
Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory - uptown
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-removes-infowars-from-podcast-directory-1533538681
======
sctb
All: there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of intellectual gratification
happening in these threads, but please try at least to avoid things like
gratuitous inflammation, generic politics, and all such low-information
flameage. Those things do actual damage to the community, and for what?

------
paulgb
I agree with the comments that it's their store and they can do what they want
with it, and Jones actively uses his platform to bully individuals so I'm not
disappointed to see it diminished.

That said, the trend of centralization of Podcasts worries me a bit. Podcasts
were one of the few real success stories of an open syndication format that
allowed an ecosystem of podcast apps to flourish. I've noticed a trend where
podcasts make it hard to find the RSS URL or even make it hidden and require
you subscribe on the major platforms. Let's not turn podcasting into the same
walled garden we have for every other aspect of syndicated content!

~~~
jessriedel
The fact that private stores can do what they want does not mean that they
_should_ do what they want or that consumers shouldn't demand otherwise. More
generally, not all bad behavior is or should be illegal. The fact that the
first amendment only legally applies to the government does not mean that free
speech as a concept doesn't have moral force on other organizations.

For instance, we expect universities to act as neutral debate platforms for
all sorts of views that are not endorsed by the university administration.
When they fail to do this, they are not legally penalized (modulo constraints
from accepting government funding), but we (should) lower their public esteem.
Newspapers and online media companies like Apple and Facebook could and should
be held to a similar standard by the public, although in practice they are
unfortunately given more latitude.

~~~
pjc50
""Debate"" needs to have a minimum legitimacy requirement to be taken
seriously. You can't just make up a string of provably false stuff and use it
as a pretext for harassment, Sandy Hook passim.

~~~
unit91
Sure, by the private individual. The problem is many things that were major
moments in world history didn't pass the ruling-class's "minimum legitimacy
requirement" at the time. Top-of-my-head examples: the Magna Carta, the
Protestant Reformation, Indian Independence, anybody else's independence,
Snowden, etc.

~~~
pjc50
The Magna Carta is literally an agreement among the ruling class.

By "legitimacy" I don't mean that people agree with the conclusion being
expressed, but that people agree it's at least an attempt at a structured
argument based on actual facts. The 95 Theses were complaints against _real_
injustices, not a set of fabricated smears.

Colonial independences generally were discussable - and discussed - at the
time and in advance of their happening.

~~~
unit91
> The Magna Carta is literally an agreement among the ruling class.

Not in the way you're thinking. This is at the time when the King had absolute
or near absolute authority. King John was the ruling class. While it was the
English nobility that opposed the king, they did so (1) at great risk to their
own safety, and (2) as the only ones in a position to do so. Certainly no serf
could have accomplished this -- they would have been killed.

Second sentence of the (excellent) Wikipedia article about it:

> First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the
> unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of
> church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access
> to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be
> implemented through a council of 25 barons.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta)

~~~
takluyver
> the King had absolute or near absolute authority. King John was the ruling
> class.

In theory, perhaps. But the barons could and did challenge the King with a
degree of success. The king did not have a practical monopoly on the use of
force. So the description of Magna Carta as an 'agreement among the ruling
class' seems reasonable.

------
resters
Anyone of average intelligence who spends 30-60 seconds listening to Alex
Jones will quickly realize that Jones suffers from some kind of mental illness
or personality disorder, and that there is nothing of interest or value to
learn from his rants.

Those who ignore the obvious signs and still choose to listen to it do so for
their own, identity-driven or emotional reasons. This is the same process that
causes humans to rally behind demagogues of all kinds.

When uncensored, Jones' folly is obvious and can be easily evaluated and
dismissed. But when it's censored, those inclined toward conspiracy theories
will assume that Jones is speaking some kind of truth to power, etc.

So Apple's move strengthens Jones in all the worst ways and does a great
disservice to American civil society. The only way to prevent dark ages
beliefs is to shine light on them.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
> The only way to prevent dark ages beliefs is to shine light on them.

This is the sort of principled belief I used to hold that I’m no longer sure
holds up to scrutiny.

There's always been a fringe that was willing to believe anything. But how do
you call something like Infowars “fringe” when it’s on the same “network” as
NPR and CNN podcasts? Placement like that legitimizes Infowars. That “light
shining” on Infowars was a spotlight.

You’re probably right that this will galvanize the true believers, but what
was going to turn their beliefs around? The flipside is that this move may
cauterize a growing infection.

~~~
resters
> ... but what was going to turn their beliefs around?

Educating people about morally correct beliefs is a separate undertaking that
is typically what members of the clergy undertake with worshipers. I don't
think there is any need for such a role in secular society. If you disagree,
don't just downvote this, explain what level of moral education and policing
is appropriate in a free society.

> ...this move may cauterize a growing infection.

I understand the point you are making, but I would like to add that I think
it's a bit dangerous to use nazi-style rhetoric like "infection" or
"infestation" to describe people we oppose politically.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
> explain what level of moral education and policing is appropriate in a free
> society.

The problem, as I currently perceive it, is not how society performs moral
education or policing on adults, but rather how we teach critical thinking
skills to children.

For a related example, there was an excellent article recently where someone
visited a “flat earth” convention and interviewed various participants. What
he found was that adherents didn’t exactly disbelieve in a globe; they were
instead embracing rejection of factual authority.
[https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/looking-for-
life-...](https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/looking-for-life-on-a-
flat-earth)

I don’t see Infowars types as those I “oppose politically.” Their beliefs are
not merely “right-wing” — their worldview is simply craziness.

If I’m right that this is a problem of rubber-stamping students through
graduation who are unable to think coherently, then "moral policing" is a
post-facto treatment, and what’s really necessary is prevention. (These ideas
are mostly spread through memes, for crying out loud; the term is literally
defined as an infection.)

(I didn't downvote you, incidentally.)

~~~
resters
Interesting thoughts.

I agree that students should learn critical thinking in school, but I'd argue
that Alex Jones has not gained popularity by appealing to untrained minds, but
by appealing to human emotional needs.

I take solace in the realization that humans are extraordinarily hypocritical.
Consider the massive engagement numbers from Youporn in the most religious
counties in the US. Belief has virtually nothing to do with action, so there
is no reason to be concerned about anyone's beliefs.

People act for emotional reasons that are beneath the level of belief. Jones
appeals to people for those reasons, and I fear that censoring him only
strengthens the emotional meaning of his existence for his followers, and will
motivate them to share his messages more actively now that the content isn't
as easy to find by accident.

------
InTheArena
I'm not familiar with Infowars, or the podcast. That said, I think we have to
be very very cautious about allowing corporations, especially corporations as
powerful as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple, to act as gatekeepers on
speech. It's hard to get the balance right on speech issues, and that's when
the determination is being governed by a democratic government. Apple,
Facebook, Google and Twitter are in no way beholden to a representative
electorate, and just because this particular instance makes sense, this is a
massive shift of power from government to private corporation.

History has shown that this power has and will be abused. Even if it is not
here, it will be in the future.

------
tazjin
With Apple, Facebook and Spotify doing this (and lots of reporting about it)
I'd say ... cue the Streisand effect.

Sometimes it's better to just not do anything, but I guess that doesn't get
you PR points.

~~~
mgbmtl
I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining
light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing.

Adding barriers to passive consumption, by vulnerable (misinformed) people, is
probably also a good thing. It's not being censored/outlawed, just made
slightly less convenient to access. Fake news are a threat to democracy.

~~~
adrianN
Censoring "fake" news is not the way to a healthy democracy. Educating people
on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we
need.

~~~
LargeWu
I agree we need better education about this sort of thing. I think it would be
useful for all public schools to include this as part of their curriculum; I
think you could easily spend an entire semester on learning to qualify media
sources.

However, I think we should make the tradeoff explicit here. Just saying "Apple
shouldn't do this because it's censorship, and censorship is bad" is a rather
naive attitude. I would argue two things:

1\. This isn't censorship, it's a refusal to broadcast. It's one thing to say
"You can't say that", and another to say "I'm not going to allow you to use
our platform to say that." The government is not allowed to prevent speech,
but that doesn't mean that private companies are required to enable it.

2\. It's not "fake" news. It's fake. It's literally made up stories, about
child sex rings in pizza parlors and slave colonies on Mars.

So you might say, what's the harm in making up stuff? Well, people are
shooting up restaurants and making on-air death threats to journalists and
generally gravitating towards authoritarian viewpoints sponsored by
organizations such as infowars. And guess what tool authoritarians love to
employ? CENSORSHIP. Failing to hold these jokers accountable for their words
and instigation actually and inevitably leads us farther down the path towards
actual censorship than refusing to give them a platform. I would rather
companies take a stand against this stuff than just allow them to exploit our
misguided notions of democratic rule to undermine actual democratic rule.

------
e1ven
Just to be clear - It looks like iTunes does allow you to subscribe by
entering the RSS url directly.

They are removing the podcast from their directory of podcasts, not blocking
the ability to subscribe.

~~~
rbanffy
There may be a market for an anti-malware that targets content like Inforwars
and classifies it as malware.

I'd love to see that.

~~~
DanAndersen
Be careful what you wish for.

~~~
rbanffy
I kind of half-jokingly made one.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpepefy-making-
tw...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpepefy-making-
twitter-g/ldjnhcjpldbplikakcfkcmeblikfadpe)

It really doesn't prevent infection, just warns you about stuff that may be
unhealthy.

------
eksemplar
If you send Alex Jones a submission on how great Hillary Clinton is, do you
think it’ll get posted on infowars? No Does that mean Alex Jones is limiting
your free speech’s by denying you access to his platform?

You can argue that Facebook, Apple and twitter are bigger platforms, but the
principal is really the same.

Free speech is the right to say what you want, the way you want it, without
being procecuted by the government or murdered by a violent mob.

Free speech is not the right to be heard.

I see the problem of the idea of huge media platforms banning content, but
only as an idea. Alex Jones is a hate mongering asshole, that while
entertaining, is also dangerous. When infowars ran a piece on the Sandy Hook
tradegy, labeling it as a false flag and the victims as actors, some of those
parents who lost their children received death threats. Some of those parents
are still in hiding today, thanks to infowars and their insane audience.

I don’t think the free world, or free speech, suffered anything from this
asshole being banned from iTunes.

~~~
nailer
I don't think Infowars has ever advertised itself an a non-political way for
people to connect with each other.

------
philjackson
What if we find out the government _were_ making the frogs gay?

~~~
iamdave
As an Austinite (well now Iowan) who grew up with plenty of Alex Jones on the
airwaves, it's stuff like this I'll actually-in a morbid kind of way-really
miss. I suppose you have to be exposed to it long enough to grow numb to it
but Alex Jones became a source of entertainment as I grew older just to see
what wackiness he'd come up with next. Gay frogs still manages to put a grin
on my face even on my most stressful days.

It was almost a contest between he and the considerably less inflammatory but
still uniquely weird John Aielli.

This isn't, nor should be read as a defense of Alex Jones by any sane person-
but an acknowledgement of the absurd. I mean come on. _Gay frogs_? You gotta
admit--it's chuckleworthy.

~~~
pjc50
Serious question: how do you make sure that none of this stuff you're
listening to leaks into your perception of the real world? Are you _sure_
you're just regarding it as some weird dystopian fiction, like Scarfolk or the
SCP foundation, and not letting it affect your real politics?

~~~
mistermann
It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's a good point, and the very
same can be said about late night comedians and their "I'm just a comedian
bro, you expect me to be accurate and consistent, lol" bits on the news of the
day. These things do have an effect on perception of reality.

~~~
iamdave
I admit I wasn't at all surprised to see it getting downvoted so heavily-I was
not one of them I as I agree; it's a good question-even if, directed at me-I'm
not inclined to go through all of the setup and groundwork necessary to give a
response in the affirmative or otherwise.

Being willing to critique ones own body politic is a healthy thing. My lack of
surprise comes from this strange phenomenon going about that presumes anything
short of full-fledged vociferous condemnation or admonishment must
automatically mean harbored complicity and is worth the harshest rebuke or
silent dissent in the form of drive by downvotes without much contemplation or
substantive discussion in the slightest.

~~~
mistermann
> this strange phenomenon going about that presumes anything short of full-
> fledged vociferous condemnation or admonishment must automatically mean
> harbored complicity and is worth the harshest rebuke or silent dissent in
> the form of drive by downvotes without much contemplation or substantive
> discussion in the slightest

It's not so much strange, it's simple human nature really. The strange part to
me is how common it is becoming on a forum as intelligent as HN. Most people
here see themselves as a cut above the general public when it comes to
intellectual capability, _and they 're right_, but even with this genuine
intellectual advantage so few people seem able to notice that they too are
neck deep in the cultural meme war, and guilty of many of the same (or at
least similar) transgressions of those they criticize, albeit to a lesser
degree.

To me, this is the big elephant-in-the-room problem we should be talking about
rather than obvious idiots like Infowars, and the stakes are very high in the
long term.

(.....and, possibly relevant, I'm "you're posting too fast" throttled, once
again. Is that message 100% consistent with the underlying algorithm? Oh
right, "freedom of speech doesn't guarantee you a platform", _there 's nothing
more to be said about the matter_, full stop. As long as we follow the law to
the letter, "it's all good bro".)

------
mancerayder
Am I disturbed at the idea of a centralized publishing / distribution platform
censoring videos/recordings that it characterized in a certain way?

I'm actually far more concerned that not a lot of people are challenging the
question of whether those characterizations can one day become (if they are
not already becoming) arbitrary, self-serving, overly broad, or even simply
'by popular demand' removing items based on an increasingly
politicized/bifurcated population.

I would argue that choosing winners and losers in the realm of ideas -- which
is different than, say, graphic videos, where the criteria are easier to craft
["no nudity" or "no violence" examples of criteria with fewer edge cases] --
goes against core concepts of Western ideals of liberty and the marketplace of
ideas. For if there's an objective reality out there, and each of us can seek
it out for his/her self, there's no need for an overarching authority to
remove "conspiracy theories" to protect our simple minds from accidentally
becoming infected with false ideas.

I never enjoyed the screaming histrionics of Jones, nor his absurd obsessions,
but I'm increasingly concerned that this Postmodern society is more concerned
with what it views as Correct and Incorrect Ideas in such realms as comedy and
discourse (the overly used "political correctness" that we often argue over so
much) than letting individuals think things out for themselves.

I have a cultural foot in the door in both Europe and the U.S., and one point
of contention I'll forever have with the European leg of the value system is
the absurd notion that laws or norms should protect people from being offended
and root out "false ideas." Not because I want people to be offended or
because I think false ideas are good; instead, I simply don't trust anyone --
not a European judge nor some Apple bureaucrats -- to have better judgment
than the rest of the population in this matters.

Applauding Jones getting wiped clean from these channels of distribution is
short-term: one day there might be something less vile, less clear-cut, an
edge-case, that gets removed and you'll have to shout to get it back. Be
careful.

------
theseatoms
I used to think the name "Infowars" was melodramatic, but I guess not.

------
ianwalter
It's crazy to me that they banned pornographic apps from the app store but
still let this hot garbage be listed on their platform for so long.

~~~
pentae
They go further than that. We had an app for models and fans to interact which
showcased Instagram models and celebrities with profiles built using the
Instagram API for verification. Apple told us we had to tone it down and
censor a lot of the sexier photos like bikini and so on that was found on
their Instagram profiles. We explained they were simply using the same photos
found on their Instagram and if they had a problem with their images they
should report them to Instagram. They basically told us no, we would have to
manually censor the profiles instead. They found another reason to remove us
from the store in the end flushing years of work down the toilet for us. They
are completely arbitrary in how they censor the stores, there's no equitable
standard. Basically, if you're Instagram or Twitter you can push the limits,
but smaller businesses like ours get thrown out.

------
fareesh
The bigger story is that Facebook removed several Infowars pages. That's a big
hit in terms of their ability to grow through shares/likes and reach a wider
audience. I don't know if the Podcast directory is a big source of newcomers,
is it?

~~~
r3bl
I do agree that the Facebook news is bigger than both Apple and Spotify
combined. And InfoWars seems to agree as well, as they've published a video
complaining about Facebook's decisions almost immediately.

However, I don't think that's the biggest damage they could face from a single
provider. I'd say that YouTube could absolutely break the entire thing down to
pieces.

There are dozens of YouTube videos on their channel with millions of views,
often multiple hours long. Hosting multiple hour long video files in a way
that millions of people can stream them reliably, that's going to take some
effort (and a non-negligible amount of resources).

Since YouTube offers them both discoverability and unlimited video bandwidth,
if YouTube made a similar decision to Facebook, they would most probably be
destroyed in an instant.

~~~
fareesh
YouTube has now banned them as well so they will probably move to dTube /
HookTube or one of the blockchain / p2p alternatives. Ironically a big channel
like Infowars moving to these alternatives might start the ball rolling in
making those platforms more popular.

I occasionally listen to Alex Jones for background noise and entertainment
value. There is something amusing in his voice, delivery and absurdity -
perhaps I am a little privileged to be able to feel that way because he is
nowhere close to home for me, as I live in India.

------
21
> _The one platform that they CAN 'T ban and will ALWAYS have our live streams
> is [http://infowars.com/show](http://infowars.com/show) _

Challenge accepted. Where are they hosted? The videos stream from Akamai CDN.
CNN can now press Akamai to remove Infowars.

Do they use CloudFlare? CloudFlare is know to censor far-right sites (but not
jihadi sites).

~~~
CM30
This is basically the issue with the internet as it stands now. There is no
space outside of the control of a company that might wish to protect their
reputation at your expense, meaning that anything unpopular enough can be de
facto banned by no one ever hosting it. It's like if the streets and town
square didn't exist, and shopping malls owned every 'public' area.

------
olivermarks
important and accurate subhead:

'Move thrusts tech giant into the debate over censoring content on internet
platforms'

~~~
sp332
Apple has been censoring podcasts all along. This debate might be about
technicalities in the Terms of Service but it's not about censorship.

------
onewhonknocks
It's their store. Surely it's entirely their prerogative to decide which
products they choose to sell or not sell.

------
S-E-P
Won't change anything. Do you really think that InfoWars listeners really use
Apple as their only point of exposure.

Also a little hypocritical of Apple, they have some very
inflammatory/deceptive podcasts run by some pretty nasty people, but because
they aren't InfoWars it's ok.

Apple is not virtuous, nor will they ever be, regardless of what they want you
to think.

------
amerkhalid
I see a lot of comments regarding freedom of speech. But this has nothing to
do with freedom of speech. It has everything to do with hate. I would not eat
at a restaurant that has hate propaganda on their walls. This is same thing.

He is free to publish his podcast on the internet, no one is stopping. If US
government bans him, then we are in a big trouble.

------
jgrowl
Regardless of your views of specific individuals, I hope the big corps enjoy
their censorship abilities now because it won't be very long before they lose
their positions of power. Decentralization is coming...

------
okket
Previous discussion from 8 hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17695323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17695323)
(107 comments)

------
enterx
so wrong.

Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or
a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of
retaliation, censorship, or sanction. - Wikipedia

~~~
eksemplar
None of those things happened to Alex Jones.

Freedom of speech isn’t the right to be heard, mind you. If you came by my
house wanting to sell Jesus and I shut the door on you, you’d still have free
speech.

~~~
enterx
True, he was using a private media outlet.

They do have a legal right to discriminate which they used against him.

But still that does not change the fact that the media outlets are the ones
that choose who has a right to speak and discriminate.

------
xoa
Reposting this here since just after I posted in the Ars version of this that
got marked as a dupe:

I consider myself an extremely strong First Amendment advocate and "free
speech absolutist" when it comes to government force, and I am also
uncomfortable about where the line should be for "private entities" that
manage to achieve quasi-governmental levels of power, though I do not think
that any level of non-violent restriction is directly comparable to censorship
via the government's monopoly on physical force.

That said, a major question for me that has been growing bigger and bigger in
my mind over the last decade is what exactly should be Free Speech's answer to
denial of cognition attacks (and I want to be extra clear that it is a
_question_ , I have not been able to come to at all a satisfactory universal
answer myself yet). Likely everyone on HN will be familiar with the concept of
resource exhaustion attacks in the context of computers and networks. DOS
mitigation has regrettably become a near requirement for any significant
public facing Internet service. But fundamentally resource exhaustion attacks
apply equally well to humans. In the idealized world of discussion and debate
and philosophy abstract models of conduct are often used, but at the end of
the day "implementation" still comes down to individual humans, each of whom
only has so much mental capacity and so much time. And many arguments
involving reality can easily be asymmetric too: it takes very little time and
energy to make an assertion but a great deal to disprove it. Reality is under
no obligation to be simple and elegant to human preferences.

I have seen this get put into practice with ever greater sophistication on a
lot of my favorite forums. Someone arguing BS will throw out a bunch of simple
stuff that takes a great deal of careful posting to show is wrong. If people
volunteer their time to answer in that thread, it does no good in preventing
the exact same assertions from being tossed out again (maybe remixed) in a new
thread a week or month or whatever later. Eventually people just get tired or
are busy. If they try to point towards a centralized source instead, that
source can then be attacked and you see "argument from authority durr" and the
like thrown out. It's bad faith but in a way that exploits a lot of the norms
around free speech and argumentation, which classically didn't have the same
scaling and automation threats. In fact, perhaps even more pernicious is when
it's _not_ bad faith but someone who has been fed a bunch of stuff they are
arguing in all earnestness, yet there simply isn't time to address them
individually. They must be directed to authorities and be expected to educate
themselves on it.

I'm not sure what the answer is but we do clearly have a problem as some of
the previous natural barriers due to cost of speech have fallen. It is common
to speak of a "Marketplace of Ideas" when it comes to Free Speech, but it's
important to remember that "Free Markets" are specific real tools that require
regulatory support to function and have no goals of their own. Costs need to
be internalized, information and processing ability needs to be symmetric,
there needs to be a shared base of legal structure and norms to work on top
of. Getting too far away from that results in market failure. I don't know how
that might be translated to Free Speech but I do think we're seeing a "market
of ideas failure" to some extent right now, and that it could easily get much
worse in the near future unchecked. There is a need for better ways to improve
the signal/noise cost function, and for systems to re-internalize that the
_point_ of Free Speech, of marketplaces of ideas or markets of anything at
all, is to come up with _good_ products. They're tools to serve humanity. Bad
ones shouldn't be banned by force but they shouldn't be flourishing either, if
they are then something isn't working.

~~~
eksemplar
I think the answer is fairly easy. If someone is an asshole online, you ban or
ignore them.

Free speech is the right to speak your mind without being prosecuted by the
government, it’s not the right to force your opinion on people who don’t want
it.

~~~
xoa
To call that "fairly easy" seems a little overly glib maybe? I mean just look
at the HN comments on this, or the comments on the WSJ article or the Ars
version. Lots of people have internalized that banning people is "censorship"
and nearly always wrong, and that the "right answer" to bad information is
_more_ information. Of course that framework for dealing with info attacks
doesn't really address what to do when the shear amount of information _is_
the attack.

As it stands though, within current speech norms and ideals of debate dating
back to Athens at least, there are lot of people very angry about bans. And
that matters to commercial entities in particular, which means banning isn't
"easy" (even ignoring the lack of any time equivalency token system to deal
with the economics of suspensions or bans better).

> _Free speech is the right to speak your mind without being prosecuted by the
> government, it’s not the right to force your opinion on people who don’t
> want it._

You don't need to tell me that, I covered in the first paragraph of my post.
But it's not unreasonable to talk about wider concepts for the "marketplace of
ideas" as it serves society beyond the critical foundation of the 1A. I think
we may need better norms and tools to help private entities in determining
where lines should be and how to go about that. And I also think it's
disingenuous to not address private entities that achieve levels of societal
power that approach modern government even if they don't have armies of their
own, particularly when there is in fact subtle government backing down the
chain somewhere (DMCA for example).

~~~
eksemplar
I think it’s fairly easy.

It’s not my fault people have the wrong assumption that free speech meant you
could say what you want without consequences.

Part of why free speech work is because adults accept responsibility for their
actions, and part of that is living with the consequences of how you behave.
When you offend people for a living, people are going to get offended and then
they genuinely won’t want to listen to what you have to say.

Which is their right.

~~~
mistermann
He is very clearly talking about something broader and more nuanced/complex, a
"marketplace of ideas", yet you've twice misinterpreted that as a simplistic
appeal to a pedantic interpretation of "free speech as defined by the US
Government".

Dismissing any discussion on this topic as _simply_ "you have the right to
free speech, but you're not guaranteed a platform" in the age of the internet,
with absolutely no consideration whatsoever for larger long term
considerations and risks displays that the speaker is not righteously
unbiased. Sure, they're undoubtedly more correct than Alex Jones and his ilk,
but they're not fully willing to support a marketplace of ideas _on
principle_. If your ideological team is winning, this is a natural tendency,
but consider a scenario where your team isn't - then what?

From where I sit, this is a good demonstration of the nature, difficulty, and
importance of the problem we're dealing with in our complex societies.

~~~
eksemplar
It's not broader or more nuanced though, the first amendment is very clear.
Apple is no more forced to include infowars on their platform, than inforwars
is forced to post an article you sent them.

It has nothing to do with free speech.

I can see why inforwars readers aren't happy with this, but I don't really
care what they think. People who send death threats to parents who lose
children in school shootings because infowars labeled them as actors in false
flag operations are assholes.

Who wants to listen to them? And it's not like they're not allowed to say what
they want, they absolutely are, they just can't force anyone to listen.

Ironically, if you want the government to force private companies to include
inforwars on their platforms, well, then you're really not very different from
the left-leaning marxists who wants the government to force companies to hire
50/50 male/women directors.

Equality of outcome is always evil, and there is nothing complicated or
nuanced about it.

~~~
claytongulick
> If someone is an asshole online, you ban or ignore them.

Who watches the watchmen?

~~~
eksemplar
You do, none of this was done in secret. If you fundamentally disagree with
then decision the nobody is forcing you to visit infowars.com through itunes.

~~~
TooBrokeToBeg
Your whole "easy" solution is not a solution. You just avoid the condition and
expect it's solved.

~~~
eksemplar
It was solved, Alex Jones broke the rules and reaped the consequences. If you
posted the same sort of content you would have been banned a lot sooner, and
rightly so, being popular shouldn’t give you the right to be evil.

I mean, by all rights, Trump should have been banned from twitter as well, but
I guess you can become popular enough that rules don’t apply.

But that is frankly wrong.

------
duxup
There's a weird balance where just saying "hey we don't want to censor things"
doesn't seem to make you seem very neutral when you're hosting something that
is hateful towards others or just straight false information.

~~~
djrogers
Apple doesn't host any podcasts in iTunes - it's just a directory. And you can
still use iTunes or the iOS Podcasts app to subscribe to the podcast via it's
RSS feed.

~~~
duxup
I guess I was thinking of "hosting" more generically. Feel free to substitute
a better term, I'm operating on limited sleep ;)

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
I may disagree with what you say but I'll defend with you the right to say it.

Apple's wrong here.

~~~
eksemplar
So Apple isn’t allowed the freedom to do as they want?

On a smaller scale, you couldn’t get your content posted on infowars if they
didn’t like it. Does that mean infowars is stepping on your rights?

No, because freedom of speech isn’t the same thing as the right of being
heard. You can say what you want, but I don’t have to listen to you.

~~~
394549
> So Apple isn’t allowed the freedom to do as they want?

Giving for-profit corporations "freedoms" like they were people was a mistake.
Once an organization grows to a certain size, it has more in common with a
government than a person. When that happens, their "freedoms" should be
appropriately circumscribed.

~~~
eksemplar
So who determines which companies have the rights to exclude others and which
doesn't?

~~~
394549
> So who determines which companies have the rights to exclude others and
> which doesn't?

You misunderstand: I wasn't commenting on _which companies_ have rights or
not, but about _which rights_ companies should have at all, and where their
rights stand in relation to those held by individuals. Corporations are not
natural persons, they're creatures animated by legislation and can be
regulated by it or abolished entirely.

~~~
eksemplar
This has absolutely nothing to do with that though. You can't force a company
or an individual to listen to your opinion on whether penguins are the
greatest birds alive.

~~~
394549
> You can't force a company or an individual to listen to your opinion on
> whether penguins are the greatest birds alive.

No, that's wrong. The government _can_ force a company to provide services to
someone, despite however much that company may disagree them, their views, or
their identity. A lot of anti-discrimination law works that way. For instance:
private individuals have the right not associate with a particular person for
_any reason_ , but companies do not.

~~~
eksemplar
The government shouldn’t though, equality of outcome is evil, forcing someone
to keep Alex Jones is similar to forcing a company to hire 50/50 male/women
staff.

If you violate a TOS you get banned. Alex Jones is a vile troll, he broke the
rules and reaped the consequences. The government shouldn’t prevent this just
because he has vile listeners.

------
curiousgal
They should've made their Podcasts app actually usuable while they were at it.

------
Uberphallus
Infowars: "Californian tech communist gay froggers thwart free speech with
help of nazi BDSM aliens"

~~~
DownGoat
I'd download that.

------
andrewclunn
Read through the dead comments here on this topic. Now tell me censorship
isn't political.

------
megaman22
Alex Jones is a fruitcake, but I don't like this as a general trend.
Effectively, once things aren't available on the main marketplace, they don't
exist anymore for most people. RSS is still kind of a thing for podcasts, but
everything wants to use either iTunes or Soundcloud etc. iTunes is so bad on
Windows that I want to rip my hair out...

------
thosakwe
Only took them long enough.

------
claytongulick
Honestly curious - I wonder how many people on here that are arguing in favor
of limiting access to Infowars have actually spent time watching/listening to
it? Or have they formed opinions based on 'what they are told' it is, or blog
headlines etc... I see a lot of that these days. A headline comes along and
describes something, and a whole bunch of people accept it as literal truth,
without bothering to spend time really learning about an opposing viewpoint.

A great example of this is Jordan Peterson - he's sort of an interesting guy
who got caught up in limelight for various political reasons, but the bulk of
his lectures are truly interesting to me, looking at Christianity from an
evolutionary psychology perspective, etc... but to read the headlines, you'd
think he was out there whipping up Nazi sentiment and trying to crush
democracy. I see a lot of people cherry picking small sentences taken out of
context, and repeating them to mischaracterize an "opponent". See the
painfully uneducated criticisms of his discussion about 'enforced monogamy'.

I freely admit I haven't seen a lot of Alex Jones' stuff. I've watched it a
bit, out of curiosity. What I saw was colorful and impassioned. I saw a dude
getting riled up and speaking more from emotion than critical analysis. That's
not my favorite thing, so I haven't spent more time watching it.

I just wonder if he's being given the 'Jordan Peterson' treatment because his
views are unpopular, and sometimes disagreeable? I saw at least one comment on
here accusing him of inciting violence directly. That's the sort of thing I'm
talking about. I wonder if that person actually watched/listened to him incite
violence? Or if they were just repeating something they heard somewhere else.
Several other comments followed that argued that he'd never done that. Hmm.

Like I said, I don't have a valid opinion on Inforwars itself, because I
haven't really spent much time watching it. I wonder if our discussions about
a topic like Infowars would be more positive and constructive if more people
were able to withhold judgement until they'd actually researched the topic
directly.

Or maybe they have? Maybe the dislike is valid from people who have spent time
looking into it? It just seems questionable when there is disagreement about
basic statements like "he incites violence".

~~~
nailer
Jordan Peterson cites research that people don't agree with. Because they
don't want to take him to task over research, they often create strawmem.

Jones makes things up (and has admitted he's acting in court). Some of the
things he makes up - like the parents of the dead lids being actors, or a
pizza shop being a storefront for pedophiles - mean that people who believe
him might be tempted to expose the secret actors, or punish the seemingly-
immune pedophiles (who obviously are just people running a pizza shop). This
is a serious danger.

------
Shivetya
First off, I have never listened to or read any of Infowars material, my
knowledge is from what is reported. When the censoring is not meted out
equally is when I get worried. I noticed in more than one article that they
labeled specific groups you cannot say anything derogatory about but left it
open that other groups may not be protected.

There should be no group selection, it should be all or nothing. We also need
to be damn careful of the recent attempt to brand speech some groups do not
agree with as "weaponizing speech" which seems to be a new means to get the
government to step in. With hate speech the government is still very limited
on First Amendment grounds however by branding some speech as "weaponized" it
implies violence and that does not have the same protection.

Frankly I don't mind the haters being out there, at least then I know who they
are. Let them post, let them march, because in public venues we can at least
assess when they are truly dangerous or not.

tl;dr censoring is fine when applied equally, be wary of anyone trying to
change how speech is labeled as a means to get the government to do their
censoring for them

------
se30b
Alex Jones got banned for telling the truth. Crazy people are allowed
everywhere, because their arguments can easily be refuted. Jones was shut down
because he is speaking uncomfortable truths that cannot be easily waived away.

------
staunch
When it comes to the internet, Apple, Facebook, and Google are more powerful
than the most powerful governments in the world. They should uphold the
principles of free speech, despite not being required to by law.

Everything that is legal to say, which is almost everything, should have a
equal access to these major platforms. Everyone else should have the basic
faith in humanity that whatever problems this causes are a price worth paying
of living in a free society.

I'm _more_ concerned with the cynical fools gleefully espousing the anti-free
speech perspective than I am with the relatively(!) small number of dumbos
that follow people like Alex Jones.

Whatever happened to the beautiful American principle of defending the right
of your fellow humans to have equal rights as yourself? Is it young people
that don't know history, people becoming more cynical, or are we just hearing
more from the loud fools?

My fundamental faith in humanity makes me believe we'll have a backlash from
the freedom-loving majority. Most people are smart and principled and will see
the error of going down this dark path. It may take a while but I'm not
worried.

~~~
eksemplar
The principal of free speech isn’t the same thing as the right to an audience
though. It’s the right to say what you want without being prosecuted.

Alex Jones wasn’t prosecuted and he had the right to say what he wants, he
just can’t do it on Facebook. But that isn’t an infringement of his rights,
it’s a simple consequence of being a total asshole.

If you always talk about how great eating feces is at every dinner party you
attend, you’re not going to go to jail, but you’re probably going to find
yourself without any dinner party invitations.

You could argue that Facebook and Apple are big platforms, but so what? I’m
fairly sure infowars wouldn’t publish your submission if you sent an anti-
trump article. Does that mean they are hindering your free speech? No.

------
nailer
FB has also removed Infowars' page.

[https://www.facebook.com/InfoWars-80256732576/](https://www.facebook.com/InfoWars-80256732576/)

FB doesn't cite a specific post (eg, the implication that some of the school
shooting victims were part of a hoax), which is a pity.I dislike Infowars, but
I like a consistently applied ToS:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj6T8ppXoAIqbXB.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj6T8ppXoAIqbXB.jpg)

'Glorifying violence' is vague - should all police/military/veterans/people
who celebrate July 4 be banned from Facebook? How is 'glorifying violence'
treated the same as 'graphic violence'? One is praising violent action, the
other is depicting it. They are clearly not the same thing.

~~~
sp332
They removed four pages [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/enforcing-our-
community...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/enforcing-our-community-
standards/) and they mention that the posts were made in the last week, so
that probably narrows it down?

