Posted on 08/07/2018 3:34:15 AM PDT by markomalley
Following the removal of Alex Jones from Facebook, Apple and YouTube, for violating “hate speech” policies, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy tweeted “Infowars is just the tip of a giant iceberg.”
Monday afternoon Murphy tweeted, “I know Facebook and Apple and YouTube have gotten so big they sometimes seem like the government. But they aren’t. They are private companies that shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate. They took a good first step today removing Infowars. Infowars is just the tip of the iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and Youtube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.”
Senator Murphy did not clarify just exactly who, or what outlets make up the rest of the “giant iceberg of hate and lies” — and many conservatives are leery where this may be going.
Earlier this year, Twitter announced it would start using an algorithm to crack down on “hate speech.” One of the key components of the algorithm would collapse abusive or potentially “low quality” tweets by detecting certain phrases and patterns. The algorithm would also tweak search results, to downgrade abusive tweets.
So far it appears that the new algorithm may be targeting conservatives. On Sunday, conservative commentator Candace Owens temporarily had her account suspended. Twitter later restored her account, claiming that it was an “error.” Last month, Vice News reported that several prominent Republican officials were not being featured in Twitter search results. This tactic has been referred to as “shadow banning.”
Twitter’s new algorithm has many conservatives leery where this may be going — their concern? Who gets to determine what constitutes hate speech?
These leftists will not be satisfied until theirs are the only voices in the echo chamber.
Certainly none of these companies are government entities and so the First Amendment does not apply to them; however, they are given protection from legal liability by federal law:
47 U.S. Code § 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material
…
(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
(2) Civil liability. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).[1]
Plain language:
Fakebook, Google (YouTube), etc., claim an exemption as "interactive computer services" -- that is why they aren't charged with conspiracy to promote terrorism, political violence, libel, etc., becuase of leftist/Islamist agitprop posted to their platforms.
In taking the decision to de-platform Infowars (and, if Chris Murphy has his way, any other source of information that doesn't go along with the left's view on the world), they have transitioned from being "interactive computer services" to "Internet Content Providers" and should be held liable for the criminal garbage hosted on their sites. To say nothing of the other conspiracy sites they seem to have no problem with (TYT, Salon, Daily Beast, etc...to include the Compost, the Slimes, CNN, and PMS-NBC)
And, Jones might have a civil action in contracts based on vague and changing community standards.
This is political redlining.
Glad I’m not a shareholder. This will not end well for these companies.
#Merica
“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
-- George R.R. Martin
Democrat Senator Chris Murphy is tweeting that Communism is alive and well in the USA today, given their self righteous censorship, the soviet style show trial of Manafort, and continuing criminal actions by the deep state.
Free speech is to allow you to say things that people do not agree with, not only things that are approved by people with changing standards. This situation is frightening.
I don’t like or listen to Jones but by banning him they have proven that they exert editorial control and are therefore “Content Providers” and should be liable. I will certainly remember that at the poles this November.
Alex Jones is nothing more than a full-on snake oil salesman and a whack-job and still what Google/Fascistbook/YouTube etc.. did yesterday was full on FASCISM, plain and simple as that.
I can find any number of equally offensive, vile and disgusting things posted by radical leftists on the above mentioned platforms and yet, nothing is done about them.
The political bias on display here is in some ways astounding to see and yet - didn't we know already it's been going on for quite some time?
They're just getting more brazen about it because all three (four counting Apple..) are the biggest games in town and they know it. That's why they think they can get away with it.
So, if you hate liberals you’re guilty of “hate speech” and (in the view of leftists) your opinions should and MUST be censored.
Conversely, if you hate conservatives, you’re guilty of nothing except patriotism and honor because you’re coming out against hate.
It is time to break up the social media monopolies.
This is a difficult situation. We conservatives support freedom of speech and association, but when these companies act in ways that look like they are screaming to be regulated, what do we do?
I like that Facebook lost $16 billion following news of its censorship policies; I hope all of the leftist agitprop social media sites experience similar losses.
And we conservatives should be popularizing social media sites that do not censor. I know that Gab is taking on Twitter. What are the alternatives to youtube and Facebook?
The NeverTrump cucks are laughing - I checked out their Twitter feeds. Evidently they’re too stupid to realize that the left doesn’t see much daylight between Alex Jones and them, despite their temporary alliance with them out of Trump oppositional convenience. Amazing, considering that one of their own, Kevin Williamson, just got de-platformed from the Atlantic before he even took off his jacket.
Social media monopolies are anti-freedom-of-speech.
they are the largest inhibitor.
They are utilities.
They need to be broken up. NOW!
If you have mutual funds, are invested in Tech Stocks in any way, you likely are a shareholder these companies are so big and their tentacles spread so far. You may want to have a talk with your investment advisor to confirm whether or not you're a shareholder in some form and adjust accordingly.
He was correct about Sandy Hook....just sayin.
The Feds got Al Capone on a tax beef. Seems to me that the Feds could go after these social media giants for a variety of things, from scamming investors to privacy rights violations.
I’m not a shate holder. :-)
Share holder...
It’s hard for me to muster up any respect for Alex Jones. I’m friends with the father of one of the Sandy Hook victims. The idea that he’s a crisis actor is insane and quite frankly insulting.
However...
This is a dangerous development. They’re testing to see if they can throw people off platforms for their political beliefs. If they get away with this, no conservative is safe from having Facebook, YouTube, Twitter ban their accounts.
Spot-on. Nothing screams "defend our democracy!" more than full on fascism which is exactly what's happening here.
The fact that we have sitting U.S. Senators saying Fascistbook, Twitter, YouTube and Apple deleting Alex Jones is "defending democracy" makes me cringe. They are deliberately misrepresenting our form of government and self-rule. The "democracy" they seek is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
(For the record: Alex Jones is a full-on snake oil salesman and a whack-job. He says things that I think are the most vile and disgusting things and still what's going on here is in fact fascism. Nothing changes that.)
Nothing to see, face it, we have entered a time of political tribalism, they are looking out for their tribe and against the other tribe, it is what it is.
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