Posted on 08/11/2018 8:24:55 PM PDT by Mariner
Some of the nation’s largest technology and social media companies have tried to stop Alex Jones and his conspiracy theories. But in a digital world, their attempts seem to have barely slowed him down.
After YouTube, Facebook and others this week removed content by Jones and his website, the InfoWars leader, talk show host and Austin resident fired back, accusing the companies of censorship and urging his audience to fight back against what he called an “unprecedented attack.”
Meanwhile, Jones’ website and other online platforms have remained popular destinations.
InfoWars continues to see more than 1 million page visits per day and has trended upward this month, according to Amazon’s Alexa website traffic report, which also said InfoWars averages more than 25 million page views per month.
Consumers still can access InfoWars through the same tech companies that just banned it. Google still offers the Infowars app for Android users, and Apple customers can download it through the App Store.
As of Friday, the show’s phone app remained near the top of the charts in both the Apple App and Google Play stores. Infowars Official, an app that lets viewers stream Jones’ shows and read news of the day, was ranked fourth among trending apps in the Google Play store Friday. In the news category on Apple’s App Store, Infowars earned the fourth slot under the top free apps, behind Twitter and News Break, a local and breaking news service, revealing a sudden boost of user downloads.
(Excerpt) Read more at mystatesman.com ...
As Obi-wan said to Vader: “Strike me down and I will be mightier than before!”
No, no, no! Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Google controls everything! Look! Google doesn't have a flag on their page for Memorial Day!
Even Steve Bannon, of all people, wanted the tech companies to be regulated as utilities. Give me a break. If conservatives can't take the time to learn coding, scrounge up some investors, and create a conservative vision of FB then they're not conservatives. Free Republic has been around for 22 years and it is the forerunner of social media today.
“You don’t think an ideological monopoly among tech giants presents an existential threat to Conservatives? “
I think anyone who believes there is an ideological monopoly among tech giants that presents an existential threat to conservatives doesn’t know how the internet works.
Getting banned/blocked from social media is trivial.
Anyone who wants what Alex Jones is peddling can go to the source at will.
Augh! I've agreed with Chomsky! I have Chomsky germs! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!
Zuckerberg has accelerated Jones into public awareness he's never had before. People WANT to know more about him. They want to know who is this guy who is now a threat to Facebook and Twitter.
The social media barons should not have attempted to silence those they disagree with. They believed they could control the minds of all who used their services. But they failed to account for basic human psychology. If they REALLY wanted to stifle anyone, they should have ignore them. But they didn't. They succumbed to the power they had in over abundance.
They have sown the wind. And many more will reap the whirlwind.
LOL, I agree about FB.
here in Hollywood, I know of a certain producer, big-time who states that FB “likes” dont amount to a bean of hills. You can tweet or like all you want but most of these followers DONT even show up for a gig. FB / tweets helps but only for so much...
LOL! Have courage. I always said that when it really does go down it may not do to look too closely at the guy next to you in the foxhole. Lord, we live in interesting times.
Didn't I explicitly say "it's not just social media"? What're you going to do when the tech companies finally wipe out Breitbart's advertisements? Plenty of lesser blogs, conservative personalities like Colin Flaherty, have had their livelihoods effected. They just weren't big enough to get noticed.
Alex Jones was just the easy target to make moves against bigger outlets.
They WILL be coming for Breitbart next, and it's not just going to be banning them from social media.
Has not and will never happen. Give me examples. MO< Look what's happening to the NRA who are being denied access to financial services.
Brick and mortar services in one state thanks to Cuomo the clown. Not to online services.
Do you think that's okay because conservatives can just re-invent the internet and make their own banks?
We're talking about specific tech social media companies. No one is talking about the entire internet.
Google routinely threatens smaller websites with losing advertising revenue if they do not remove mainstream conservative material. They also have direct control over your domain and can literally remove you from the internet. They have done so already, just not to anyone big.
That’s because publication on Social Media is trivial, for trivial minds.
I mean, really, who gets their news on Facebook?
Only the weak minded.
And, over 3/4 of all postings are from women...for women. Over half of those are teens. Nearly 40% of all posting are from teenage girls.
Not exactly fertile ground for information publication.
Unless it’s a cute cat video. Or something about the Kardashians.
Ummmm Gee....Breitbart will switch to a subscription-only site and/or expand their presence on Sirius XM Patriot 125?
Maybe merge with OANN or Fox News (if they choose not to become a Disney entity) and be their own 24 hour news channel?
There is a problem with your theory. Once a utility platform such as Google or Facebook has been established it’s impossible to compete. It’s like trying to start a new phone company when AT&T has all of the phone numbers. We hated Ma Bell but did anyone think it was possible to start hanging new phone lines? The online equivalent is information. My wife has over 500 people friended, think she is going to jump ship hoping that all of her friends will follow? No chance.
“They WILL be coming for Breitbart next, and it’s not just going to be banning them from social media. “
There are politicians and others in this country that would silence all dissent from the internet.
Even more they want to shut down Fox, Rush and Drudge, the true powerhouses.
If they could.
They can’t.
The Daily Stormer had their .com taken by Google and were kicked off every single US registrar, as well as the registrar of hundreds of countries, seemingly all at once. I think they're on a Pakistani registrar or something now. (Would Free Republic get a Pakistani Registrar to agree to host our website?) The Daily Stormer also lost all access to Pay Pal, and all other funding methods ,as well as advertisement, even weirdo foreign ones from Asian countries. Alex Jones I think just lost access to their commenting platform. Breitbart has been subjected to advertising boycotts and is constantly under threat of losing them entirely. GAB is being threatened with having their domain taken. The easy targets were the racist websites and now Alex Jones because of his conspiracy theories. They are now calling Alex Jones a Neo-Nazi for opinions that we express here on Free Republic, such as on trannies and Islam. That puts him in "losing domain" territory already. And us too. They're just trying to measure public opinion right now.
“They also have direct control over your domain and can literally remove you from the internet. “
No, they cannot.
I don’t think many of us care if you scream like hell but many of us probably scratch our heads when you think the right to refuse service is a bad idea. It’s like wedding cakes for gay weddings to me.
“Once a utility platform such as Google or Facebook has been established it’s impossible to compete. “
Utilities provide a universal and essential service.
One COULD argue that Google’s search function is a utility, but as far as I know you can search for Infowars and Breitbart just fine.
But Facebook?
That’s laughable.
No internet property can be removed from the global registrar without a court order.
The registrar will accept nothing else.
lol I think perhaps you are not thinking very clearly about this. What do you think the effect will be if Conservative web publications are all subscription only, but anyone can read Huffpo for free because they're funded by giant donations from George Soros? And then people won't even be able to advertise the existence of Breitbart because they'd be banned from social media.
This working together by big tech to squash competitors based on ideology is behavior that would be criminal in any other industry. It should be criminal on the internet as well.
There's nothing wrong with requiring big tech companies to follow First Amendment standards in their use of the rules. Just do that, and you'll have no problems at all, except with the Europeans who arrest people for being "grossly offensive."
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