CNN Credits Media For The Banning of Alex Jones / Infowars
CNN Reporter Oliver Darcy said that it was not the social media companies that got Alex Jones and Infowars banned but weeks of pressure from the media. Darcy was one of the loudest voices critical of these platforms for supporting Infowars.But these companies are claiming Jones violating community standards, so which is it? Did the media pressure companies to ban fake news or did Jones violate community guidelines?Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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CNN's Oliver Darcy is one of the main reporters putting pressure on these social media companies to ban Alex Jones and InfoWars.
Just recently, these companies announced that Alex Jones had violated various community standards and would be taken down.
And in an interview, Oliver Darcy said that it took weeks of pressure from the media to get them to finally take action.
But the pressure Oliver Darcy was putting on these media companies wasn't about violations of community standards.
It was about fake news.
In one article saying that if Facebook wants to seriously combat fake news, they have to deal with Infowars.
So if he's going to claim that his pressure and media pressure is what got these companies to take action, it would imply that these companies were taking action against fake news.
On the surface, based on statements from these companies, it was about community guidelines.
So naturally, many people are going to assume that the real reason Alex Jones was taken down is because he produces controversial content that they deem to be fake news.
So today, I want to take a look at exactly what Oliver Darcy was reporting, what kind of pressure he put on these companies to ban InfoWars, and I want to tell you just how dangerous it is to claim that fake news should be banned because almost every company produces something that could be considered fake news.
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Yesterday, The Guardian reported Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify ban InfoWars' Alex Jones, a crackdown on U.S.
conspiracy theorists for promoting violence and hate speech.
Oliver Darcy tweeted, Important to note that tech platforms did not enforce their
own rules and take action against Alec Jones, InfoWars, on their own accord.
It took media outlets to point out for weeks that InfoWars was skirting the rules on these tech platforms for them to
And they only actually took action after weeks of media pressure, after weeks of the media outlets saying, you know,
you say that this would violate your standards, so why is this still being allowed to be posted?
And so Apple was the first at the bat this morning, or last night, sorry, with the removal of his content. Now we're seeing it triple up. It was Apple and
Oliver Darcy, thank you so much. Oliver Darcy tweeted a little bit later saying,
it's really remarkable the 180 Facebook did on InfoWars today. A few weeks ago,
the company was using its official Twitter account to tweet in defense of allowing InfoWars to have
a platform on its site. Zuckerberg even personally defended the decision, then rather suddenly dot,
dot, dot. Again, the official stance is that InfoWars violated community guidelines.
But according to Oliver Darcy, it was their media pressure and that Facebook is doing a 180.
In the past, Facebook defended InfoWars' right to produce their opinion and analysis, no matter how crazy.
If you're calling that a 180, it would imply that Facebook is actually banning InfoWars for producing controversial content that some people consider to be fake news.
And don't get me wrong, I think a lot of what Alex Jones produces is fake news.
Such as when he apologized for linking Chobani to a sexual assault case and tuberculosis.
Or last year when Alex Jones apologized for spreading fake Pizzagate story.
The truth is, it's not just InfoWars producing fake news.
Many massive media companies produce fake news as well.
In the past, I've been criticized for comparing Huffington Post to InfoWars, which I still think to this day is not absolutely unfair.
I'm not here to claim that InfoWars is somehow more reputable than any of these other websites.
There are a lot of mainstream sites that actually do a good job, but the point is they all do produce fake news.
To what degree?
I don't know.
You're going to go ahead and assume that one produces more than the other, and I'm not going to get into that.
I'm simply going to call out fake news where I see it.
And apparently so is CNN.
This story, Facebook touts fight on fake news but struggles to explain why InfoWars isn't banned.
Facebook officials struggle on Wednesday to explain why it permits InfoWars, a media organization that is one of the world's leading purveyors of conspiracy theories, to have a page on its platform.
If Oliver Darcy is claiming that it was media pressure that got InfoWars banned, he's implying that it was stories like this, criticizing social media companies for allowing fake news.
But these companies are claiming it was about a violation of community standards.
So which is it?
Is CNN's reporting incorrect?
It wasn't really media pressure?
Because Zuckerberg defended InfoWars.
Or are these media companies simply putting out PR statements and getting rid of InfoWars because there was media pressure?
So let's talk about fake news, and why, in my opinion, it is so dangerous to ban someone for fake news.
This story from Huffington Post, titled, Violent Proto-Fascists Came to Portland.
The Police Went After the Anti-Fascists.
Portland wasn't the next Charlottesville, but activists say police almost accidentally killed an anti-fascist protester.
So let's point out a few things that are wrong with this story and why the Huffington Post has produced what I would call fake news.
They start by saying police did a good job on Saturday preventing what could have been the most violent far-right rally since last year's deadly Unite the Right gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Notice they do say it could have been the most violent.
However, when we scroll to the top, they called one group violent proto-fascists.
If it wasn't the most violent, what makes this group violent proto-fascists?
Not only that, I was there on the ground.
And although there were scuffles between people on the right, it wasn't really that violent.
There were some bickering, some potential scuffles.
But overwhelmingly, anti-Trump protesters were able to interact with Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer members without incident.
In fact, from the start of the event, There were anti-Trump protesters dancing around on the side with the Proud Boys and the Patriot Prayer, the so-called violent group, and no one bothered them.
In fact, some people even took pictures, smiled, and waved.
There were no problems with the right-wing side and the counter-protesters in their midst.
So calling them violent would seem to be an opinion, not a fact.
And if they're calling this a news story, that's incorrect.
It's an op-ed.
But the story isn't listed as an op-ed, and let's look at another example of just how this is fake news.
The story injects several opinions, such as punch drunk, a word that literally has nothing to do with anything, and I don't understand why it would be added other than this is an op-ed and not news reporting.
And they also cite It's Going Down.
It's Going Down is an Antifa-supporting website.
It is a far-left propaganda outlet for anarchists, socialists, communists, and anti-fascists.
To be used as citation in a story would make the story a piece of political activism, an op-ed, but not news reporting.
Now, inside this story, you can read a lot of things that are contradictory, confusing, or needlessly described as punch-drunk, among other things.
But when we compare this to the Daily Beast, we can see that there is fake news at least somewhere.
See, the Daily Beast said, But the Huffington Post is claiming that the police did a good job on Saturday preventing what could have been the most violent far-right rally since last year's Unite the Right gathering in Charlottesville.
All they had to do was protect the proto-fascists who came to town and used riot control weapons, flashbang grenades, and chemical irritants against anti-fascist counter-protesters.
The reporter Christopher Mathias says, So which is it?
It's noon in Portland and right now police are keeping the two sides separated.
Hundreds of anti-fascist counter-protesters with a brass band look across the street at
Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer.
More Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer on the way.
So which is it?
Did the police keep them separated or were they beating up their opponents?
Or is it possible that some instances of scuffles broke out but for the most part there were
no clashes between the two groups because the police kept them separated?
Someone is writing fake news.
And although you could say, sure, some people got into some scuffles, for the most part, as we saw from the tweet of Christopher Mathias, the police kept everyone separated.
And as someone who was on the ground, yes, the police kept both sides separated, and there were only a couple incidents In fact, in the Huffington Post piece, there is a quote from a spokesperson for Popular Mobilization, a coalition of anti-racist and anti-fascist groups formed for today's counter-demonstration.
there was no real clash between the Patriot Prayer side and the Antifa side.
In fact, in the Huffington Post piece, there is a quote from a spokesperson for Popular Mobilization,
a coalition of anti-racist and anti-fascist groups formed for today's counter-demonstration.
She said, In one tweet from Christopher Mathias, he says,
After I took this video and anti-fascist was hit with some kind of projectile shot by cops, he seems fine.
Cat and mouse game between cops and anti-fascists in Portland right now.
There was violence.
It wasn't between the two groups, it was between the police and the protesters.
So why then the Daily Beast would claim that they were beating up opponents, I have no idea.
I don't want to go on forever about these two particular stories.
Suffice it to say they're a bit contradictory, and it makes me wonder.
But now I want to take a look at a story from The Nation.
The Nation is a left-wing publication that actually talked about how the activists from the right-wing side hate racism.
If the narrative coming from left-wing activists and the press is that these were proto-fascist white supremacists and racists being countered by anti-racists, I have to wonder, then, how the nation was able to get quotes from people within the Patriot Prayer, Proud Boy side, who not only were not white, but who denounced racism.
This story is actually rather confusing, too, and it makes me question whether we should ban fake news.
It says, An afternoon with Portland's multi-racial far-right.
To broaden their appeal, some right-wing groups are ditching overt racism for their vision of diversity.
Let me just stop right there and point out that headline is ridiculous.
Either you're congratulating racists for no longer being racist, or you're admitting that these groups weren't racist in the first place, if they're going to allow diverse races among their ranks.
I don't want to read through the whole article, but I do want to point out one statement that I found interesting.
One masked Proud Boy present on Saturday, who said his name was John, told me that anyone in their crew who expressed racist views would be stomped out.
But not literally, he quickly added.
The Nation even highlights that one of the Proud Boys threatened violence against racists and then had to walk it back saying, not literally, but did threaten to stomp out somebody who was racist.
Perhaps he meant that anybody who expressed racist views would be shut down, not literally stomped.
But when the nation who is left-wing goes into this crowd and finds that many of the people oppose, reject racism, and even might be threatening racists, I have to wonder where the narrative comes from from all these news outlets that they're white supremacists.
The main point I want to make with all of this, and tying it back to what's going on with Infowars, is that much of what you see on the internet is contradictory and fake, and people simply choose to read whatever they trust.
When I said that InfoWars was kind of like a right-wing Huffington Post, I wasn't saying that Huffington Post produces more or less fake news than InfoWars, because personally I think InfoWars is not reputable in most regards, and I think the Huffington Post is more reputable.
I recognize that both of them produce fake news, and I try to avoid using the Huffington Post in many instances because I know they produce fake news, like the articles I've just shown you.
Are we then going to complain?
That everyone should be banned.
Should Joe Rogan be banned because he talks about Alex Jones and talks about what Alex Jones thinks?
If the real reason Alex Jones was banned was for violating community standards, then we've got to talk about community standards.
And if he did violate them, well, then there you go.
These social media platforms are private companies.
We can get rid of whatever they want.
But if Oliver Darcy is correct, and it was the media pressure on these companies that got Alex Jones banned, well then we're in trouble.
Because Oliver Darcy was complaining about fake news, not about harassment or hate speech.
That would mean that these social media companies have chosen some opinions are not okay.
I understand there's an issue of scale and nuance.
It's not black and white.
Alex Jones had millions of followers, so there is an issue with massive accounts producing biased or fake news.
But the Huffington Post has arguably more followers than InfoWars does and gets more traffic.
So who do we ban?
My only conclusion is that maybe we should leave all of it alone and let people have their opinions.
And that's what Mark Zuckerberg said.
But sure enough, he still banned Facebook, so maybe Mark Zuckerberg is saying, you know what, they are violating the rules and we should take them down.
Maybe Oliver Darcy is saying it wasn't because they were calling out fake news that they got taken down, but because the media had shined a light on InfoWars, and thus Facebook was able to see certain things they were doing was wrong, and then took them down.
At any rate, the idea of banning fake news is scary.
So, let me know what you think in the comments below.
How do you feel about what happened in Portland?
Who do you think is wrong?
Who do you think is the fake news?
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned, new videos every day at 4pm, and new videos on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCast, at 6pm.
Again, thanks for watching, and I will see you all next time.
