Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “battle rifles” ready

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/twitter-gives-alex-jones-one-week-time-out-for-inciting-violence/

by rbanffy • 8 years ago

31 49 8 years ago

arstechnica.com

ProAm7• 8 years ago

We're treading into the land of censorship. As much as I dont like Alex Jones, I think this is wrong.

cobythedog4• 8 years ago

Twitter is a not a government entity, so how is this censorship or leading to it?

ProAm7• 8 years ago

It really just allows the tech giants to determine what messages should be said. Its not the government, but still entities that largely rule the internet. I see your point, its just murky waters.

fwn• 8 years ago

Because censorship does not necessarily need to have anything to do with a government. See sentence one, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

edit: already downvoted. Wikipedias mundane standard definition is already too controversial for HN. :D

toomim• 8 years ago

Although censorship is particularly abhorrent when it's done by the government, it's still censorship, even when it's done by private entities.

WisNorCan• 8 years ago

It is worth separating out the (less interesting) legal argument around the 1st amendment from the practical reality.

The reality is that private companies like Google, Twitter, etc. have more power than the government to restrict speech. In fairness, tech companies have been reluctant to wield that power and have been pushed into it.

burkaman• 8 years ago

Why?

untog• 8 years ago

It's certainly a difficult topic, but I can see a pretty strong argument that the likes of Alex Jones make Twitter a worse place. It's not in their interests to keep him on the platform, and I'm not really sure what would compel them to do so.

ProAm7• 8 years ago

While I agree overall it makes me uncomfortable there are people that choose who makes it a 'worse' place. I dont have a good answer though.

harshreality• 8 years ago

I like guns. I think conspiracy theories are fun (just not Alex Jones's presentation of them), even when they're false, as they almost always are. I hate the censorship these platforms are engaged in.

That said, these bans were righteous. Anyone getting on any platform and encouraging, iirc, people to act "legally... and illegally" with "battle rifles" to resist an unseen army of government oppressors, is saying civilization has broken down and the only thing left is civil war and revolution.

The fact that there has been no Jones-inspired violence means that there are literally zero people in his audience who take him seriously. Which is good.

That raises an interesting side issue, though. Granted, someone advocating violence like that needs to be de-platformed. However, since clearly none of his viewers take him seriously, maybe the main narrative about Infowars is wrong. Maybe his entire persona, and Infowars, are an undeclared comedy act that give people, mostly conservatives, an outlet for their frustrations without requiring them to agree with, or act on, any of the extreme shit he says, even if they might parrot it in conversation from time to time.

If this is a comedy act, I don't know where the line is between comedy and incitement to violence. These platforms probably don't (and can't afford to) have as nuanced a view of it, but if they did, they would still probably not want to take that chance. I think attempts to incite others to violence is a serious enough thing that if he is running a comedy show, he should still tone down direct incitement to violence. What if just the right kind of mentally unhinged person watches his videos? That could turn out badly, and there's no reason to take that risk. The impact to freedom of speech of prohibiting, even in comedy, incitement to violence, is minimal. I have a feeling if it were a government agency doing the censoring, the courts would find approximately the same thing: This kind of speech can properly be censored, even under strict scrutiny.

krapp2• 8 years ago

The fact that there has been no Jones-inspired violence means that there are literally zero people in his audience who take him seriously. Which is good.

Alex Jones at least indirectly inspired a gunman to fire into a restaurant because he pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

One might be able to make the argument that Alex Jones doesn't directly call for violence, but he and people like him make a living out of talking around violence, and when someone pushes conspiracy theories about certain groups of people (jews, muslims, leftists, gays) belief in those conspiracies can create a higher likelihood of violence against those groups.

BLanen• 8 years ago

Yes, it's right there in the first ammendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. And also, persons, including legal persons, will be compelled to provide a platform for persons inciting violence.

So, no.

ddebernardy• 8 years ago

Previous discussion on the topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17764760

h4b4n3r04• 8 years ago

This is the “Christian Bakery” moment for Twitter et al. You can’t at the same time argue that a bakery must serve people whose politics it doesn’t like (you can find photos of the baker in question with sympathetic gay folks, so he doesn’t seem like a total homophobe to me) and do the exact same thing yourself.

pulisse• 8 years ago

It's illegal in Colorado for a business to refuse service to someone because of their sexual orientation. That's the law under which the state tried to penalize the baker.

Alex Jones violated Twitter's ToS by, among other things, encouraging armed violence.

There's zero tension in thinking that both Twitter and the state of Colorado acted defensibly in these two cases.

h4b4n3r04• 8 years ago

One: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/..., so Colorado is wrong.

Two: Using a figure of speech is not “encouraging armed violence”.

amaccuish• 8 years ago

Your analogy fails because Alex Jones isn't a protected class. He wasn't kicked off for being gay/religion etc, he was kicked off for inciting violence.

h4b4n3r04• 8 years ago

Nor were those gay folks by the baker. He didn’t refuse service because they were gay per se. He refused because they wanted a _gay wedding cake_. Had they ordered a birthday cake, he would have happily made it for them. It’s like if you go into a Muslim bakery and order a cake with a picture of prophet Mohammad an it. Go try it, see how that works out for you.

akmarinov• 8 years ago

Yet the president threatens millions with thermonuclear war on Twitter and that’s just fine.

Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “battle rifles” ready

Related Stories