Twitter has finally banned Alex Jones & Infowars

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

So if you are wrong then banning you from this thread is the right thing to do? I mean you said it yourself you cannot censor false info and a majority are on the opposite side on your opinion. 

 

Get where we are coming from? Doesn't matter the sides...censorship is censorship

I've already said multiple times that normally I'm against censorship in any form. I guess this case has affected my judgement on a personal level because I work in a school with children and it staggers me how anyone can be so fucking callous as to claim a school shooting was faked.

 

I'll admit I was wrong about the censorship meaning however I'm still maintaining my position, I'm glad they banned him. Good riddance I say.

[Okjoek]

Twitter and similar social media platforms should be regulated as public forums. Silicon Valley oligarchs should not be allowed to de-platform people in this manner without any lawful process.

 

That said F%^& Alex Jones.

[Drak3]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Well, to your argument you're both right and wrong in different contexts.  A lie isn't always protected under the first depending on the case, so yes you can censor a lie.  But in other cases, you can't.

It's not a issue of legality or moral. It's an issue of adhering to definitions and not devaluing language.

[ivan134]

6 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Maybe because it gives them more power over the entire population than any group of people has ever held before in human history.

 

If you want an example, see the social media enabled eugenics program currently ongoing in China. Post something that the proverbial "they" don't like? Your social media score, which is tied to your actual identity, goes down. And as a result, your children might not go to the best schools, you might not get that job you want, you might not be allowed to use public transportation ever again.

 

Social media is currently building towards a power over the population that is entirely intolerable in any allegedly "free" society. How many people get their news mainly from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc?

 

But more than that, they provide a medium with which the general population can converse with itself. That, in my book, constitutes a public space, and as such, free speech should apply at the least to the same extent that it would in public. Not to mention each of them being a near monopoly on the space the occupy within the "social media industry".

 

Also they aren't private companies. AFAIK Twitter and Facebook are publicly traded. If a billionaire wanted to buy a majority of the shares and thus have the majority ownership, and change all of this, they could.

Most of the stuff you said is convoluted and would take more time than I want to delve into them, so I'll just respond to your assertion that social media is a public space;

 

NOPE

 

Your tax dollars don't fund any of the social media sites so they're not a public space. Just because they let anyone make an account, doesn't mean they're a public space. By your logic, those people who don't have social media accounts have less rights than those who do. If all the social media sites decided to close shop tomorrow, exactly zero of your rights would be infringed upon. They have the right to dictate that anyone who makes an account, has to have a profile picture with a red shirt. They have the right to decide tomorrow that only posts about cute cats are allowed. Neither of these things would infringe on your rights.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Okjoek said:

Twitter and similar social media platforms should be regulated as public forums. Silicon Valley oligarchs should not be allowed to de-platform people in this manner without any lawful process.

 

That said F%^& Alex Jones.

Didn't the whole trump banning people from his personal account thing cover this? I thought the supreme court ruled that Twitter is indeed a public forum if the information being posted is done by a public official.

[Trik'Stari]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Well, to your argument you're both right and wrong in different contexts.  A lie isn't always protected under the first depending on the case, so yes you can censor a lie.  But in other cases, you can't.

 

Twitter and many other media platforms have a policy against criminal acts.  He's broken them on several accounts, and that's why Twitter banned him.

"Twitter have refused to confirm exactly why he has now been banned but have confirmed that recent posts made my him have been reported and are in breach of the site's abusive behaviour rules." -from the OP

Most platforms started banning him over the defamation case since they have rules against that, and since he's using their platform for that he's banned them.  Twitter banned him right after he harassed a US senator.  He used their platform to show it off, and broke the rules.  They banned him for it.  You can be against it all you want, and I don't care, but when you break a platform's guidelines/rules then there is a good chance you will be banned or warned.

And yet they don't ban members of a certain left leaning group that actively call for genocide of another group. I can get more specific if you like. A college professor with a verified account made said tweets, and AFAIK did not get banned.

 

If they want to have rules, fine. That's commendable. But you can't ban one person on one side of the political spectrum that is opposite your own beliefs, and not ban people for similarly egregious acts because they happen to be on your side, or maybe you happen to agree with them.

 

 

THAT, is the issue here. Social media is blatantly biased in one direction, and ignores violations by people that happen to be in their own direction.

[mynameisjuan]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

I've already said multiple times that normally I'm against censorship in any form. I guess this case has affected my judgement on a personal level because I work in a school with children and it staggers me how anyone can be so fucking callous as to claim a school shooting was faked.

 

I'll admit I was wrong about the censorship meaning however I'm still maintaining my position, I'm glad they banned him. Good riddance I say.

I agree with you that its a stupid thing to say. I am not defending his opinions be it stupid. 

 

But if he is banned for false news and conspiracies then so should people who post about Yeti's, UFOs and flat earths. The targeting certain people is the problem here.   

[Arika]

5 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Most platforms started banning him over the defamation case since they have rules against that, and since he's using their platform for that he's banned them.  Twitter banned him right after he harassed a US senator.  He used their platform to show it off, and broke the rules.  They banned him for it.  You can be against it all you want, and I don't care, but when you break a platform's guidelines/rules then there is a good chance you will be banned or warned.

which i agree with, PROVIDED that they hold everyone else to the same standard of which the absolutely do not. Twitter's CEO has already admired to their left-leaning bias, and the internal memo from Facebook that came to light also confirmed essentially the same thing. they let certain groups get away with breaking the site rules and ban others for having the same opinion but changing the target.

 

for example (and i'm not going to post any more than this because it's getting too political) I have seen posts that are heavily anti-white on twitter that get left up, but there have been accounts that copy-paste these same tweets but change "white" to "black" and are banned within a few hours for breaching site rules, but the original tweets apparently to not?

[handymanshandle]

35 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Why are you people against private companies deciding who they want to do business with?

Excuse me, but literally Alex Jones was banned from pretty much everything but twitter all in a short period of time. You can't use the private company argument this time, and I tend to agree with it most of the time if it was just one company. But this was Facebook, Youtube, Apple, and Spotify.

There's far too much coincidence for him to get kicked off all of those in such a short period of time.

[ivan134]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

Didn't the whole trump banning people from his personal account thing cover this? I thought the supreme court ruled that Twitter is indeed a public forum if the information being posted is done by a public official.

That only applied to the president's account because the president is supposed to be accessible to everyone. That doesn't apply to other people. The only other possible people it applies to, are those who hold public office.

[ivan134]

1 minute ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

Excuse me, but literally Alex Jones was banned from pretty much everything but twitter all in a short period of time. You can't use the private company argument this time, and I tend to agree with it most of the time if it was just one company. But this was Facebook, Youtube, Apple, and Spotify.

There's far too much coincidence for him to get kicked off all of those in such a short period of time.

What exactly is the coincidence? They're private companies and I would think conservatives would be defending the rights of a business to choose who they do business with.

[handymanshandle]

7 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Most platforms started banning him over the defamation case since they have rules against that, and since he's using their platform for that he's banned them.  Twitter banned him right after he harassed a US senator.  He used their platform to show it off, and broke the rules.  They banned him for it.  You can be against it all you want, and I don't care, but when you break a platform's guidelines/rules then there is a good chance you will be banned or warned.

I'm not aware of those rules, if he didn't use their platform for it.

[Trik'Stari]

6 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Most of the stuff you said is convoluted and would take more time than I want to delve into them, so I'll just respond to social media being a public space;

 

NOPE

 

Your tax dollars don't fund any of the social media sites so they're not a public space. Just because they let anyone make an account, doesn't mean they're a public space. By your logic, those people who don't have social media accounts have less rights than those who do. If all the social media sites decided to close shop tomorrow, exactly zero of your rights would be infringed upon. They have the right to dictate that anyone who makes an account, has to have a profile picture with a red shirt. They have the right to decide tomorrow that only posts about cute cats are allowed. Neither of these things would infringe on your rights.

Doesn't matter, again, because of the power they stand to wield over the entire population. THAT, is the rights violation I am talking about. They stand to have more power to influence the entire population, than any current western government.

 

Nevermind that each of them are in some way using public roads and utilities.

 

1 minute ago, ivan134 said:

What exactly is the coincidence? They're private companies and I would think conservatives would be defending the rights of a business to choose who they do business with.

Once again, Facebook and Twitter are not private companies, they are publicly traded. They also receive tax subsidies out the ass, as does Amazon and other major online outlets.

[ivan134]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Didn't the whole trump banning people from his personal account thing cover this? I thought the supreme court ruled that Twitter is indeed a public forum if the information being posted is done by a public official.

Sorry, I just re-read what you wrote and I basically repeated what you said. My bad.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

I agree with you that its a stupid thing to say. I am not defending his opinions be it stupid. 

 

But if he is banned for false news and conspiracies then so should people who post about Yeti's, UFOs and flat earths. The targeting certain people is the problem here.   

Just to be clear he was banned for publicly harassing a US Senator.

 

I guess at this point the discussion turns from censorship to where do we draw the line.

[handymanshandle]

Just now, ivan134 said:

What exactly is the coincidence? They're private companies and I would think conservatives would be defending the rights of a business to choose who they do business with.

Getting banned in such a short amount of time.

 

Of course they're private companies but when they work together to do that. That argument goes straight out the window.

[ivan134]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

Doesn't matter, again, because of the power they stand to wield over the entire population. THAT, is the rights violation I am talking about. They stand to have more power to influence the entire population, than any current western government.

 

Nevermind that each of them are in some way using public roads and utilities.

 

Once again, Facebook and Twitter are not private companies. They also receive tax subsidies out the ass, as does Amazon and other major online outlets.

Since when does receiving subsidies mean that a business isn't private?

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, ivan134 said:

Sorry, I just re-read what you wrote and I basically repeated what you said. My bad.

No worries, it's a fast moving thread.

[ivan134]

Just now, pinksnowbirdie said:

Getting banned in such a short amount of time.

 

Of course they're private companies but when they work together to do that. That argument goes straight out the window.

I'm gonna need a citation.

[S w a t s o n]

the TL;DR version of this thread is:

Free speech vs the rights of a private (or even publicly traded) corporation to do what they want

 

Unfortunately your opinion on free speech does not apply to youtube or facebook or even LTT forums where we can't discuss politics for example. They have absolute right to decide what happens on their platform, not youtube's problem if there's no competing platform (which there is technically)

[TimeOmnivore]

I believe companies should have the right to ban whoever they want from their services for any reason. I don't think you have any sort of unalienable right to use their services provided those services aren't necessary for your ability to survive (e.g. water/electric companies). I can't say I'm particularly upset at Alex Jones being effectively kicked off of the majority of the internet, as that guy's a bigoted prick who regularly spouts harmful bullshit.

 

That said, I also wouldn't be upset if every company decided to just let anyone use their services so long as they don't do anything illegal. In fact I think it would be better for everyone if you knew without a doubt that you wouldn't be censored by media companies for saying whatever you want. I just don't think those companies should be required to have such a policy in place.

[Arika]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Nope, just bad moderation.

which needs to be fixed...thats what im saying, they need to hold everyone to the same standard, the moderation teams personal opinions should not prevent them from punishing people. they have clear rules and should be adhered to by everyone, which is not happening. and the current moderation team is either useless, are actively ignoring certain reports or there is an algorithm that is ignoring it for them based on the contact of the reported tweet

[Trik'Stari]

3 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

Since when does receiving subsidies mean that a business isn't private?

It's the fact that they're publicly traded, literally anyone can own a stake in their company. A private company can have shares as well, but only through invitation. They are not, by definition, a private company. The linguistics here are very important.

 

Also, they're receiving tax subsidies (meaning they don't pay a certain amount of taxes, which in accounting is basically them receiving money from the government. Money not spent, is money gained.) to build a datacenter in the capital city of my state.

 

The hilarious thing here is that I'm usually the anti-government intervention kind of person. I hate the idea of giving government more power than it already has (which is too much in certain ways), but I'm one of the few pointing out how bad this will be for our society.

[ivan134]

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

the TL;DR version of this thread is:

Free speech vs the rights of a private corporation to do what they want

 

Unfortunately your opinion on free speech does not apply to youtube or facebook or even LTT forums where we can't discuss politics for example. They have absolute right to decide what happens on their platform, not youtube's problem if there's no competing platform (which there is technically)

[handymanshandle]

7 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

I'm gonna need a citation.

He was banned from those platforms with in the period of what 12 to 24 hours?