "both sides" issue. The man's statements are libelous/slanderous and have put people in physical harm, all of which have plenty of of precedent on not being protected speech.. Facebook or other platforms banning him is not going to lead to the censorship of protected speech that someone disagrees with.
Qanon and PIzzagate are projection tactics, accusing the other side of what you're guilty of. Trump launders money for global organized crime--that's human trafficking, kiddie porn, blood diamonds, drugs, guns, murder for hire, corruption, you name it. And it's all going to come out.
huh? (with regards to the laundering money for global organized crime)
Qanon and PIzzagate are projection tactics, accusing the other side of what you're guilty of. Trump launders money for global organized crime--that's human trafficking, kiddie porn, blood diamonds, drugs, guns, murder for hire, corruption, you name it. And it's all going to come out.
huh? (with regards to the laundering money for global organized crime)
Publicly available reporting going back decades, conveniently NOT covered at all during the election or the presidency
And don’t @ me with any “well liberals do it too” nonsense because I don’t fucking care. If you can present to me an honest liberal actor promoting the same level of violence and hatred as Alex Jones with the same size of audience then yes, I agree, they should also be banned. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also ban Alex Jones in the meantime. That’s like not arresting someone just because some other guy who’s clearly guilty hasn’t been arrested yet. We should all have a baseline where people who are actively harmful to public goodwill don’t deserve a platform from which to spread that harm regardless of who’s side they’re supposedly on because they’re not on anyone’s side, they’re just assholes.
My worry comes from who gets to say what the baseline is for determining if people are actively harmful to the public goodwill. You? me? The president? Pelosi? Zuckerburg? Bernie? Ben Shapiro? Rachel Maddow? Congress? A focus group of 1,000 people from Missouri? The faculty at NYU?
I can agree that Alex Jones is a dick, but what happens when less offensive speech starts to become too much for a society that is increasingly losing the ability to deal with opinions and views that differ from theirs?
After “but what about...?” comes THIN END OF THE WEDGE SHEEPLE!!!???!!!!!
Alex Jones brand of “performance artistry” is bad for society, but you can be a bad performance artist and that’s fine. One of the many areas in which he crosses the line and becomes dangerous is the attacks on the Newtown parents and the resulting stalking, harassing, and threatening of those poor folks by his fanatic followers who actually believe that he speaks the truth. Pizzagate was another area where he crossed the line.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
Sort of an aside, but are anti-vax and anti-GMO considered "left" beliefs? I usually just consider them to be anti-intellectual.
@Flukes Yeah, I can’t speak for the US, but I actually have a fair bit of contact with anti-vaxxers through my work (unfortunately) and those people are definitely not lefties.
Alex Jones brand of “performance artistry” is bad for society, but you can be a bad performance artist and that’s fine. One of the many areas in which he crosses the line and becomes dangerous is the attacks on the Newtown parents and the resulting stalking, harassing, and threatening of those poor folks by his fanatic followers who actually believe that he speaks the truth. Pizzagate was another area where he crossed the line.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
Sort of an aside, but are anti-vax and anti-GMO considered "left" beliefs? I usually just consider them to be anti-intellectual.
There are a lot of leftie organic vegan anti-vaxers in California so it’s always struck me as a more left than right movement, but there are certainly a lot of anti-intellectual folks on the right like Jones and Michelle Bachman so characterizing it as left belief is probably unfair.
The GMO issue is definitely more left than right though as the whole organic natural food fanaticism tends to run heavier on the left.
Lots of left coast liberals mock the climate change denialists on the right while unironically seeking ancient eastern medicine to cure disease and stay young, and while making lifestyle choices/purchases on Goop.
I've seen them on both sides pretty equally. What they almost are is stay-at-home moms.
Oh, always stay at home mums in my experience, or else they own some dinky little artsy shop in a beachside suburb that they don’t have to make a profit on because their husband makes enough money that they can just waft around in their boho skirts selling local art to tourists every now and then. That’s the other thing, they’re always middle class hippie types too. In Australia, we have a pretty generous child care subsidy but it’s not payable if your child isn’t vaccinated. It has a pretty high income limit and it’s always those at the upper end of the cut off limit screaming about government interference in their parenting.
I've seen them on both sides pretty equally. What they almost are is stay-at-home moms.
Oh, always stay at home mums in my experience, or else they own some dinky little artsy shop in a beachside suburb that they don’t have to make a profit on because their husband makes enough money that they can just waft around in their boho skirts selling local art to tourists every now and then. That’s the other thing, they’re always middle class hippie types too. In Australia, we have a pretty generous child care subsidy but it’s not payable if your child isn’t vaccinated. It has a pretty high income limit and it’s always those at the upper end of the cut off limit screaming about government interference in their parenting.
This description is wonderful, it needs to be an HBO miniseries.
Alex Jones brand of “performance artistry” is bad for society, but you can be a bad performance artist and that’s fine. One of the many areas in which he crosses the line and becomes dangerous is the attacks on the Newtown parents and the resulting stalking, harassing, and threatening of those poor folks by his fanatic followers who actually believe that he speaks the truth. Pizzagate was another area where he crossed the line.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
Sort of an aside, but are anti-vax and anti-GMO considered "left" beliefs? I usually just consider them to be anti-intellectual.
There are a lot of leftie organic vegan anti-vaxers in California so it’s always struck me as a more left than right movement, but there are certainly a lot of anti-intellectual folks on the right like Jones and Michelle Bachman so characterizing it as left belief is probably unfair.
Interesting. Here in Oz, those people give the appearance of being lefties, but scratch the surface and when they’re told they can’t get child care subsidies because their kid hasn’t been jabbed, they’ll be screaming about how we just hand out money to muslims and aborigines and they get everything and blah blah. I think they’re probably more libertarian and don’t care about issues that don’t personally affect them and their whackadoo ethos, so they come across as lefties at first.
I've seen them on both sides pretty equally. What they almost are is stay-at-home moms.
Oh, always stay at home mums in my experience, or else they own some dinky little artsy shop in a beachside suburb that they don’t have to make a profit on because their husband makes enough money that they can just waft around in their boho skirts selling local art to tourists every now and then. That’s the other thing, they’re always middle class hippie types too. In Australia, we have a pretty generous child care subsidy but it’s not payable if your child isn’t vaccinated. It has a pretty high income limit and it’s always those at the upper end of the cut off limit screaming about government interference in their parenting.
This description is wonderful, it needs to be an HBO miniseries.
Starring Gweneth Paltrow wafting around in a boho skirt with a jade egg in her freshly steamed whoopsie
Alex Jones brand of “performance artistry” is bad for society, but you can be a bad performance artist and that’s fine. One of the many areas in which he crosses the line and becomes dangerous is the attacks on the Newtown parents and the resulting stalking, harassing, and threatening of those poor folks by his fanatic followers who actually believe that he speaks the truth. Pizzagate was another area where he crossed the line.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
Sort of an aside, but are anti-vax and anti-GMO considered "left" beliefs? I usually just consider them to be anti-intellectual.
There are a lot of leftie organic vegan anti-vaxers in California so it’s always struck me as a more left than right movement, but there are certainly a lot of anti-intellectual folks on the right like Jones and Michelle Bachman so characterizing it as left belief is probably unfair.
Interesting. Here in Oz, those people give the appearance of being lefties, but scratch the surface and when they’re told they can’t get child care subsidies because their kid hasn’t been jabbed, they’ll be screaming about how we just hand out money to muslims and aborigines and they get everything and blah blah. I think they’re probably more libertarian and don’t care about issues that don’t personally affect them and their whackadoo ethos, so they come across as lefties at first.
Comments
I can agree that Alex Jones is a dick, but what happens when less offensive speech starts to become too much for a society that is increasingly losing the ability to deal with opinions and views that differ from theirs?
Also, people. PEOPLE. Stop talking about the first amendment and its exceptions and shouting fire in a crowded theater. None of that applies here. This is private companies deciding what they want to allow on their platform. The constitution is not implicated in any way here. That would be like saying the bald move forum rule of "don't be a dick" infringes on my constitutional right to freely speak in as dickish a way as possible. Just cause these companies are big doesn't change any of that.
Edit - and as to the slippery slope argument, well, if facebook, twitter, et al ban enough individuals that the majority of society think are reasonable, people will stop using the platforms and better ones will spring up. It's how the free market works.
This is a good worry, but it shouldn't stop us from acting in the meantime. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." We can refine this process as we go; nothing is set in stone.
The market can’t fix him because of our societal obsession with snake oil and general lack of critical thinking and trust in science/facts. Dude doesn’t need sponsors, he pedals fear and then sells them the cure for it. He sells brain formula, immune system gargle, male enhancement formula, child tranquilizers, lung cleanse, etc., etc. Regulation of the supplement industry is an embarrassing joke as they only demand that the stuff be not actively harmful at the recommended dosages, it doesn’t matter whether it does any of the stuff that they say that it does or whether actual scientific studies have debunked them.
I’d also love to kaibosh the anti-vaxers on the left as their position clearly causes societal harm for those gullible enough to be fooled by them, and for those around them with compromised immune systems. Alex Jones, BTW, is also an anti-vaxer because, you know, of course he is.
The anti-GMO stuff on the left and the inexplicable resurgence of the flat earther movement are also BS, but they don’t seem to cause actual harm so I guess we have to tolerate them.
Climate change deniers? That’s interesting because they are causing a great deal of harm, but it’s long term harm vs a discrete event so it’s much more of a muddy issue to argue.
Q-Anon is the next Alex Jones. That pile of inflammatory horseshit is going to end up getting people killed. It’s not an accident that conspiracies like this and Pizzagate go for child sex trafficking, that kind of deplorable crime justifies any kind of violent reaction so it’s a go-to for these lunatics and will end in tears.
After “but what about...?” comes THIN END OF THE WEDGE SHEEPLE!!!???!!!!!
The GMO issue is definitely more left than right though as the whole organic natural food fanaticism tends to run heavier on the left.
Lots of left coast liberals mock the climate change denialists on the right while unironically seeking ancient eastern medicine to cure disease and stay young, and while making lifestyle choices/purchases on Goop.
main stream media
This description is wonderful, it needs to be an HBO miniseries.
The socialist bigots party.