Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - How do we Parley with Silicon Valley？

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March 30, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

15:28

How do we Parley with Silicon Valley？

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	So I've been thinking for quite a while on how we can parlay with Silicon Valley because it's clear that there are kind of tribal distinctions between Silicon Valley and the alternative media that has sprung up that is reliant on their products and I think that it's probably unproductive if we are eternally at war with one another and I think it would be good to come to some kind of negotiated settlement.
	I think that there is probably a case to be made from Silicon Valley that there is a certain level of decency and decorum that they would like on their platforms.
	That's understandable and that can be accepted, I think, by the vast majority of people.
	But in return, they have to understand that they have to give ground as well.
	And this line of thought was inspired by a CNN clip on Alex Jones.
	Because I think of all of the people who probably didn't deserve what happened to them, Alex Jones is definitely at the top of that list.
	Probably second only to Tommy Robinson.
	And I think that there has to be a kind of understanding that Silicon Valley can't just act like a cartel with regards to who they do and do not deplatform.
	I don't think it's fair.
	And I think that what that will do is force people like Donald Trump to intercede in what is going on.
	And I don't really want government intercession in what is, or it should be, private affairs.
	Because no one with any sense would really want that.
	Because, okay, well, you know, it's Donald Trump now, and he might be doing something that I want right now.
	But in five years' time or however long, it could be a different kind of president that has a very different opinion on these things.
	And the precedent will have been set.
	So you're opening the door to further state regulation and you're giving your opponents the opportunity to do bad things to you because it was convenient for you to do bad things to other people at the time.
	However, the way that Silicon Valley is going at the moment, it's probably going to make this necessary.
	And so I would really like to find a way that we can actually talk to these people because they are people without actually turning it into a giant flinging match between two sides.
	Now, Joe Rogan, Tim Poole, and the Twitter representatives and Jack Dorsey, it was a good attempt at a dialogue, but Twitter have to understand, and the other social media platforms as well, that they are actually in the wrong as well as people like Alex Jones and Tommy Robinson, etc.
	And myself, in fact, I can cop to the fact that I was using spicy language when insulting the Nazis.
	I can come to that.
	That's true.
	I was.
	I was going all out because I think they really have to understand that a lot of people who have become famous through social media were kind of doing so out of their living rooms.
	It wasn't necessarily something they expected to be noticed by the great and powerful.
	And now that we have been, okay, let's talk.
	I'll show you what exactly I'm talking about when it comes to this CNN clip.
	A form of psychosis.
	That's what Infowars founder Alex Jones is saying caused him to believe events like the Sandy Hook massacre were staged.
	During a recent sworn deposition as part of a defamation lawsuit against him, Jones said that the trauma of the media and corporations lying made him believe that everything was a conspiracy.
	Is that not possible?
	I mean, do we think that it's not possible that when you have dozens and dozens of major media outlets all saying things about you that are very, very derogatory and possibly in their own ways defamatory, that it wouldn't lead to some kind of psychosis?
	Is it possible that Alex Jones is being mentally affected by the way the media treats him and in many ways probably his own audience as well?
	Alex Jones has admitted that he thinks his own audience thinks everything is a conspiracy.
	And if that's the only feedback you're getting, then maybe you would think that too.
	Maybe you would think that everything around you is a conspiracy.
	Maybe if you are trapped in a bubble and no one will interact with you on a sort of mutually understood level, that maybe you would think that.
	Maybe that is what happens to these people.
	And I think that the clip of the interview that CNN have done with Alex Jones that they show next really does kind of highlight the fact that he seems to be contrite.
	And I've, you know, I myself have, you know, almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged.
	You know, I've now learned a lot of times things aren't staged.
	So, you know, I think as a pundit and someone giving opinion, that, you know, my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people.
	Now, to me, that seemed sincere.
	And I have not watched a vast amount of Alex Jones' content, I have to admit, but I've watched some, especially the memes.
	And a lot of what he does does seem to be performance.
	I don't think that he is malicious, and I don't think that he has tried to hurt people.
	And where he has hurt people through the things that he said, he has been sued.
	And that's the right thing to do.
	When someone is defaming you, or something slanderous or libelous, that's what the common law was for.
	You can use the law to get restitution for your grievances.
	And that's what people do.
	Alex Jones gets sued all the time, as he should be, if he's doing something that is, in fact, a violation of the law.
	And I think that it is important to note that Alex does seem to be genuinely contrite during this interview.
	I mean, he seems to have come to a point where he realizes he can't just keep kicking in the way that he has been for the past, God knows how many years.
	It's not something that you can do indefinitely and not have any pushback on.
	And I think it has humbled him.
	And I really think it's important to allow people to change.
	And this is, again, something that Joe Rogan brought up in his conversation with Jack Dorsey.
	And Jack and his assistant, his lawyer, agreed that there should be a path to rehabilitation.
	And so the question is, what does that path look like?
	How do we begin that path?
	And what can be done?
	And this is something that Silicon Valley have been very quiet about.
	They don't seem to be interested in actually starting that dialogue.
	And I think that dialogue is actually important to be had because things are really starting to go off the rails.
	I don't think censorship works.
	I think censorship just makes things more intense.
	It makes people feel justly aggrieved because they are actually being persecuted.
	Now, I don't want these people to be radical fringe nutjobs who are encouraging people to do anything bad, obviously.
	And I think the way to prevent that is not to ostracize them.
	I think that ostracism is basically behind most of the shootings that occur.
	When most people find themselves without anything to lose, then anything becomes possible.
	And if you give people something to lose, if you help embed them in the kind of social fabric of the media environment, then they do have something to lose.
	And so that acts as a check on their own behavior without you having to do a damn thing.
	And also, you get some really great media out of it, like Alex Jones' return to the Joe Rogan podcast.
	It was just quite frankly, some of the best viewing I've ever had.
	It was just fantastic entertainment.
	And there's no reason why Alex Jones can't be brought back into the fold, unless it's really about the pride of the people who have done what they have done to him.
	You remember in the past, Jones' divorce lawyer tried to sell the fact that his on-air persona was just an act.
	But according to Jones, he was really trying to get at the truth.
	Well, what I'm getting at is this stuff we're looking at today, kids going in circles, schools closed, emails, EMTs not in the building, port-a-potties, these aren't comedy skits.
	This is journalism.
	Yes, well, this is punditry.
	Because I wear a journalist hat, punditry hat, satire hat, just reading news, just, you know, just being a newsreader.
	I mean, I do that as well.
	So I do a lot of things.
	But when I was covering Sandy Hook, I was genuinely trying to get at the truth of it.
	Now, as misguided as that was, I don't think that he's being insincere.
	And this harkens to something that Mark Zuckerberg said about Holocaust denial.
	He made a very strong argument for the reason why he didn't just take Holocaust denial off of Facebook.
	Because it's not that it's not wrong.
	It is more that these people do sincerely believe this.
	And so they are not just trying to hurt people.
	They are misguided.
	So instead of hurting them, which will make them more entrenched in their beliefs, it will make them more aggressive about these beliefs.
	And it will make them feel like, and justifiably so, victims of the power structure.
	And therefore, who knows what they'll do after that?
	Why not actually try and take these people to task?
	Get them.
	I mean, if you'd sat Alex Jones down on CNN with one of the families of Sandy Hook, I reckon that would have changed everything.
	I think that there's no way he would have been able to look into their eyes and say, well, look, I think you're just a liar.
	I don't think that would have happened.
	I think Jones would have probably been persuaded.
	I think there's every chance.
	And it's the same thing with Holocaust deniers.
	Get these people together.
	Get them to talk.
	Even if it's tough, even if this is not an easy thing to do, it may well be a necessary thing to do.
	Because I'm genuinely of the opinion at the moment that Western civilization is basically going off the rails.
	And I think it's this kind of segregation of ideas and refusal to have an honest dialogue and ostracization of people who say things that are outside of the Overton window that is causing it.
	And I really think it's something we have to start getting a handle on.
	And I think that the way to do that is to sit down and have uncomfortable conversations.
	Punditry?
	Put aside the fact that the reality of Sandy Hook is not an opinion.
	They're real victims, real families that are still struggling with grief.
	Look, these media provocateurs like Jones, they know that passion sells.
	That's what this is all about.
	They need people to pay attention to them.
	And the best way to do that is to be shocking, many times with disregard of decency.
	Well, that's undoubtedly true.
	How can you say that it is not what this CNN host himself is doing?
	And let us not forget Rachel Maddow, shall we?
	It is not on one side that this occurs.
	This occurs across the political spectrum.
	Everyone is guilty of indulging in their own conspiracy theories in one way or another.
	And I really, and again, I keep saying this, I do not think that ostracization or repression is the solution.
	If anything, it actually makes the establishment look weak.
	It makes it look scared.
	It makes it look like it has something to hide and in its own way further validates the people who are pushing these conspiracy theories.
	And it worked for Jones.
	He made a pretty penny off the fringe ideology that he represented on his radio program carried on more than 160 stations, thousands of listeners.
	Alex Jones' persona is confirmation of everything I've been saying about the mostly men with microphones.
	Namely, that so much of it is just total BS.
	The only people that I meet, that I see, that I speak with who see the world entirely through conservative lenses or liberal lenses are talk radio hosts and cable television personalities.
	Because for the rest of us, the issues are a mixed bag, conservative on some things, liberal on others.
	But these media provocateurs like Jones present themselves out on the fringes because they know this works.
	And they are far more interested in lining their own pockets and getting people to pay attention to their websites and their AM talk radio programs and cable TV shows.
	Again, that is a very accurate description of what Rachel Maddow has done.
	She did profit with a pretty penny on pushing the Russia Gate conspiracy theory, the top-rated cable show.
	She fed her audience a diet of total nonsense, conspiracy theories, implication, accusation, but no facts.
	This is not an unusual thing to do.
	So pointing out Alex Jones as some unique actor in this regard is not true.
	And CNN did their fair share of this as well.
	This is something that is endemic to the current media landscape.
	And I don't think the solution is for us to further segregate our ideas from one another, to not have dialogue.
	That surely is the only way we can actually come to any kind of resolution of these things.
	Or, of course, we can never have any kind of dialogue, continue calling each other names from a cross-on invisible barrier, and further push ourselves down the road towards civil war.
	Because honestly, where else could this go?
	So I genuinely think that Silicon Valley, the media establishment, and any other sort of powerful and influential actors, politicians, any kind of representatives, really need to start engaging honestly with the people with whom they disagree.
	And this is obviously going to have to be done in a calm, respectful setting.
	And it's been something I've been asking for for many years.
	But it's getting to the point now where things are getting pretty serious.
	And I really do think it's about time that we all started taking the things we're doing a bit more seriously.
	And that goes for the alternative media and the mainstream media, the platforms in Silicon Valley and the politicians.
	We have to stop pretending that there is just this gulf of distance between one another because this is ultimately all artificial.
	It's up to us who we talk to.
	And there's really nothing preventing us from talking to anyone, especially given the methods of communication we now have with access to the internet.

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