
YouTube, Apple and Facebook Ban InfoWars, Which Decries 'Mega Purge' - parvenu74
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-facebook-ban-infowars-which-decries-mega-purge
======
tootie
I know some people chafe at the thought of tech companies self-censoring their
platforms but they should be allowed to prevent their platform from becoming a
place decent people don't want to be. Jones isn't just an opposing viewpoint,
he's a hateful lunatic. And no, that's not a slippery slope.

~~~
buboard
> decent people

When 3 CEOs get to define who are "decent people" and when they control all 4
sides of the Overton window, you have a problem. They're just too big

~~~
gkoberger
You're not wrong. But when the alternative is their platforms being used to
spread misinformation and hate, there's not really many other options.

~~~
buboard
they should be neutral. I find it funny how people go up in arms about net
neutrality but do a 180 about the information platform providers in the level
above ISPs.

~~~
gkoberger
I think roads, electricity, and water should be a public utility, but I don't
think someone should be able to walk into a Starbucks and scream hateful
nonsense.

Here's the difference: Alex Jones can go create his own video site easily, but
he can't create his own worldwide ISP.

~~~
bcheung
It's not the same. Starbucks is a strawman.

People have to take action and opt in to watching something on YouTube. They
have a choice. If people don't want to hear someone they never have to.

Youtube doesn't provide the means for publishers to interrupt what you are
currently watching (well there's ads but that's a bit different as ads have
increase scrutiny).

------
barrkel
To preserve a tolerant society, you need to be intolerant of intolerance. And
yes, that's a paradox.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

Germany obviously has had a troubled past in this area. Another concept that
may be useful:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie)

~~~
quotemstr
The paradox of tolerance is based on equivocation between tolerance of speech
and tolerance of action. Like most paradoxes, it disappears once you're
precise in your wording.

Jones, whatever you think of him, is not an existential threat to society, and
using the "paradox of tolerance" to censor him is intellectual cowardice.

I'm really sick of the so-called paradox of tolerance being used as a
justification for arbitrary political censorship.

------
themagician
Good. They should ban more people. They should ban whoever they feel like
banning, for whatever reason or give no reason at all. They already ban you
instantly if you show a nipple.

We should stop pretending like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter et al. are some kind
of public good or utility. They are private message boards. Message boards
which already decide what you see by showing you an endless stream of content
designed to optimize ad revenue.

~~~
mikeash
You raise a great point. Everybody is freaking out about this censorship, but
these platforms have always been censored. Why is censoring sex perfectly
reasonable and nobody cares, but censoring a violent nutcase is suddenly a
massive free speech issue?

~~~
unimpressive
It's because of the violation of expectations. The expectation has been set
that these platforms are a 'free-for-all' of sorts. Once you start adding new
categories of people to ban, people get antsy and start wondering where it
stops and who will be effected. Hence why I say in another comment in this
thread that it'll cost these companies to use their moderation powers more
fully. When you don't set the right expectations up front, changes in
moderation policy get very _very_ ugly.

~~~
mikeash
The whole point of my comment is that these platforms have _never_ had the
expectation of being a free for all. Upload a video of a penis and watch how
long that lasts. And I don’t think “incites violence against actual people in
the real world” is a newly banned category either.

~~~
unimpressive
No, I think they do have that expectation. 'Everything but porn' is a pretty
widely accepted free for all category on the web. But yes, 'incites violence'
is an actively illegal category; I suspect the only reason it's lasted this
long is that the moderation muscles have atrophied so hard nobody seemed
willing to go first in banning Jones completely.

~~~
mikeash
Everything but porn, classified documents, personal information without the
consent of the person, copyrighted works, encouragement of suicide... I could
go on.

You can find all of these things on the web, but they are far from widely
accepted.

------
parvenu74
Don't get me wrong: Alex Jones is the snake-oil-selling, kayfabing carnival
barker of the internet. My concern is what appears to be a coordinated take-
down of his channels on the dominant social media/communications platforms
with very few precise details explaining why. My biggest concern is that this
crackdown on a crackpot will set off one of his high-functioning, mentally ill
fans to pull a Timothy McVeigh type of vigilante response on one of the
companies who have canned him in the last 24 hours. Is my concern unwarranted?

EDIT: I presume the down-votes on this comment are because I referred to some
of Alex Jones' fans as mentally ill. I don't say this lightly: I know a
handful of people who are legitimately mentally ill who think Alex Jones is
the lone truth-teller in the media. You should be very scared of what these
people might do if they think their hero is being martyred.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>My concern is what appears to be a coordinated take-down of his channels on
the dominant social media/communications platforms with very few precise
details explaining why.

Alex Jones could easily show the emails from these companies where he was
warned multiple times.

------
gnicholas
Do the TOS that Jones violated have definitions of "hate speech"?

Since there is no legal definition in the US, it would seem necessary for each
TOS to create its own. If they have, I'd be curious to know how much they
overlap, and how specific/vague they are.

EDIT: why the downvotes? I am honestly asking a question about how specific
and consistent the definitions are. I didn't realize I would be punished for
doing so.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
[https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-
guideli...](https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guidelines)
\- Hateful Content

[http://itunespartner.apple.com/en/podcasts/faq](http://itunespartner.apple.com/en/podcasts/faq)
("Why was my podcast rejected or removed?") - Content depicting hate themes

[https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech](https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech)

~~~
gnicholas
Very useful, thanks!

The TLDR on these hate speech definitions:

YouTube: promotes violence against or incites hatred against protected groups

Apple: content including hate themes

Facebook: violent speech, dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or
calls for exclusion/segregation of people of protected classes

So it seems like YouTube's definition is the narrowest. Facebook's definition
is much broader because it includes "statements of inferiority", and Apple's
definition is vague.

~~~
bcheung
Statements of inferiority are half the comments during election season. LOL

------
vonzeppelin
Why all of a sudden?

~~~
minimaxir
The impetus was Spotify adding Alex Jones's podcasts, which led to questions
about Alex Jones's iTunes podcasts, and things snowballed from there.

------
idbehold
_" Mega Purge!" RealNews tweeted on Monday morning._

It's too bad they couldn't get Twitter on board.

------
se30b
Alex Jones got banned for telling the truth.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Today the west learns that speech can be harmful even if not directly violent.

~~~
Tomte
Many western countries have always known that and incorporated that knowledge
into their legal systems[1].

America is pretty alone in the lunacy that is the First Amendment.

The worst part is when Americans claim that without all the extreme extent of
the First Amendment there cannot be Free Speech.

Many free western countries would disagree. Most of them are quite a bit
higher in the Press Freedom Index (with press freedom as one part of free
speech) than America.

[1] the foremost idea other legal systems could borrow from the German
constitution is that of "practical concordance", where no basic right is
paramount to the others, but the legal system recognizes that there is a
natural tension between all those basic rights and the goal should be to
interpret them in such a way that a "global maximum" is reached. So no "free
speech above all", but let's see where we can keep most of what free speech
could maximally mean and still keep most of all the other basic rights.

~~~
gspetr
It's an appeal to authority.

The Press Freedom Index's assessment cannot be taken seriously because it
lists UK in the same tier as the US. I'm a citizen of neither so I don't have
a horse in this race.

The former regularly engages in thought policing the social networks with real
prison sentences handed out to such "heinous" criminals like Tommy Robinson.

~~~
Tomte
Yours is blind patriotism. An index where America isn't on top must be wrong.

~~~
gspetr
Patriotism? You couldn't be further from the truth.

I'm Russian. My country's rating is in the gutter and rightly so.

It also regularly imprisons people for social media likes/reposts. You know
who else does? The UK.

------
guilhas
At least we are not like China, we just censor for the good reasons.

------
cubano
As someone who believes in using a network of non-correlated news and
information sources (much like a smart investment portfolio uses non-
correlated investments to maximize risk/reward-based returns) to give me an
well-rounded view on daily news events, I think that censorship like this
should be examined _very_ closely.

I've enjoyed the rants of Alex Jones in the past, just like I've enjoyed Joe
Scarborough at MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and even
Art Bell, so I find this coordinated attack and take down of one of these
outlets to be worrisome.

Are we going to accept this current meme that "hate speech" (whatever the hell
that is currently defined as) can only come from the Right?

If so, I'll pass on that idea...it's totally political in nature if that's the
case and the last thing that I believe is helpful to the world is to have one
political viewpoint, Right or Left, to totally run the show.

I think examples of Mr. Jones's banning "hate-speech" should be required if
these companies are going to revoke his 1st Amendment protections and censor
him, if nothing else then to warn others where the line is to be drawn.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>if these companies are going to revoke his 1st Amendment protections

The first amendment has nothing to do with getting moderated on a private
company platform.

~~~
burnallofit
This, and it deserves to be underscored: IW/AJ continue to enjoy every single
bit of 1st Amendment protection that they did before these bans.

------
virtuexru
Interesting to note that this was removed off the front page of HN just now.

~~~
gnicholas
It's now showing [dupe]. Perhaps this is in reference to the WSJ article whose
title references Apple's removal? It's now on the second page.

------
aerodog
What's interesting in all this coverage is how the actual content said wasn't
so much as alluded to beyond "hate speech". Who was he hating on and how? Can
we discuss hate without being hateful?

~~~
lovehashbrowns
Not sure if you're serious--he hates on anybody that is considered "liberal"
or "left" by his side. Hillary Clinton (especially), George Soros, the "Deep
State," bankers, reptilians, "SJW's," Democrats, and so on. It's literal fear
mongering.

~~~
ngold
Which is hilarious considering he was a liberal screaming at the right only a
decade ago. Hell he's even in Philip k dicks a scanner darkly screaming
liberal values on a street corner.

~~~
Brockenstein
A decade ago I remember watching EndGame on some prompting of a friend who
thought it was great, but who must have fallen asleep while watching it
because me recounting some of the sillier bits he thought I was talking
nonsense. That was 10 years ago, and it didn't strike me as being particularly
liberal in presentation. I wasn't aware of Alex Jones until watching that, but
it was pretty clear to me he was a crackpot just stirring people up.

------
patrickg_zill
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" \- attributed to
Napoleon

They just made Alex Jones in a sympathetic character, a martyr for free
speech.

And now the pressure to regulate social media platforms will increase.

Can Alex Jones be banned from using toll roads, if those toll roads are
operated by a private company?

~~~
gnicholas
From the article, InfoWars' editor has already tweeted:

> _Spotify has now completely banned Infowars too. Apple, Facebook, Spotify
> all within 12 hours of each other. This isn 't enforcement of [terms of
> service], it's coordinated big tech censorship. This is real election
> meddling._

I'd guess this will increase his popularity among his followers, just as the
NYT recently reported that "Goop's Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow's company worth
$250 million" [1].

1: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-
gwy...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-gwyneth-
paltrow-wellness.html)

------
virtuexru
The big three tech companies need to be broken up. Too much power in the hands
of a few. Don't like what your opponents are saying? Label them "hate speech",
close down their networks & move on. You can't be heard if you don't have a
voice.

They (the big three) should not be allowed to own our internet interactions
anymore than the phone company could listen to and profit from our
conversations or regulate what we talk about.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> Don't like what your opponents are saying? Label them "hate speech"

If you think people just simply didn't like what InfoWars would spew, you have
another thing coming.

Read up on Pizzagate. Someone went into a pizza parlor with a gun to
investigate Alex Jones's claims that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex
trafficking ring in the basement. Innocent lives could have been lost for
bullshit InfoWars was spouting.

This goes well beyond "I just don't like you." InfoWars is outright
_dangerous_ and is poisoning the minds of Americans.

> They (the big three) should not be allowed to own our internet interactions

They don't.

You're still free to use other messaging platforms, or even make your own! The
startup costs for creating a web site/app are astronomically low.

~~~
mindslight
You do realize that garbage spewed by the New York Times has caused _hundreds
of thousands_ of innocent lives to be lost, right?

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
Do you have a concrete example of this?

~~~
mindslight
I guess it's considered history now:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#The_Iraq_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#The_Iraq_War)

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
I'm not entirely convinced.

That article even says that there was "extensive reporting showing that the
Bush administration was making plans for an Iraq invasion before the advent of
intelligence used to justify it."

~~~
mindslight
Bush II stuttered through "The Pet Goat" \- I certainly wasn't saying he came
up with the idea to attack Iraq by reading the New York Times [0].

The point is that it was an integral part of a propaganda campaign to sell the
Iraq War.

The meme of "fake news" fuels an environment of groupthink deciding what
should be outright ignored. It is thus a tool of _power_ , not _truth_.

[0] I am aware of the general blindspot created by writing these people off as
idiots, alas.

------
buboard
Sounds great. It delegitimizes all 3 of them in the eyes of a lot of people. (
I've only seen occasional clips from his videos, but he seems like your
typical half crazed conspiracist, not an ISIS-level propagandist deserving
damnatio memoriae)

~~~
danesparza
Apparently YouTube, Apple, and Facebook are all OK with that. Now what?

~~~
buboard
Now nothing. But it's good that people trust them a little less. Too much
centralization is never a good thing.

~~~
simlevesque
I trust them more after that move.

~~~
buboard
hope that ends well for you

------
pandasun
Not an Infowars fan, but I see "hate speech" being used as a reason to ban
alternative views a lot lately. Let's say he was indeed engaging in hate
speech (I haven't verified this): hate speech is still speech, no?

Edit: thanks for the downvotes, can we not have a discussion about this?
Should we ban hateful books too? I happen to have learned a lot from
historically hateful books.

~~~
jedberg
The best analogy I've seen is this: You have the right to say what you want,
but I don't have to invite you into my living room to say it.

These aren't public spaces -- they are private spaces that are available to
the public.

~~~
aylmao
I think the ban is legal, yes, and in this case I also think it's correct. But
correct on what terms? I'm not really sure where I draw the line between "hate
speech" and not.

~~~
sgarman
The good news then is that you don't have to, each service has done so for you
in the TOS that users sign.

------
joering2
It takes time to get on top social network radar, but its impossible to get on
three at the same time, without some sort of coordinated effort. In other
words - it obvious that getting banned by FB, YT and Apple altogether within
24 hours IS coordinated; the only question: what massages are there networks
trying to send ?

PS. I am not fan of Jones show, just like I am not fan of KKK that still
existing in USA; but I do remember what Niemöller wrote.

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

~~~
52-6F-62
I don't think that quote applies to the people Jones represents. The quote is
about quite literally the very same people Jones' supporters are pursuing.
"Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and Soil" are literally Nazi slogans.

I don't think Niemöller was worried about the persecution of Nazis...

~~~
tudelo
" According to Marcuse, "Niemöller's original argument was premised on naming
groups he and his audience would instinctively not care about... "

~~~
mikeash
Those groups also have to be innocent. Imagine how that refrain would sound if
instead it was “first they came for the rapists....”

~~~
fwn
A political believe, even if violent in nature, is not the same as committing
rape.

It's not comparable since the one describes something you believe and the
other something you have done.

Rape comparisons should not be used as discussion jokers to win an argument.

~~~
mikeash
I’m talking about actions, not beliefs. Believe that Sandy Hook was a hoax all
you want, I don’t care. But when you cross the line into harassing and
threatening the parents of the victims, it’s no longer a mere political
belief.

