Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - First, They Came For Alex Jones

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Aug. 6, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

12:38

First, They Came For Alex Jones

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	Alex Jones has been banned from almost every major social media platform in the same day.
	Facebook, iTunes, YouTube and Spotify have all banned InfoWars accounts within 12 hours of one another.
	Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for quote repeated violations of community standards, the company said on Monday.
	YouTube terminated his account for 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' podcasts for quote hate content.
	Facebook removed the pages after the social network imposed a 30-day ban on Jones personally for his role in posting violating content to these pages.
	A 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 dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslim and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.
	The Facebook spokesperson noted that, despite the focus on Jones' role in spreading conspiracy theories around events such as the 9-11 attacks and Sandy Hook, 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' 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.
	These bans came only hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory, and the timing of Facebook's announcement was particularly unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.
	At the time of recording, Alex Jones only had one podcast left on Apple's platform.
	Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users.
	Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory, making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming.
	We believe in representing a wide range of views so long as people are respectful to those of differing opinions.
	Spotify took action against Jones removing every episode of the Alex Jones show from its platform.
	Spotify had left three other InfoWars podcasts live on the service.
	We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community.
	Due to repeated violations of Spotify's prohibited content policies, the Alex Jones show has lost access to the Spotify platform.
	Facebook had previously suspended Jones' personal profile from the site for 30 days in late July for what the company said was bullying and hate speech, but he continued to regularly appear on Facebook after the suspension, appearing in live streams hosted by other accounts and even making first-person posts to his personal page by publishing and using accounts of other administrators in InfoWars.
	The lone major social network to still allow Jones unfettered access is Twitter, where the broadcaster has a verified account.
	As the count of companies acting against Jones and InfoWars grew, some Twitter users began campaigning for that site to follow suit, tweeting Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and chief executive.
	So what can we reasonably conclude from the information that we have?
	The quick succession of the bannings demonstrates the social media platforms are paying attention to one another's policies and acting in tandem due to what they perceive to be a popular will.
	Facebook acting at 3 in the morning is clear evidence of the politically sensitive nature of the subject.
	The deliberately vague wording of social media guidelines with respect to hate speech and violent content is being used to censor Jones.
	Hate speech is an identifiable expression of far-left ideology.
	Alex Jones is being mass-flagged by activists and has been for some time.
	Alex Jones is most well known for promoting conspiracy theories and creating fake news.
	And what's interesting is that none of the platforms claimed that they were doing this because of the fake news.
	They in fact claimed that this was not the case.
	In the past few weeks, social media platforms have been under a great amount of pressure by progressive activists to censor media outlets that they consider to be fake news, arguing against the free speech rights of those users for the greater public good.
	This has forced these media platforms to determine whether or not they are going to be the arbiters of truth, and so far they have declined.
	Facebook said that they had had an internal debate centered on Alex Jones' notorious conspiracy theory site and whether its Facebook page should be shut down.
	Facebook said that it would rather demote posts spreading misinformation than ban the source outright.
	This approach means that these pages don't get as many views as they used to, but they still live to spread misinformation.
	We just don't think banning pages for sharing conspiracy theories or false news is the right way to go.
	They seem to have YouTube and Twitter accounts too, we imagine for the same reason.
	And a Twitter spokesman said that the company doesn't comment on individual accounts, but it did say that it should not be the arbiter of truth.
	It would seem that the social media platforms did not want to set the precedent, that they would have to be responsible for policing the veracity of the content on their platforms.
	I personally find it hard to believe that these companies have any commitment to free speech.
	I think they were just trying to avoid creating yet another rod for their own backs.
	I would hazard a guess that they were remarkably relieved when it turned out that they could ban Alex Jones from their platforms for violations of progressive morality, if for no other reason than to stop the hate mobs.
	But this barely improves the social media platforms as now they are the arbiter of progressive morality on the internet.
	And I am absolutely certain that the overton window of acceptable, not hateful content will continue to shrink over time.
	So who are these progressive bootlickers?
	Many of them are just minor personal accounts, but you do get ones like this.
	This is Sleeping Giants, which is a campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable.
	Their entire goal, the reason for their 179,000 Twitter follower accounts, is to get their ideological opponents shut down.
	As you can see with this tweet aimed at Spotify, Alex Jones has been responsible for harassing the parents of Sandy Hook Children, Vegas shooting victims, and threatening to kill the special counsel, and now you're hosting his podcasts.
	Citing Jared Holt, notorious liar for right-wing watch.
	Nearly 10,000 retweets.
	And as this article from Vox shows, this is very much an active campaign against their opponents, in which there are victories and losses.
	After Alex Jones was banned from Facebook and YouTube, they say, no sooner had Facebook and YouTube users celebrated these wins than reporters and Spotify users noticed that the audio streaming platform was continuing to host episodes of InfoWars and describing Jones as a media analyst and seasoned radio broadcaster.
	This of course is not the first time that this has been done.
	In May after allegations of sexual abuse were leveled at rapper R. Kelly, the company initially hastily deployed a new hateful content policy and used it to temporarily stop promoting R. Kelly's music on its curated playlists.
	What this means is that progressively minded Twitter mobs are now controlling what you are able to lawfully see and hear in accordance to their own moral sensibilities and probably in violation of yours.
	They are dominating these platforms with their hate speech policies against our free speech policies.
	And for some reason, these platforms are capitulating.
	And as conservative activist Candace Owens has demonstrated, these social media platforms are not going to be consistent.
	Where Sarah Jion can go on Twitter and spout demonstrable hate speech against white people, she not only does not lose her account but is now hired as an editor at the New York Times.
	When Candace Owens posts the same tweets but just with a different race replacing white people, she is locked out of her account.
	Both of these sets of tweets violate Twitter's rules on hateful content, but one person is conservative and the other person is a progressive.
	I'm sure you've learned the lesson by now, but let me repeat it.
	They will not deal with you fairly.
	Make no mistake, Alex Jones is the canary in the coal mine.
	His lawyer admitted during his divorce proceedings that Alex Jones is a character.
	Alex Jones is a satire, a pastiche of a news reporter, of a crazed right-wing conspiracy theory radio host.
	Alex Jones is deliberately fake news, and he uses his platform to say things that otherwise probably shouldn't be said, and in fact, act as a worthy benchmark for the rest of us to know when we are also going off the rails.
	But anything they do to him now, they will do to us when they have removed every trace of him from the internet.
	It is only a matter of time until it becomes commonplace to use these guidelines to shut down the enemies of progressivism.
	Anything we say will be used to shut us down in exactly the way it's happened to Alex Jones.
	Very few people have a high opinion of Alex Jones, and with good reason.
	But no matter what your opinion of Alex Jones is, you must support his right to use these platforms.
	Even if he says things that are offensive, but not illegal, and even if he does things that seem silly, and even if he outright manufactures falsehoods, the consequences of that will be borne by Alex Jones.
	And yes, I do find the timing of this very suspicious, given how we're coming up to the 2018 midterm elections in the United States, and Alex Jones had millions of subscribers.
	If they can do it to him, they can do it to any one of us.
	And finally, I'd recommend setting up accounts on gab.ai and minds.com.
	Follow any of your favorite content creators on these alternative platforms that actually have a commitment to free speech.
	I exempt myself from the speaker's kind offer of protection that was so generously proffered at the opening of this evening.
	Anyone who wants to say anything abusive about or to me is quite free to do so.
	And welcome, in fact, at their own risk.
	And but before they do that, they must have taken, as I'm sure we all should, a short refresher course in the classic texts on this matter, which are John Milton's Areopagitica, Areopagitiga being the great hill of Athens for discussion and free expression,
	Thomas Paine's introduction to the Age of Reason, and I would say John Stuart Mill's essay on Liberty, in which it is variously said, I'll be very daring and summarize all three of these great gentlemen of the great tradition of especially English liberty, in one go.
	What they say is: it's not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear.
	And every time you silence somebody, you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something.
	In other words, your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view.
	Indeed, as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important, in fact, it would become even more important that that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.

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