The curtain call for Alex Jones?

[narad]

Big picture: if Jones loses these suits, the next ones in line are the enablers like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify etc. They're already being implicated in more than one of the current cases.

Are you saying suits against FB/Twitter/YT, etc., or from these guys? I'm skeptical that as platforms they have any real responsibility to determine the truth of postings from any of their members.

And this is your periodical thread reminder to everyone to update your ignore list to include this week's username, Pseudo-Intellectual.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Are you saying suits against FB/Twitter/YT, etc., or from these guys? I'm skeptical that as platforms they have any real responsibility to determine the truth of postings from any of their members.

Yes.

And frivolous or not, litigation isn't cheap. Not to mention the court of public opinion, Giant Tech Company vs. Victims' Families isn't a good look either.

But, Alex Jones isn't just being sued because he said crazy things, he's being sued for doxing people and working up his following into a personal army of harassers.

 

[Flappydoodle]

My guess would be it's something in the middle.

Silicon Valley is known to have a liberal bias but you can't overlook how effectively social media was used in 2016 to elect a Republican president (see: close relationship between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica).

As a liberal/progressive, I've long held that the big IT companies might feign being socially liberal just because of their age and the demographics of where they headquarter their business but economically (which is the shit that means more to me), they've always been willing to take money from anybody and always in favor of less regulations and less taxes, poor conditions for workers, etc.

With all that in mind, I think the Jones thing comes down to the fact they were facing enough backlash from how effectively the right have been able to use social media (folks like Jones and Milo), mixed in with an also effective Russian influence campaign (I'm not talking collusion here, I'm talking about the divisive, anarchistic fake Facebook groups they made arguing positions 180 degrees from eachother) and they were getting enough pressure to start moderating their platforms to an extent there was never pressure to do before. That's the answer to why Jones and why now; it was increasingly starting to look like enabling right wing speech was going to to cost them more money than it was making them.

At the end of the day, the way the law reads, it's their websites and they get to make the rules much like here. It sucks but there's still ways guys like Jones could be using social media effectively without inviting a ban (see: POTUS). The GOP would be cutting off their nose to spite their face, being the party of "decreased regulations and freedoms for corporations" and also advocating making companies allow specific material on their websites just because a guy like Jones is sloppy and it's cost him in today's climate.

Quite possible. And to me it's VERY obvious that the social media/Silicon Valley companies are only political to where it helps them. Apple, Amazon, Facebook etc have no problem screwing over little guys, using every tax loophole they can think of etc.

As I said in my original post, I agree that the services are theirs and they can make up their own T&Cs. I'm just voicing my opinion that they shouldn't choose to ban him, though I support their ability to decide.

You are correct about the right wing harnessing social media more effectively for the 2016 election. But to me, it seems that everybody is engaging in it now. Sensationalist fake tweets and stories are going everywhere these days. I saw one just yesterday about someone sending secret white supremacy hand gestures to Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. And what is coming out of Maddow, Colbert etc isn't much different to Hannity or Alex Jones. They're all dealing in sensationalist nonsense and conspiracy theories.

Frankly, I hope that some sort of purge on social media is due. As I said earlier, big pharma, defence companies etc are demonised constantly. In the case of pharma, their business model is very difficult, and their products have helped improve living standards and life expectancy. They have to follow mountains of incredibly strict regulations, have to prove that their products work, they have constant oversight, they have their prices set etc. It's crazy to me that Facebook is 2x larger than Pfizer, Apple is 10x larger than Lockheed Martin, and yet the largest companies in the world have basically no oversight. They experiment with us, hoard our information and they have lobbyists everywhere, close links between their executives and US politicians, but they have nice friendly PR images so nobody seems to care.

 

[narad]

And what is coming out of Maddow, Colbert etc isn't much different to Hannity or Alex Jones. They're all dealing in sensationalist nonsense and conspiracy theories.

Except that, you know, it's satire. Or give a Colbert conspiracy you think is equivalent to the parents of dead kids being paid actors.

 

[Flappydoodle]

Except that, you know, it's satire. Or give a Colbert conspiracy you think is equivalent to the parents of dead kids being paid actors.

I said "isn't much different". Not "the same as". Both are peddling in rumours, conspiracy and exaggerated claims. Jones just takes it to a different level of outrageousness.

Wasn't it Colbert who said Trump was Putin's "cock holster" or something like that? What enlightening, clever, fact-based commentary.

 

[Randy]

Except that, you know, it's satire. Or give a Colbert conspiracy you think is equivalent to the parents of dead kids being paid actors.

I take it with a grain of salt. Jones shifted from being 'OOGA BOOGA, SASQUATCH IS AN ALIEN' news coverage to the bulk of his conspiracies being about the 'deep state' and stuff mainstream Republicans tout anyway. He was an effective tool for the Republican party because he brought a lot of people who otherwise considered themselves Libertarian and very ANTI established parties into trusting what's pretty much considered the mainstream of the Republican party today.

So in that sense, yeah, I see SOME parity between Jones and Hannity, Maddow, etc.

The cost of bringing Jones under the tent is the backlash they're facing now. Yeah, you're right, there is no equivalency to dead kids being paid actors, etc. The guy had too much baggage. I'll VERY partially give the right a pass on being responsible for every stupid thing Jones has done prior to becoming part of the party, only because the only connection I see between the two is that Jones will essentially say anything as long as someone is willing to pay for him to say it. See also: Glenn Beck

 

[narad]

I said "isn't much different". Not "the same as". Both are peddling in rumours, conspiracy and exaggerated claims. Jones just takes it to a different level of outrageousness.

Conspiracy and satire are "much different." When you say a conspiracy, with the intent to instill this belief in your listeners, there isn't a rim shot and applause from a live studio audience.

IIRC Colbert made some jokes when there was that rumored Trump golden shower tape. However, if you can't tell the difference between trying to find humor in existing rumors and trending hearsay (i.e., what Colbert does), and seriously trying to substantiate that rumor as fact, and propagate it as fact to as many people as will believe it (i.e., what Jones does), then I don't know what to tell you. It's not a difference of degree -- it's just an inherently different thing.

 

[Pseudo-Intellectual]

Funny how the mainstream media only started attacking Alex Jones after Trump won. That’s because Jones was a big part of Trump’s win.

Alex Jones has been doing what he has been doing for 20 plus years.

The mainstream media was dumbfounded after election night.

Now the only solution is to silence opposition. Hence the banning on all social media platforms for Trump supporters, not just Alex Jones.

 

[Drew]

Quite possible. And to me it's VERY obvious that the social media/Silicon Valley companies are only political to where it helps them. Apple, Amazon, Facebook etc have no problem screwing over little guys, using every tax loophole they can think of etc.

I think their position is actually perfectly consistent, and not really political. They're in favor of user privacy (for the most part - I think the difference in approach between Facebook, a platform, and Apple, a hardware manufacturer, is also telling here) and free dissemination of information and some attempt to ensure the validity of news being shared on their platforms, because that's their core business (huge generalizations here, because the FANG stocks are radically different businesses) and catering to their users ensures user growth. And, they want to aggressively minimize their tax liabilities, because they're for-profit businesses.

I just think that a lot of the values that they stand for because they make their platforms more valuable to their users, happen to align with "liberal" political values.

Funny how the mainstream media only started attacking Alex Jones after Trump won. That’s because Jones was a big part of Trump’s win.

Alex Jones has been doing what he has been doing for 20 plus years.

The mainstream media was dumbfounded after election night.

Now the only solution is to silence opposition. Hence the banning on all social media platforms for Trump supporters, not just Alex Jones.

I mean, that's certainly one way of looking at it. The other is Jones has gotten a lot more coverage and a lot more attention now that Trump is routinely citing his theories over Twitter, and that in the wake of 2016, not just from the outcome of the election but from things like the Pizzagate shooter, the rest of the media world has realized that guys like Alex Jones aren't just harmless crackpots babbling on the margin, but that there are people who actually take him at face value, and that there are real world consequences for his pushing conspiracies like Sandy Hook being a false flag operation with paid actors, or the Pizzagate sex ring being a real thing.

I think the established media was dumbfounded the morning after the election, sure. But I think we differ on the reasons - I think they realized that they'd fallen down on the job. Trump loves to spin the open letter the Times wrote after he won as an apology for their poor coverage of his campaign and their underestimating of his odds. In reality, it was an apology for creating a false equivalence between Trump's qualifications and crimes and Clinton's, and not holding him fully accountable in the interest of appearing unbiased. It was a vow not to do so in the future, rather than an apology and a promise to treat Trump favorably for the sake of treating him favorably in the future. Trump's increasingly unhinged Twitter rants about the Times suggests they've learned from their mistakes, as has the fact that Jones is now kicked off most social media platforms and is being sued by the parents of Sandy Hook victims.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Funny how the mainstream media only started attacking Alex Jones after Trump won. That’s because Jones was a big part of Trump’s win.

Or it's that Trump has been pushing a lot of what Alex Jones has been saying, on top of praising the fuck out of him. So it gives Jones a bigger spotlight since you had a presidential candidate, and now an actual fucking president, shining the light on some crazy corner of the internet.

Also I don't think Jones was a big factor in why Trump won. It's the mainstream media you're criticizing. They gave Trump a HUGE spotlight. Constant coverage. Always tuned into his rallies.

And as Drew said above, his conspiracy theories starting to actually harm people is what's causing this backlash. You got these pizzagaters and Sandy Hook truthers harrasing people IRL because of the shit Jones has been pushing.

 

[Drew]

Also I don't think Jones was a big factor in why Trump won.

I mean, if nothing else, let's point out that if the posts about Jones' weekly viewers dropping from 1.4mm to 700k in the wake of getting kicked off Facebook are accurate, then not for nothing his average weekly viewers were probably somewhere south of 1.4 million back in 2016, possibly sub-1mm, and accordingly, it's really tough to build a case that a guy with an audience of let's call it a million listeners was "a big factor in why Trump won." He simply didn't have the audience, and most of the swing voters that broke his way in the final week were almost certainly not motivated by an Alex Jones episode, compared to, say, the Comey letter one week out.

The numbers don't work.

 

[Pseudo-Intellectual]

Well as far as banning Alex Jones from all social media platforms, it also doesn’t add up when you tell me it’s because of the whole Sandy Hook school shooting, which happened almost 6 years ago.

Alex Jones has been facing numerous lawsuits after Trump won. And he has won almost all of them. They just keep attacking him trying to bankrupt him or destroy him.

No I don’t think it has anything at all to do with that. Like I said it has to do with the fact that mainstream media wants to hold their power on the information and will silence all opposition. The look on their faces after the election was enough to show you how destoyed they were. They really thought it was in the bag for Hillary. They were so smug about it.

And like I also said it doesn’t end with Alex Jones. Conservatives all across the board are being censored, banned, shadow banned.

Meanwhile I could list countless so-called “conspiracy theories” the mainstream media has conjured up for the masses to consume. But that’s a whole nother spread.

 

[Explorer]

I like that the parents suing Jones are part of a shadowy "they," and that some folks refuse to acknowledge that it was Jones' defaming and doxxing that are at the heart of those cases (not dismissed, incidentally).

I know that certain kinds of speech which violate terms of service have been banned, but I don't think the TOS spell out conservative doctrines as being ban-worthy, instead focusing on things like hate speech and abusive behavior. I know lots of conservatives who manage to avoid such behavior, so I suspect it is actually ass clowns trying to say their own beclownment represents all conservatives. That's BS.

 

[narad]

I know that certain kinds of speech which violate terms of service have been banned, but I don't think the TOS spell out conservative doctrines as being ban-worthy, instead focusing on things like hate speech and abusive behavior. I know lots of conservatives who manage to avoid such behavior, so I suspect it is actually ass clowns trying to say their own beclownment represents all conservatives. That's BS.

Sad day when people need to be reminded that hate speech and abusive behavior are not necessarily conservative doctrines.

 

[Drew]

Well as far as banning Alex Jones from all social media platforms, it also doesn’t add up when you tell me it’s because of the whole Sandy Hook school shooting, which happened almost 6 years ago.

Alex Jones has been facing numerous lawsuits after Trump won. And he has won almost all of them. They just keep attacking him trying to bankrupt him or destroy him.

For the first, I think, like I said in my earlier post, there's been a pretty clear shift on the part of social media platforms in realizing that guys like Alex Jones aren't harmless curmudgeon-y entertainers, but have actually been causing real-world harm to the people they accuse of being at the center of his alleged conspiracies, and they've realized their utopiaic vision of a platform for free exchange where quality content can be shifted out from the chaff isn't going to happen on its own, and they have to do at least some moderating of content to weed out abuse. I think in the case of the Sandy Hook victims' parents, when one couple began receiving death threats again after moving for the 8th time in five yeas because Jones decided to share their personal contact information on his show again, after the move, it's hard to really fault their decision to sue.

Again, though, this is all stuff I've already told you. If it "doesn't add up," that's not on me.

As for your second point about him "mostly winning," I'd love to see a citration. This is what Wikipedia shows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Litigation

In February 2017, the lawyers of James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction for his role in pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Under Texas law, Jones was given a month to comply or be subject to a libel suit.[142] In March 2017, Alex Jones apologized to Alefantis for promulgating the conspiracy theory and retracted his allegations.[143]

In April 2017, the Chobani yogurt company filed a lawsuit against Jones for his article that claims that the company's factory in Idaho, which employs refugees, was connected to a 2016 child sexual assault and a rise in tuberculosis cases.[144] As a result of the lawsuit, Jones issued an apology and retraction of his allegations in May 2017.[145]

In March 2018, Brennan Gilmore, who shared a video he captured of a car hitting anti-racism protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, filed a lawsuit[146] against Jones and six others. According to the lawsuit, Jones said that Gilmore was acting as part of a false flag operation conducted by disgruntled government "deep state" employees in furtherance of a coup against President Trump.[147] Gilmore alleges he has been receiving death threats from Jones' audience.[147]

Pizzagate - Jones retracted his allegations and apologized, rather than face a libel suit. Backing down and retracting allegations to avoid a libel suit is awfully hard to construe as a win.

Chobani child sexual assault/TB allegations - the company sued, and Jones was forced to apologize and retract his allocations. That's a straight-up loss.

Unite the Right deep state allegations - suit is still ongoing.

The Sandy Hook suit is in a separate section, but is also still ongoing.

To me, it looks like he's batting about 0.000%, but hey, maybe there's a bunch of times he's gotten sued that just aren't on the Wikipedia page of all the other times he got sued.

Like I said it has to do with the fact that mainstream media wants to hold their power on the information and will silence all opposition.

I mean, this is a simple Occam's Razor thing, for me. We have two possibilities we're going to entertain; either the establishment media is this shadowy, power-hungry cartel of puppet-masters and are angry that Alex Jones is speaking truth to power and is trying to break their stranglehold on the truth... Or, Alex Jones is just completely full of shit, and is routinely getting sued for lying on air and hurting people, and losing, because he IS full of shit, and can't actually prove the claims he's making because he knows they're false.

The latter takes a whole fuck of a lot fewer angels dancing on the heads of pins than the former, you know?

 

[tedtan]

Meanwhile I could list countless so-called “conspiracy theories” the mainstream media has conjured up for the masses to consume. But that’s a whole nother spread.

Please create a thread for this discussion.

 

[Pseudo-Intellectual]

For the first, I think, like I said in my earlier post, there's been a pretty clear shift on the part of social media platforms in realizing that guys like Alex Jones aren't harmless curmudgeon-y entertainers, but have actually been causing real-world harm to the people they accuse of being at the center of his alleged conspiracies, and they've realized their utopiaic vision of a platform for free exchange where quality content can be shifted out from the chaff isn't going to happen on its own, and they have to do at least some moderating of content to weed out abuse. I think in the case of the Sandy Hook victims' parents, when one couple began receiving death threats again after moving for the 8th time in five yeas because Jones decided to share their personal contact information on his show again, after the move, it's hard to really fault their decision to sue.

Again, though, this is all stuff I've already told you. If it "doesn't add up," that's not on me.

As for your second point about him "mostly winning," I'd love to see a citration. This is what Wikipedia shows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Litigation



Pizzagate - Jones retracted his allegations and apologized, rather than face a libel suit. Backing down and retracting allegations to avoid a libel suit is awfully hard to construe as a win.

Chobani child sexual assault/TB allegations - the company sued, and Jones was forced to apologize and retract his allocations. That's a straight-up loss.

Unite the Right deep state allegations - suit is still ongoing.

The Sandy Hook suit is in a separate section, but is also still ongoing.

To me, it looks like he's batting about 0.000%, but hey, maybe there's a bunch of times he's gotten sued that just aren't on the Wikipedia page of all the other times he got sued.


I mean, this is a simple Occam's Razor thing, for me. We have two possibilities we're going to entertain; either the establishment media is this shadowy, power-hungry cartel of puppet-masters and are angry that Alex Jones is speaking truth to power and is trying to break their stranglehold on the truth... Or, Alex Jones is just completely full of shit, and is routinely getting sued for lying on air and hurting people, and losing, because he IS full of shit, and can't actually prove the claims he's making because he knows they're false.

The latter takes a whole fuck of a lot fewer angels dancing on the heads of pins than the former, you know?

I would take Wikipedia with a grain of salt...They are like the ministry of truth in 1984.

I will repeat my point again. This has nothing to do with what you are saying because he has been doing broadcasting and making documentaries for over 20 years. Even when Obama was President, they didn’t do anything to shut him down.

So why all of a sudden the complete shut down of him? That’s cause Trump won and people like Jones were effective in helping him get elected. This obviously wasn’t suppose to happen. But it did and now they are lashing back. Plain and simple.

And hey you are entitled to your opinion about Alex Jones. You think he’s full of shit. And I think the mainstream media is full of shit. Who is right?

All I know is you get your news from places like the NY times and Washington Post. Both owned by the richest men in the world, so I don’t know if what they are spewing is in my best interest.

 

[Pseudo-Intellectual]

Please create a thread for this discussion.

Lol maybe I will. Haven’t been paying attention to all the lies in a while. All I would have to do is turn on the TV to get a topic.

 

[zappatton2]

Real journalists for real news organizations are trained and accredited to gather and report on the facts. Of course they can get things wrong, and of course they are selective in their topics, but the MSM that everybody is so busy bashing is self-correcting. When they get it wrong, they print retractions, full stop.

Editorial journalists take facts and make a case for a political or editorial position. I certainly do not agree with the conclusions of a good deal of editorialists, but when employed with a real news organization, they also have a duty to deal with the facts, and when they are wrong, they have a duty to self-correct.

Even wikipedia, which I would still regard with a grain or two of salt, is a collective endeavor; it's not one guy with a microphone and a soapbox, it's several people collectively refining, correcting and editing information, which, depending on how many people contribute to the subject at hand, tends to weed out the cranks and present a fairly accurate view of the topic.

So your choices for information run between institutions that are self-correcting (much like how the natural sciences function), and individuals who make a buck off ignorance, peddling unfathomable tales to sell merch to people who want to believe their narrative (much like cults and religious sects).

As far as Jones himself is concerned, denying him platforms is entirely legitimate in light of his routine targeting of individuals with blatant untruths which result in real, tangible harm to said individuals (including grieving parents, I might add). I'm not sure how you can intellectually (or morally, for that matter) present these as equal choices depending on your politics. What the man does in unambiguously unethical and dishonest. He still has his free speech, but he is not owed a soapbox, and he is still liable for actual libel.

 

[Pseudo-Intellectual]

Ok you guys keep talking about Sandy Hook and gay frogs. What else has Alex Jones done to cause so much harm in the world. Of course these are the only two things the mainstream media parrots to you guys.

The gay frogs has been proven scientifically. The herbicide atrazine is actually turning male frogs into females. So where are the lies?

How about the mainstream media portraying all Trump supporters as rascists and nazis. Isn’t that causing harm to innocent people? Should we start suing them now?