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 ...
Alex Jones gets miles of crap as a kook conspiracy theorist.
I’ve been there maybe 6 times in the last 20 years.
BUT, given the Actual crazier than the Twilight Zone real life conspiracies against Trump from DoJ and FBI, . . . . . . and a whole host of other Big Govt Agencies under Bammy, . . . .
Banning him was guaranteed to make him more popular.
Then those smaller websites should rethink their partnership with Google and go subscription-based or work directly with the advertisers.
They also have direct control over your domain and can literally remove you from the internet.
Pure horse feces.
Yes, it’s OK.
The people who developed and marketed those web sites did so with their own initiative and money.
What’s the principle that says they lose their private property rights when they become popular?
I don't know about the ins and outs of how website domains work. I can only tell you that Google and hundreds of other companies like google kicked The Daily Stormer off the internet, including from all western countries. Their website was completely scrubbed until they found the one foreign country to agree to host them, after almost all the others refused.
I don't think Free Republic would get that lucky.
Zuckerberg is just trying to deflect attention from the fact that he screwed up.
The man is a stupid child in the body of an adult geek. He knows nothing about human nature and acts like it, too.
I guess his shrink mommy never taught him basic common sense facts about people. For instance, if you don’t like what someone is saying JUST IGNORE THEM.
It’s $150/year to register your domain name.
You have to work with the assigned numbers authority for an IP address, and they’re relatively cheap too if you need only a few.
But it’s quite likely you’ll have a hard time finding anyone to HOST the Daily Stormer.
Still, if they wanted to they could buy a commercial 10mbs commercial cable internet service and host it in their garage.
All broadband carriers will sell bandwidth to anyone.
So criminal monopolistic practices that would be illegal in every other industry is okay on the internet? Only because we don't have any laws prohibiting such anti-competitive behavior.
The people who developed and marketed those web sites
The internet was invented by the US military. Not Al Gore. I do not think that big tech should have the right to basically ban you from the internet. And didn't Zuckerberg actually just steal Facebook from someone else? Screwed them out of their part of the investment? It's not like Zuckerberg is a character out of Atlas Shrugged.
What’s the principle that says they lose their private property rights
You think Facebook will lose its private property rights if they can no longer discriminate against people based on their religion, who they associate with, or political beliefs? Seems like we already hit businesses hard for refusing to employ minorities or serving cakes. Why not have a far lesser, and more rational and humane standard: just basic 1st Amendment principles that say, "you can't ban this speech unless it represents an imminent threat to someone"?
Competition in the market is not a theory.
Google can be brought down. Look at Duck Duck Go. Bing. Both viable alternatives to Google.
Once a utility platform such as Google or Facebook has been established it’s impossible to compete.
They are NOT a utility in the traditional sense that requires state regulation. All they are in the end is a website. That's it. There's already a good alternative to FB called mewe.com, and I'm considering nuking my FB account and switching over.
“InfoWars continues to see more than 1 million page visits per day.”
The positives of Alex Jones (the 2007 “Endgame” movie, the hiring of bright news readers such as Paul Watson) outweigh the negatives of AJ (repulsive voice, repulsive set design).
Funny how the gravely-voiced AJ is a threat to the Big Six of Media: Comcast, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time, and CBS.
Perhaps they broke an agreement that they signed? Why are they not fighting this in the courts then?
Alex Jones I think just lost access to their commenting platform.
Big deal. He has a website where he can make an option for his supporters to comment on chat or email. This will hurt the tech companies more than him.
Breitbart has been subjected to advertising boycotts and is constantly under threat of losing them entirely.
Yeah so? Then Breitbart should go subscription-based then. Breitbart shows in the morning and at night are among the top 10 shows in all of Sirius XM. The Patriot Channel is a huge moneymaker for Sirius XM.
GAB is being threatened with having their domain taken.
Then GAB needs to fight in the courts then.
Should the phone company be able to block you from making calls because they don’t like your opinion? Same thing.
How did the last 3 or 4 generations of Media Domination by the left work out for America.
You will insure the next 3 or 4 generations to be dominated by the Left. America won’t exist by then.
The problem doesn't appear to have anything to do with servers, but with the registrar itself simply being removed:
“I’m torn here,” says Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University and a director of its High Tech Law Institute. He supports the right of companies such as GoDaddy and Google to exercise discretion as to the content they host on their servers. But he points out that GoDaddy wasn’t actually hosting the Daily Stormer’s files; it merely served as the site’s domain registrar, directing internet traffic toward it. “The domain hosting is a relatively rarely focused-on chokepoint” for political pressure, Goldman told me. “Turning on or off content at that level is much deeper into the infrastructure layer than we’re used to seeing.”
Nate Cardozo, staff attorney for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, expressed similar concerns to the Verge’s Russell Brandom: “We feel that the infrastructure that serves up the internet must remain neutral. It’s pipes versus houses.”
This means that Daily Stormer's fight to remain on the internet was in finding a registrar and not because someone blew up their servers in their garage at the Fuhrer's bunker.
Can the Daily Stormer become its own registrar? I think I MIGHT have seen discussion of that some time ago for GAB, but my impression is that becoming a registrar would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They would get tons of revenue and expand their presence, while the advertisers that bailed on them thanks to the likes of David Brock will be SOL.
If Breitbart went to a monthly subscription option, I'm all in. I would gladly pay $9.99/month for center-right, objective news.
but anyone can read Huffpo for free
Which will further sink Huffpo into irrelevancy and wake up more people who will wonder why conservatives are paying for content but the lib sites are still free.
Whoops, forgot the Slate link:
Bing is Microsoft. Microsoft has unlimited money to pump into Bing. Bing has been around “competing” for ten years. It has 1% of the market. Next.
There are already Democrats calling for other sites from Breitbart to Joe Rogan’s show to be banned.
Alex Jones was just the low hanging fruit of liberal purges beyond what they’ve already been doing on Facebook and Twitter.
Duly noted. But Facebook is a monopoly in a sense. I would love to see it toppled and crumble into nothingness, but I just don’t think that is going to happen soon.
Even before they had an agreement? I said they were banned from nearly every country simultaneously.
Why are they not fighting this in the courts then?
What law do you have in mind that stops registrars from kicking you off the internet?
Then Breitbart should go subscription-based then.
Are you like an Ayn Rand cultist or something? Your blind faith in a subcription service seems to fly against common sense consequences, such as a severe loss of revenue, increased advertising costs, and a loss of reach towards normal people.
You didn’t answer the question so your prima facie evidence implicates you.
Exactly how big does FR have to get before you say Jim can no longer ban posters?
I do not think that big tech should have the right to basically ban you from the internet.
Neither do I. Luckily no one’s trying to do that.
You aren’t saying I have a right to publish my content for free on a platform that someone else created and paid for, are you?
You think Facebook will lose its private property rights if they can no longer...
Yes, by definition.
1st Amendment principles that say, "you can't ban this speech unless it represents an imminent threat to someone"?
Tell that to Jim.
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