Wow “loathsome” twice in one sentence. I have been following Alex Jones for many years. How is it that NOW the Silicon zealots have simultaneously silenced (tried anyway) Alex Jones? Is it because his crews publicized the truly loathsome and cowardice of masked thugs of Antifas at Portland?
Is it part of the Silicommuinists’ zeal to defeat Trump’s party in the midterms?
I shed no tears for this hateful loser as he watches his wealth shrink after being banned from many social media platforms. Why won't Twitter do the same? That is probably the best way to hit these jerks -- in the bank balance.
As my small protest, today I took the active step of finally deleting my Twitter account. Any platform that hosts the like of Jones and that provides a home for the imbecile Trump is not a place worth visiting.
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I’m not trained in the law, but while looking up definitions & examples of libel I was struck by the repeated standard “knew or should have known.”
Which is at the heart of most free speech disagreements now:
Truth. What is it? Who has it? Who speaks it?
I am aware that using the standard of libel & slander doesn’t include a binding legal opinion by FB. But generating faux opinions on what is truth & a person’s state of mind seems to me just as fraught as using the made up standard of “offense.”
Is FB now supposed to follow every conspiracy nut down every one of his rabbit holes to learn if he has a reasonable & sincerely held belief in his truth?
Sure, we can apply the label “lible,” but it’s just putting makeup on the pig of opinion.
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Producers like Alex Jones exist because of emotional click bait on the internet. These tech companies have monetized his content. They have made money. I would imagine wacko producers like Jones are profitable high ranking performers. The problem is the system is quantified to reward response. Jones is a masters of writing responsive copy. This is charismatic publishing. We would not talk about him if he did not get response and have influence. The system rewards him for response and they benefit from his clicks. They are the same organism. Every parasite needs a host. This is the problem.
Recently I read a post by one of the families who had lost a child in the Sandy Hook massacre, a six-year-old boy. Because of Alex Jones and his followers, these people have been mercilessly harassed to the point that they have had to move six times in an effort to hide from the hatefulness to which they have been exposed in the intervening years since the murders.
I cannot fathom Jones's purpose in cruelly piling more grief on these people. He knows full well his fulminations are total lies and that the event truly happened. We all know it, even those who have some need to hurt and harass people who have suffered a tragedy of this sort, or any sort. It takes a special kind of mean to do that. I'm glad Facebook and others took him on and threw him off. Jones and his kind are sickening, and I don't object to whatever it takes to shut him out of indulging his sick hatefulness.
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Using a standard of libel or slander, Twitter would have banned Donald Trump years ago.
1
Mr. French, you might want to include incitement to violence in your criteria. What AJ has done if far worse than libel and slander.
3
Facebook and Youtube's positions are disingenuous. On one hand they argue they can't be sued for libel because they are an open forum, yet on the other hand, they choose to censor material with which they disagree. If they are an open forum that can't be sued for libel, then they are holding themselves out as public carriers which can be regulated by the government and which can't refuse comments. If they are censoring material, then they control content and can be sued.
I am not a fan of Alex Jones; however, I am more than perturbed by the attempt by the left to censor any thought or idea with which they disagree, often by labeling their opponents "fascists" or "alt-right members." On college campuses professors are teaching students that the First Amendment does not cover hate speech or unpopular speech, contrary to the intent of the Founding Fathers and the plain words of the Constitution.
Those on the left who close their eyes to the behavior of their fellow "liberals" should remember that the political pendulum swings both ways, over time.
As to the SPLC, they are nothing short of a far left organization that now brands any conservative or organization with which they disagree as a hate group. They have surrendered any credibility they may have had in the 1960's by its partisan witch hunts.
What is the time lag between:
Posting that someone is selling children for sex out of the back
back room of a pizza restaurant and when another individual
consuming that information shows up at the restaurant with a
gun?
If the answer is less time than it takes the site hosting the
information to determine that the claim is untrue, meeting
the definition of slander or liable, you have the answer for why
someone like Alex Jones, who peddles "loathsome" conspiracy
theories should be banned from platforms like Apple, Facebook,
YouTube and hopefully, eventually, Twitter.
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Hmm.... a group that argues against a woman's ability to get health care for herself because of some flawed religious belief?
Hmmm.... a group that argues that a baker can sell his goods in a public store to that couple but not that couple, based solely on some flawed religious belief?
hmmm... a group argues that those not of their flawed religious belief should not have rights, not be able to gain immigration status, or citizenship...
Hmm.... a group argues that women should not be allowed to make life decisions based on some flawed religious belief, be it how they dress, whom they marry, what job they can have, or when/how/with whom they can become a parent.....
yeah, I'm going with hate-related groups.
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While Mr. French makes interesting points about definitions of hate speech, libel and slander; he avoids the most damaging and frightening element of Alex Jones' tirades:
Incitement.
Incitement to harass. Incitement to harm.
So far, his relentless, anger-fueled mendacity has been taken as encouragement to act by some of the impressionable fans of Mr. Jones; and they have driven some targets of his venom from their homes and towns - and away from any sense of comfort or security.
In such volatile circumstances, it only takes one unstable, ardent disciple to boil over into causing permanent physical harm.
Many others before Mr. Jones, and even Mr. Trump currently - one could argue - ignore all reasonable moral guideposts and risk treading into illegal territory in their intentional provocation of angry devotees. (Will Mr. Trump and his defenders sleep well if a reporter is injured, in the context of his relentless "enemy of the people" diatribes?)
Incitement is not always against the law. Wikipedia defines illegal incitement thus: "Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely."
I have no personal knowledge of Mr. Jones, and so I don't have a clue as to whether his tirades are a result of cynical and malevolent calculation, an unhinged psyche, or depravity.
Nonetheless, he may face considerable legal consequences .
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One can criticize the SPLC for legitimate reasons, but not for labeling the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) an "anti-LGBT hate group." Taking a look at the SPLC's page, they provide compelling evidence of at least one situation where the ADF stood in support of forced irreversible sterilization of transpersons as a pre-condition of government recognition of gender identity. These policies were threatened by legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the ADF submitted the equivalent of an amicus brief in defense of forced irreversible sterilization. Setting aside the lack of foresight of the framers of the original policies, the ADF came to the defense of a policy that would be considered eugenics in the US and would be roundly morally condemned if any attempt were made to implement it in policy today. An analogous situation would be if there were a push to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act, which is still on the books, but cannot and will not be enforced due to an existing web of laws preventing discrimination on the basis of national origin. If the law had been applied, litigation ensued, and any group filed an amicus brief in support of it's application, they would be branded a "hate group" for actively supporting discrimination based on national origin.
To summarize: the SPLC labeled the ADF an "anti-LGBT hate group" for policies like their defense of irreversible sterilization requirements for the transgender recognition in some EU countries.
"The good news is that tech companies don’t have to rely on vague, malleable and hotly contested definitions of hate speech to deal with conspiracy theorists like Mr. Jones. The far better option would be to prohibit libel or slander on their platforms."
Ok, I will take the bait.
First, how will tech companies define defamation? Will they use the common-law definitions of the torts of libel and slander?
If so, as Mr. French well knows, a group or class of people cannot sue for defamation. Therefore, hate mongers such as Alex Jones would be able to stay on social media by defaming entire demographic groups instead of individuals.
History shows this is exactly what bigots and tyrants do. How would the law of defamation protect us in such cases? Doesn't the concept of hate speech allow us to overcome the limitations of tort law?
Let's assume a user like Alex Jones made libelous statements about an individual on social media.
What sort of process would be due? May a tech company make a binding unilateral decision without notice to the user? Would the user be entitled to appeal? Would they have a right to counsel?
If so, it would be a boon to conservative legal defense foundations.
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When they banned and came for Alex Jones, you did not speak out, because you did not agree with him.
When they banned and came for your conservative neighbors, you did not speak out, because you did not like what they said.
When they ban and come for you, there will be no one left to object, because you did not care who was banned for reasons with which you agreed.
I'm reading all these comments about Facebook having the freedom to do what it wants because its a private company and that they have the right and are correct to censor Alex Jones.. These same voices were up in arms by the way the same private company used its freedom to monetize their privacy. Facebook is not some socially responsible company doing good for the community. Their PR department is trying to get some points in the public opinion arena. They allowed manipulation of the 2016 election and sold subscribers friends personal data for profit. They are all villains, there is no hero in this story. At least Jones can fall back on free speech. As a journalist, he has the right to be wrong about a story. No one can say that he did not believe what he was saying, or that he did not have the right to say it.
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This sounds entirely reasonable, but consider the following.
Mr. French is on record supporting gun rights as a defense again 'tyranny."
Here, he does not support people's right to say false things. But the idea that people, conceivably the same people, can use guns to get their way, doesn't seem to bother him.
If I start up a neighborhood paper, I get to print or not print anyone I want. Apple, Facebook, and YouTube are no different, Right?
Well, not quite right. I'm a teensy little minnow in a sea of competitors. The three organizations above are hardly that. Indeed, competitors to them don't come to mind quickly.
They are a lot more like monopolies than they are like lil ole me. And this should change the rules for them.
I remember a phrase from back during the civil rights era: Quasi-public organization. If the organization dominated a socially-vital sector, it took over some of the obligations normally required of the government. Or so this non-lawyer remembers.
If it were possible to bust up, eg Facebook, into a dozen firms, one of them might well note that I and many others want unrestricted ("unrestricted means unrestricted") free speech on our post-Facebook accounts, and set out to fill this demand. Econ 1A, no?
In the absence of competition, Facebook should be required to simulate a competitive environment. With respect to economics, this means requiring marginal cost pricing.
With respect to posting rights, Facebook should be required to provide a subset of accounts with unrestricted free speech inside that subset.
However, instead of trying to simulate the free speech aspects of a free market, Facebook is using its monopoly power to simulate Big Brother.
For which it should be stepped on.
It takes a remarkably provocative, if narrow, intellect to defend the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council while attacking the Southern Property Law Center. If we define hate speech as speech intended to incite violence, two of those organizations engage in hate speech. The third just calls attention to that fact. Does Mr. French need an example, which he surely knows about anyway? Neither the Family Research Council nor the Alliance Defending Freedom believe in the First Amendment. They understand the part about freedom of religion but they want to obliterate the part about freedom FROM religion. By suggesting that religious institutions with public accommodations have the right to discriminate against gay people, inevitably the two organizations are inciting hatred and the potential for violence. Think I’m exaggerating? Go to their websites and with a casual read you’ll discover the most extraordinary distortions of reality. Mr. French may not like The Southern Poverty Law Center for saying so because he used to work for one of them, but he knows it’s true and why doesn’t he at least have the courage of his principles to just admit it?
What Alex Jones, Fox News and the like have shown is that the realm of public discourse is vulnerable to being undermined by modern media. Their repeated fabrications have laid the groundwork for the partisan divide which is undermining governance in the US today. I agree that we should use libel and slander laws when those people say false facts which harm individuals. However, I also believe we need laws to protect the public interest from false and hateful statements, especially when they incite violence. I have believed this ever since doctors were killed and clinic workers were attacked because of the hateful words of some anti-abortion leaders. Now protestors are being killed and journalists threatened (see Bret Stephens' recent column). It is intellectually disingenuous to argue that the vagueness of the line between permitted and non-permitted hate speech means we cannot try to draw a line. There was a time when the rules for libel was not as clear, but courts worked them out following NY Times v. Sullivan. If we do not start drawing a line against hate speech soon, we will be returning to the days of Red Scare and concentration camps before we know it.
Your call for restricting speech solely based on truth standard fails to protect minorities who are most vulnerable to all sorts of hate speech online. Plus, American Frist Amendment protection of speech is an increasingly unpopular idea globally. Rather than the First Amendement, Intetnational human rights and instruments should be a guiding principle for defining acceptable speech online.
Because American tech companies serve the global community, not just Americans.
Article 20 of ICCPR clearly defines cases when free speech should be restricted.
"Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."
Jones appears in the early Richard Linklater movie, "Waking Life". In his scene he's driving a car through the streets of Austin screaming an early version of his paranoid rantings through speakers mounted on the roof of the car.
I suggest he should be relegated back to that mode of getting his message out.
Fools. Mr. Jones orchestrated the entire ban. It's a false flag operation of deep state speech-grabbers. He is faking it as an agent of Big Supression.
1
Jones appears in the early Richard Linklater movie, "Slacker". In his scene he's driving a car through the streets of Austin screaming an early version of his paranoid rantings through speakers mounted on the roof of the car.
I suggest he should be relegated back to that mode of getting his message out.
1
There is a difference between specifically-named victims seeking redress in court — for which they have the right — and yet another thing for the "public square" we call the Internet to become artificially cordoned off via a concerted and henceforth unending effort to referee if not police participants' speech. Participating in the free exchange of ideas depends, increasingly, on access to digital platforms and so, whether the laws have caught up with technology or not, I predict they will eventually take a dim view to corporate-led attempts to elect winners and losers.
As risky as it is to give every man/woman a voice, handing the keys to the free speech kingdom to unelected corporate gatekeepers raises the specter of more systemic abuse. (After all, corporations are people, too, for which the fallibility of human nature is universal.)
While most of us share the frustration that people are free to "invent their own reality", the slippery slope on which we rest is a longer-term risk. Here lies a noose, which for the moment is broad/loose; in the end, we will have cut ourselves just enough rope with which to hang the First Amendment.
Jones' claims are spurious. But he and his brand are but one of a million voices in the public square. Our hope lies not in silencing those who offend us but in teaching the critical thinking skills with which to evaluate a marketplace of ideas. Crackdowns brandish fear and prioritize conformity. Education teaches us to think for ourselves.
Free speech arguments tend to center around the rights of the perpetrator. But is shouting fire in a crowded theater the only criteria for curbing speech. Shouldn't the victims rights also be taken into account, over an above any eventual financial settlement ?
In this particular case might you not ban Mr Jones for the incalculable hurt he is putting on families who have lost innocent children. Sure they may eventually win a case to obtain some financial settlement, but is this really going to compensate them for the hell that Mr Jones is daily putting them through in order to get it.
Seems BigTech is trying to stop the big liars making $$ by whipping up conspiracy theories and hate of anyone other.
We have a potus who's biggest of these, holding rallies to whip up frenzy at all 'other' plus the press. Violence can't be far behind.
Kudos to the [private btw] tech companies.
Gotta start somewhere.
The ADF IS a hate group. They hate the idea of women determining what to do with their own bodies without state interference. And you took money from them. What does that make you? Certainly no lover of freedom.
I kept stumbling over "false factual claims" thinking to myself: you mean lies?
From the SPLC's site: "Founded by some 30 leaders of the Christian Right, the Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of homosexuality in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and claims that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society. ADF also works to develop “religious liberty” legislation and case law that will allow the denial of goods and services to LGBT people on the basis of religion." Mr. French doth protest too much, methinks. Sounds like a hate organization to me.
Probably the best way to deal with Jones is to ignore him. Give him no publicity at all beyond what he can muster-and pay for- on his own.
I see today’s Times has failed in that regard, plastering Jones’s hateful face on the front page. Shame on you.
It wasn’t that long ago that the media gave the current occupant of the White House a bonanza of free coverage, perhaps contributing to his victory.
You haven’t learned anything yet.
What a load of garbage. These insitgators, and people like him are fanning hatred and intolerance. Sure, maybe the actual definition of hate speech is vague, the working definition is certainly not. These companies have every right to ban whomever they want. The reality is we are not becoming a less tolerant society, rather the long in power majority, white men, are being forced to confront the amount of negative and destructive behavior they've gotten away with forever with zero consequences. Framing this in some legalistic mumbo jumbo is trying to cloud this as an issue of intolerance on the left. LGBTQs, people of color, most Muslims, many immigrants and many other often ignored groups have gotten tired of the hate directed at them.
Is there a place I can go to donate to the legal fund of the Sandy Hook families?
There is no compelling reason to read past the third sentence. The author is still indignant at having his beloved ADF redlined, and seeks to make it more difficult for companies to silence the voices of hate by applying a legal rather than an ethical standard, which would give those who engage in hate speech a venue for legal redress. Perhaps he should re-read his third sentence, and re-consider the remainder of the article.
Hate speech is like pornography. Difficult to define, and perhaps unseemly to describe, but to quote Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.” That standard was sufficient to pass first amendment scrutiny in an earlier Supreme Court case. It still applies. Let’s not minimize the scourge of hate speech by treating it as libel. It makes the extreme normal.
I do believe that there is a slippery slope in letting all kinds of people have a large public platform, whether in the print media, digital media, or television. When it is lies, despicable name calling, or even hate speech, you can't let it go on, as it attracts too many people, and can surely become more dangerous, as they found out in Charlotte. We have to think about those who committed genocide, around the world, over the recent history, and past history. If one feels no, they shouldn't of ever been allowed, than that standard has to apply to today. Almost anyone can use digital media in this day and age, to start conspiracy theories with no validity whatsoever, lies, damage individual people and groups, both emotionally, and physically, and many people. The media can't let it continue, as it could lead to more violence, especially when these type of people, and their followers become incensed when they are allowed all the time of day, then cut off.
Sorry, lies are not protected speech under our constitution. There are limits to free speech. You can not yell fire in a crowded theater. You are not protected from legal liability for slanderous lies that parents whose children were murdered made it up. He is a low life who should have to pay for intentionally inflicting pain in these poor families.
I will be a lot more concerned about Facebook and other nongovernmental entities censoring "free speech" when Fox News, who in fact has special government support in the form of exclusive access to a radio frequency, gives equal access to liberals.
Fox, Sinclair and Clear Channel are the main forces ignoring the First Amendment and censoring free speech.
C'mon, people, this wasn't about Alex Jones, this was about giving a voice of the extremist right a platform to throw down on a political/personal enemy(ies), the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Mr Jones and anyone else in the US of A are indeed entitled to their opinions, and free to express them. However, no one is 'entitled' to have a page or letter to the editor an OpEd in the NYTs or WaPo or WSJ or for that matter on FB or any other media.
The First Amendment rights of Alex Jones have not been impeded in any way. When one creates an account, they must agree to the terms of service before using the service. Apple, Facebook, YouTube or any other private service provider has the legal right to enforce their rules of usage. Clearly, Jones' output did not fit into those guidelines or he would still be able to use those services. The dilemma for him now is finding a venue that embraces and/or allows fake news, conspiracy theories, racist vitriol and propaganda. He could write books, hold speaking engagements, get a job with Fox or join the Trump administration. Or he could hawk his wares and preach his psychobabble on the nearest street corner. His freedom is still intact and his removal from these services of little import. The greater concern in this very moment should be the attack on our country and its founding principles by enemies foreign and domestic and how we are going to combat it. In this respect, all Americans seek the truth, deserve the answers and demand solutions. Alex will survive. But what becomes of America? That is something to worry about.
I'm a big fan of the First Amendment, and I agree with the idea that libel and slander (Defamation) is much better defined, and with a better legal history, compared to "hate speech..." Whatever that means, or is intended to mean. But even so...
Jones and others are entitled to publish as many and as gross false and hateful stories as they wish. They have that right. The government cannot stop them. That's the First Amendment. But then Jones and the others have to live with the results of their stories, if they defame anyone: That's the defamation cause of action.
I think Facebook could ban and act to enforce that ban based on hateful OR defamatory speech, but who knows if the statements are actually false? So the question could be: how would Facebook know that, objectively? Surely the idea that the Sandy Hook shootings were staged is so grossly misguided that anyone would know it is wrong? Apparently that is not quite true: There are enough fools out there who believe such claims. We should all know that by now.
I think the current "system" is just fine, and the real problem is that Facebook got too lax, and too greedy, and thus failed to enforce its own rules. Considering that, what is the public supposed to do? Rude and offensive speech is protected under the First Amendment from Government intervention, but Facebook is not part of the government. All that ever needed to be done is for more users to file complaints about the hateful content. Or stop reading it.
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Neither altruism nor morality influenced Facebook and other social media companies from banning Jones. Facebook’s stock collapsed because the company was clearly exploiting everyone for profit-no matter what the consequences.
In addition, let’s not forget, that already, at least once person has been killed (Charlottesville ) by the brand of hateful ideas Jones & company peddle. So, the genteel pretzel-like first amendment defense sounds a bit hollow.
Since I am not a lawyer, I have to ask a question. I well understand what slander and libel are. But why is it the job of social media sites to screen for and censor it? Let the alleged victims take action themselves. On the other hand, the socials are not the government - they don't have to protect anyone's speech either. Here's a though - ignore anyone you find repugnant and let their alleged victims take care of their grievances themselves.
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French should end his article with his acknowledgement that these private companies are free to ban anyone they like from their platforms. (He should probably say within the boundaries of non-discrimination law, but that’s another subject and one that may make Mr. French uncomfortable.). A bookstore need not carry every book; a radio station play every record; a newspaper publish every author. Even public libraries-government institutions-are free to make decisions about what they collect, and what they choose to exclude from their collections. No doubt, the National Review doesn’t provide a platform for every voice that would like access to its pages and its audience.
It’s shocking, therefore, for French to suggest that we apply the limits of the First Amendment to the conduct of private actors. First, it sounds like the very type of intrusive regulation of private conduct that his publication frequently rails against. Second, there is nothing to stop these voices from accessing their own audiences on the internet—and they have their own internet sites from which to do so today. Third, there’s nothing to stop Jones and his ilk from creating their own social media platform—after all, it was a little more than a decade ago when almost no one knew of Facebook, and our system of free enterprise and free speech encourages competition. Come up with the better mousetrap. Let the National Review be the social media platform for the fringe right—you could use the circulation.
A misconception is apparent in many of these comments: there is no real monopoly power in the Facebook or You Tube platforms; though there has been a concentration of, call it “attention” (and certainly revenue) to these large online services, the Internet remains an open network, and Mr. Jones is free to start his own streaming service/online news service, etc.
This means that Facebook et al certainly do have the right to make business decisions about the content they will publish. They could decide that a more objective standard would help their businesses, either directly by reducing criticism from the public or indirectly by deflecting the same from Congress.
But the howls from Jones and the Right are also disingenuous, of course. It is in their interest to play the “freedom of speech being infringed” card, but in the end their publishing “landlord” can kick them to the curb without any worry that they won’t find another perch to spew from.
actively campaigning against full rights for LGBTQ people doesn't make Alliance Defending Freedom equal to the KKK; but I think it makes it qualify as a "hate group"
No one actually wants to talk about the actual awfulness that purportedly is broadcast by Alex Jones and his crew. Just like the anti-Trump folks can't quite put their finger on one incriminating fact that isn't taken out of context. Try to stop Alex Jones with libel or slander. There is no "there" there. Jones is a conspiracy-minded Libertarian. And there ARE conspiracies out there. To say otherwise is the height of foolishness. Show me the hate speech. Show anyone. It's all a ruse. Big Deal, Alex Jones. He's been around for twenty years. No one cared back then. Now he's a menace? Give me a break. He IS against globalism. Yeah, that's a thing. He IS against selling out the US to China? Yeah, that's a thing. He IS against global government. Yeah, that's a thing. He IS against Socialist governance. Yeah, that's a thing. So go ahead, get the big Conspiracy Theorist on libel or slander. Another witch hunt against dissenting opinion and counter narrative. Just like with Trump.
Calling out SPLC? It does more good—legal and moral—in one week than the Trump administration has done during its entire time in office. Have we really come to this? Criticizing SPLC? Which group will you call out next? And, by the way, using libel laws would be long, expensive, and, if we believe the legal experts who have commented, probably a waste of time. Sheesh.
1
Sorry, Mr. French, but ADF's attitude towards homosexuality qualifies it as a hate group.
1
Sorry, I still respect the SPLC. I'm happy to hear the tech firms do, also. You may sneakily work in that "formerly respected," thing, but we're not idiots. The SPLC is very clear on why and how it labels the people and organizations they believe foment hate. They want to be clear on the "why" so we can make our own decisions. I can read. I do further research and read rebuttals. Rarely have I thought they were wrong in their assessments.
You're connected to the never-respected-by-anyone-with-a-brain National Review. You guys are well known for throwing in negative phrases like "formerly-respected" as if your saying it makes it so when, actually, it's not so. All that does is show your true conservative hack colors.
I'm sure Facebook et. al. don't give a rat's pitutty about how you think they should frame their Alex Jones decision, because you are, simply, not credible. They can afford plenty of non-biased First Amendment experts to advise them. Then, there's their consciences, which have taken a really long time to finally emerge, but, hey, better late than never.
And, I will mention that Alex Jones has his own website. He can spout off all he wants. Everybody can still get their fill of his garbage if they so choose. As you say, private corporations are under no obligation to host him. His freedom of speech has not been curtailed, decent people have decided not to validate him. That is also a perfectly legitimate use of freedom of speech.
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Well, since you brought it up, the Alliance Defending Freedom is as close to being a hate group as you can get. It's one of those organizations that believes that "religious liberty" means freely exercising your religious beliefs to the detriment of another human being. The Founding Fathers would STRONGLY disagree. "Religious freedom" in 1789 meant "freedom from religious bigotry." ALL the Founders were fed up with religious intolerance. No Founding Father would have supported ADF so in that sense the Southern Poverty Law Center is right on the mark.
The progressive Left is pushing the envelope regarding ''hate speech'' harder than Alex Jones ever dreamed about.
The tech giants' thinking can easily ban quotes from Auntie Maxine Waters or multiple CNN personalities if applied to the protected classes as much as against the political Right.
The next step would appear to be book-burnings in the public square.
Do we stand for free speech or not?
The very term "hate speech" is extremely problematic. Who decides what constitutes hate? The government? The church? The mosque? A corporation? My next door neighbor?
The West's embrace of "hate speech" is literally ripping fundamental liberal values to shreds. Free speech is either just that - free speech - or it isn't free speech at all.
To hear that organizations like the ACLU are now questioning whether they should defend EVERYONE's right to free speech is extremely troubling.
Given the current unmoored cultural drift, the future is likely to get only worse for those who truly believe free speech is a hill worth dying on.
French is correct. He is also whistling into the wind. This is not about the disreputable Mr. Jones. As one law professor has commented, “This is about deplatforming everyone on the right.”
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are fast becoming notorious for politically biased censorship. How do we know it is biased? Because people of the left are rarely, if ever, targeted despite similarity in their language and their “offenses.”
Think Candace Owens and Congressional candidate Elizabeth Zheng.
Both the double standards and the inability of the people of the left to hold their own in spirited debate have been apparent for sometime. Their answer to these deficiencies is to silence dissent more frequently now with violence.
Vile disgusting lies aren't hate speech. Lies in support of firearms and tribalism isn't hate speech. Support for radical Christian extremism isn't hate speech. Disagreement with religion isn't hate speech. Hate speech is advocating violence in support of bigotry. Hate speech has no place in debate. Evil ideas, however, must be debated so they can be countered.
Absolutely agree!
if he can't prove his statements he .should be sued. he is a lier
The author might have a point if Jones were carefully tip-toeing along the line between decency and hate speech. He is not.
Jones has gone far, far beyond the line of provocative-but-tolerable speech. I'm surprised it took this long for these private media outlets to pull the plug on his broadcasts.
There is a REASON that Germany---unlike many countries---doesn't allow any public displays of hate imagery, historical symbols of racism and white supremacy, and words that demonize entire groups of people and implicitly incite violence against them.
Their history has demonstrated what this kind of "free speech" can lead to, particularly when it is well-funded and well-organized by some of the most vicious and extremist elements of our society.
But in this case it isn't our government clamping down on these heinous individuals and their incendiary words and symbols; it's large and extremely influential private entities acting in a conscientious and socially responsible manner. And for that they should be acknowledged, praised and encouraged to "keep up the good work."
David French writes: "Unlike 'hate speech,' libel and slander have legal meanings." "Hate speech" is legally defined by statute in many countries, one of which is Canada. Although it is not a legal concept in the US because of the First Amendment, there is nothing to prevent a private company from adopting a definition of it that has proved useful in other countries' legal systems. The term "hate speech" is vague only when it is tossed around by people who have no carefully drafted definition of it and simply apply it in an accusatory way to speech that happens to offend them. There is no reason why companies need to use it in that vague way.
Private companies do not have the right to squelch all free speech in public areas. In Marsh v. Alabama (1946), SCOTUS said the Jehovah's Witnesses could distribute materials on a sidewalk that was a privately-owned property. It was a privately owned, public access sidewalk. Even the largest companies cannot prohibit union leafleting and recruiting in the employee parking lot, which is company property and restricted from the public.
Social media sites are not beyond the reach of the First Amendment.
They invite users to develop and post all forms of legal content, and they don't even require that the ideas relate to a news article published by the site. User-generated content is a key, fundamental component of the business model, not an optional feature. Facebook was so successful in convincing people that their Facebook pages were their own that the company had difficulty with user acceptance of ads, which they only began to show after all competitors had been vanquished.
David French is advocating people active in the public forum should not have to serve all the public because he wants to be able to impose a five thousand year old biblical interpretation on some people as being unclean. Sort of modern day untouchables. His reasoning in this article can only be characterized as sick. Somehow he characterizes it as enlightened.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is STILL a respected civil-rights organization. If Mr. French disagrees simply because he is "friendly" with some of the individuals that fine and courageous organization has called out publically for racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic and violent speech than maybe he needs to rethink those "friendships."
Wolf in sheep's clothing: David French has written an op-ed piece whose actual intent is to demonize the Southern Poverty Law Center. That it mentions Alex Jones at all seems to be an afterthought relegated to the final paragraph or two. His vilification of the SPLC falls in line with his publication and right-wing think in general. For the record, the general perception of the SPLC--the organization that broke the KKK and shines a light on the darkest corners of society--is quite positive.
Mr. French may have good intentions but he didn't really need to write this piece. His entire thesis is vitiated by this sentence, early on in his own column: "Second, there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform."
Each of us has the right to dismiss people from our own home or place of business if we deem their behavior unacceptable. The same holds true for privately owned and maintained "places" on the Internet. Case closed. Move on.
We just gonna let him call the SPLC a "formerly respected civil-rights organization"? Ok cool.
9
French is a hard-right Evangelical provocateur from the National Review. I can't even understand why the Times prints anything he writes, at all.
When the SPLC is more concerned with calling feminst atheist advocate Ayan Hirisi Ali a hater, then yeah, they are "formerly respected." When advocates for the rights of Muslims are labeled haters because they critique islam, fairly, and from experience, then the SPLC has lost credibility. When they label those with mental illnesses, like the Christian religious freedom groups mentioned in the article, as haters, rather than simply misguided and delusional, then we have a problem. If we want to counter hate speech, then we can't call ideas that are just evil or wrong hate speech.
Newspapers have screened cranks for their pages forever. This is an editorial function that any platform can and should exercise. Don’t like it? Create your own platform. That’s the true free market at work.
25
Yep! Jones should make his own social media platform. I think babblingloon.com is available.
Well said Mr. French. Sadly you are tilting at windmills. FB, Twitter, etc. have zero interest in promoting a marketplace of ideas they disagree with. As private companies they have the complete right to maintain their Left Wing echo chamber. Just like this paper has the right to hire an editor who spent several years spewing vitriolic hate on Twitter. They deemed it acceptable since it was directed at the right people, but that decision leave slittle doubt that "hate speech" simply means speech that the illiberal Left doesn't like.
It's long past time conservatives started treating FB and Twitter like the Left Wing outlets that they are.
8
When it looks like a horse, talks like a horse, and smells like a horse, it's a horse.
Time for people to admit what they see, and behave in relationship to that.
Also to know right from wrong.
It's precisely the style of writing used by the New York Times, to obscure the fact that there is a horse in the living room. Opinion after opinion, reporter after reporter.
Instead of saying Donald Trump lies. They say something longwinded and complicated and obscuring of the naked and dangerous fact.
They do not say he incites violence. They write a generalized but long phrase that sounds like a conjecture. "One might be led to think that a reaction of...
The NYT is fiddling while Rome burns, and finally these greedy social media companies are talking some responsibility. It seems that the American disgust for Facebook may have put some fear into them.
Now if they just ban the lying, thieving, nasty, violent president from Twitter.
18
@Eric: I think you are wrong about the NY Times. If you do a search of the Times content for "Donald Trump's lies" you get 2,280 results. For a while they published a catalog of Trump's lies called "Trump's Lies." I doubt that there's a day that goes by that you won't find some mention of Trump's lies in the paper. Rome may be burning, but the NY Times makes that as clear as anyone that it's Trump who is setting the fires.
Why are we even talking about this? The NYT may not approve this post of mine for any reason they choose. The only reason FB, Google, etc do not screen their content more closely is because it's too expensive to do the screening and they make money from the additional traffic these lunatics generate. They do not need to provide a reason, they are not government organizations.
Hopefully this will begin a growth phase like "me too" where media companies realize that providing a platform for people like Jones is bad for their brand.
7
There is a right to free expression. There is no right to a free megaphone. Infowars may say whatever it wants. It does not therefore follow that media outlets such as Facebook are required to publish what Infowars says just because it wants them to. There is inherent business risk in depending for your profits on a medium over which you have no control. That's just how it is.
16
I'm appalled that this article cites, for victims, only persons who have been inconvenienced by overly zealous political correctness, instead of people who have had their churches, mosques or synogues burned, sent death threats, and face potential violence on the streets due to media that spread propaganda of repeated LIES about them that promote hate. The issue here is not what Alex Jones believes, thinks or says. It's about broadcasting him so that he can pour a relentless stream of propaganda inciting distrust against government, law enforcement, and victims such as the Sandy Hook parents. Hitler said a lie repeated often enough will be believed. And a big lie will be believed more than a little lie. It was a propaganda campaign of deliberate lies that sent Jews to the gas chambers. I agree with the commenter that said every media outlet has a right to have standards. People disturbed about Facebook, Youtube and Apple exercising too much monopoly power to have a right to ban anyone should also reflect that these companies also have the power to swamp our society in hate-filled lies until no one knows what to believe. With power must come responsibility. Congratulations to Facebook, Apple and Youtube.
27
Point taken...
As for persons and organizations taking their cue for correctness from the SPLC, well, that's just intellectual laziness. It's convenient in overwhelming times to get information from a single source without doing due diligence. So my second takeaway is: don't be lazy!
Having said that, I wouldn't use the example you cited here to categorically condemn the SPLC. They have done and continue to do good work. If they sometimes err, by all means, point it out.
Thanks,
Peter Scherr
12
I think Alex Jones' mailing list of viewers and callers should be somehow sent to all conmen/women and grifters. There'll be some overlap of names and addresses with the grifters and the fan base. But given it enough time, the base will decrease significantly. They are gullible enough to be thoroughly fleeced and be too busy scrabbling to survive.
2
Mr. French:
Has the 'Alliance for Freedom' sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for slander or libel? If not, why not?
Dan Kravitz
11
You can talk about legal aspects all you want, but for me, this comes down to the simple fact that there is right and wrong. And Jones is wrong. Period.
The full-on embrace in this county, particularly on the right, of moral equivalence has led us to a place where the actions of a guy like Adolph Hitler can be "interpreted morally in many different ways". I'm sorry, but no, they can't.
Jones is a walking sewer. And, frankly, at this point, I couldn't care less about how his silence is brought about, as long as it's accomplished.
The kind of legal arguments raised in this article, about the dangers of extrajudicial actions, etc, have done nothing to prevent the rise of Jones, Trump, Fox News, the modern GOP, white supremacists, Charlottesville, the Merrick Garland debacle, Citizens United, the decimation of the Voting Rights Act, etc, etc, etc.
In other words, the law has failed us. The law is supposed to seek justice, devoid of morally subjective aspects, and that would be fine, except for the fact that, for some time now, the law has been defined by the most corrupt and morally bankrupt people in our society.
Since self-serving politicians have legalized corruption and moral turpitude, where are people of good conscience supposed to turn for real justice? Anywhere they can get it, that's where.
The legal "niceties" proffered in this column are exactly that. And while noble in their desire, there bear no weight on the reality of the situation we currently live in today.
53
@Chicago Guy
In another NYT opinion, a former poetry editor of "The Nation" decries the issuance of an uncharacteristic formal apology on the part of editors for publishing a piece of poetry that could have offended a particular community.
Taken together, these two pieces represent two sides of the same coin for which the same intellectually honest argument does not, apparently, apply. The dichotomy arises because the phenomena isn't a partisan one — it's a function of human nature (in group vs. out group thinking).
There will always be forces who insist on dominating the conversation and twisting both facts and logic. And yet, to remain free of genuine fascist incursions we understood not so very long ago that one of the "necessary evils" of a free society is a tolerance of the indefensible so that that which is worthy is assured of an equally-unhindered voice.
The measure of a "free society" rests not in how free the defensible are — rather how free the indefensible remain.
When it comes to the First Amendment, "all for one" and "one for all" very much applies.
Moral relativism is not pushed by conservatism but by liberalism. The definition of absolute right and wrong is based on universal truth and it is the base of most religions. Liberals have pushed relativism as what is wrong for you is not wrong for me and that is the way it is. You believe abortion is wrong, that is your belief, but do not impose it on me.
And what make America great is that it is a law abiding society. Go live in Venezuela or Russia and get a taste of a country where the law means nothing. I am an immigrant and I live where the law is on paper only.
You don’t like the laws, vote. “Elections have consequences”, Barack Obama.
As multiple people have said, it's a private forum that you're given permission to use. You have to follow the given standards and of course, the owner of the private forum has the right to eject you at any time.
It honestly escapes me how people like Alex Jones are allowed to hide behind the First Amendment and then have the sheer shamelessness to speak out as if they are victims. It's even more disgusting that actual human beings empathize with him.
If you haven't yet, read up on Jane Doe in the Discord and Charlottesville's Unite the Right rally piece on NPR. Another case of a vile human being hiding behind the First Amendment. How is what this lady is doing any different from if I were to go online and post bomb making "advice" and ask others to gather at a place and set them off? Does the First Amendment still protect me when I'm literally asking for others to harm human lives?
10
"Private corporations can ban who[m]ever they like."?
6
Why would anyone believe Sandy Hook was a hoax?' That's what's bewildering to me. A person who buys into this stuff must have a very disordered view of our country. Remember Doubting Thomas who had to put his fingers into Jesus' sounds before he believed.
@Gene Miller. Sir, If you work at McDonald’s and say their hamburgers are lousy, they can fire you. You don’t have freedom of speech with a corporation. If you incite violence on a social platform owned by a private company, they have to worry about whether they will get ensnared in a lawsuit should anybody get hurt. So they can remove you. You don’t have freedom of speech on the digital platform of a private company. On this subject the First Amendment is transparent. It says the government may not constrain your speech. It doesn’t say anything about anybody else.
Personally I find it scary that most Americans don’t know what the First Amendment says.
Repulsive figures like Alex Jones should be shunned by decent people, and private businesses must have the freedom to permit who they will and will not allow to use their product.
David French’s essay, however, ignores the totalitarian nature of progressives endlessly exhibited by their desire to ban speech they don’t agree with and to harass those who express such thoughts.
Jones is undignified and boorish but he, unlike progressives, is no threat to liberty.
3
People who use hate speech to incite violence are a threat to liberty. People who assert that private corporations have to keep them on their social media platforms are a much bigger threat to liberty. As Mr. Liebling said, the power of the press belongs to those who own one. Get used to it. In fact, you are used to it. Just take a look at Fox. If you don’t like it when a social media platform doesn’t let you spew hate speech, open your own social media platform.
Alex Jones is “no threat to liberty”? That’s a lie, as the Sandy Hook parents who have received endless harassment and death threats as a direct result of Alex Jones’ lies can tragically attest. As can anyone who was physically attacked by the alt-right at any of their fascist marches.
If you support Donald Trump, you support Alex Jones and the alt-right. Period.
The author’s preposterous statement about the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) stopped me in my tracks. How can he possibly call the ADF a “mainstream organization”?
Here is what the SPLC says about the ADF: it is a “legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of homosexuality in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and claims that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society.”
By whose standards is this agenda “mainstream”?
The fact is that the SPLC is good at what they do, which is why the author is gaslighting by treating the SPLC has been discredited when nothing could be further from the truth. This is precisely what Trump does when he accuses the media of disseminating “fake news.”
So please keep this in mind when evaluating the merits of the rest of this column.
23
For more than a decade, Tommy Robinson was smeared in the UK as a racist and conspiracy theorist for, among other things, saying that Pakistani men were gang raping underage girls.
It sounded outrageous, was widely denied and along with Tommy's shaky claims of not being racist, it seemed pretty obvious it was pure hate speech.
The media in the UK smeared Tommy nonstop and the police and politicians noticed. They looked the other way too. The grooming and raping of underage girls continued.
Tommy Robinson was right. From court cased, we know that thousands of underage girls were repeatedly gang raped in cities all over England. Young lives, destroyed.
Tommy was recently arrested for filming outside a trial that had just ended where 29 men were accused of raping two 11 year old girls.
After being arrested, Tommy was not allowed to consult with a lawyer and 5 hour later he was sentenced to 13 months in jail. To top it off, the judge imposed a media blackout.
If Tommy hadn't been live streaming when he was arrested, nobody would have know he was done wrong.
The highest court in Britain just released him because there were so many mistakes made in his case.
Tommy Robinson is not a good guy. He is attention seeking and narcissistic. He has said many stupid things.
But this one time, his crazy conspiracy was true.
7
I agree "hate speech" is way too broad and they would do well to follow the OPs advice.
3
An approach to this dilemma is to ask the question -- What is more important to you, saying what you want? or preventing others from saying what you don't want them to say?
Another important issue is the difference between private power of Google, Facebook, etc. vs government power. If private corporations remove content with paternalistic intent, other companies then have the option of attracting viewers who do not want to be treated as children. But, when government leans on corporations to remove content, one form of censorship, the only remedy available is exterminating the ruler and abolishing the censor.
David French is correct that "hate speech" is subjective, but recommends the more objective libel and slander approach. Libel laws, a form of censorship, violate free speech. They hit weaker newspapers and publishers harder, since they might not afford to defend a libel suit due to legal costs.
If corporations adopt similar standards, those with the resources to overcome the corporations' standards will have their say, not the poorer members of society, an example of classism.
Furthermore, for any set of standards, better writers and speakers will be able to say more, since they know more ways of getting around whatever standards the corporations impose.
The best way to deal with disinformation and bigotry, is to fight it with better information and ideas. Who is afraid of a battle of ideas?
6
I kind of think that this is also an issue related to the Citizens United decision.
A corporation is a person, with rights to political expression. So says SCOTUS.
The Corporations of Facebook, Apple, et. al., have spoken, and they don't like Alex Jones.
They don't really need to give a reason at all, if you read the Citizens United decision carefully (nobody does, but they should).
Alex Jones is a corporation, Facebook is a corporation, why are we arguing about what corporations do among themselves?
Are we going to demand that that GM sell engines to Ford based on similar specious arguments?
2
The problem I see is not with private companies wanting to boot the content of people like Alex Jones with vague murmorings. Its that companies like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and the like have become the modern version of the public forum, i.e., ubiquitous platforms that for better or worse, are the dominant public communication platforms. If they censor speech based on corporate standards, we need another public forum that is not going to be hostage to a corporate fear of being politically incorrect for today's definitions of what is socially acceptable.
4
"Private corporations can ban whoever they like." And, their market will determine if they are right or wrong. Their market share will be reflected in their profits. They lose their support, they lose their market, they are less profitable. Sort of like a democracy.
6
You confuse democracy with capitalism.
Strong start, but descends into nonsense. Exactly how are tech companies to make specific, objective decisions as to what content is libelous? For several decades, at least since the Communications Decency Act, the standard has been that tech companies cannot, and in most cases should not attempt to, make absolute objective decisions. Rather, they should subjectively respond to complaints about hosted content as they come. Vague, subjective free market decisions are the sort of thing that conservatives and civil libertarians once championed. You don't need to be an apologist for hate propaganda just because liberals are against it.
8
This action by corporate giants like FaceBook, Apple and Google is a dangerous harbinger of our future where "private" companies violate what would otherwise be unalienable rights of citizens in a free society. The government has limitations on collecting personal information, spying on and surveillance of private persons but corporations can do it with impunity, "for marketing purposes".
5
A company denying someone use of their platform does not deny that person a “right” because that person does not have a protected “right” to use the company’s platform. A person DOES have a right to speak and express his or her views, but that right is not being taken away by these companies. By all means, they can post these views on their own website or blog, use their own megaphone, find their own user base. The government has not shut down Alex Jones’ personal website. THAT would be a violation of his rights. No one is *entitled* to be propped up by private companies, especially when a company feels the views being expressed are not in line with its values. If right-wingers suddenly think corporations generally should not have so much control or should not have a right to their own “free speech” I would point to the Citizen’s United case and say “You reap what you sow.”
Furthermore: How much do you pay for your Google account? How about your Facebook account? The truth is: if you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product. Don’t like exchanging your info for a service? Don’t use the service. This trade-off (which users must agree to before being allowed to use the service) has little to do with the situation being discussed here.
I don't understand why businesses like Facebook, Apple, Twitter, etc., can ban groups and individuals who intentionally promulgate patently false stories that defame others. A good example, at least in my opinion, is Alex Jones' assertions that Sandy Hook never happened, but was a hoax perpetrated as a "false flag" operation in an attempt to generate support for stronger gun laws, or that the students in the Marjorie Stoneman High School massacre that protested for better gun control laws were actors. I don't think the First Amendment supports making false assertions against people that have a harmful effect as the we know that the Sandy Hook claims have caused (parents have received death threats and been harassed on account of Jones' claims).
4
Tom Hanks is now the subject of much activity online accusing him of being a pedophile. I have zero doubt this is a vicious and cruel lie. Is Tom Hanks a "public figure" thus limited in his ability to sue or can Tom Hanks sue eg. QAnon members for creating and spreading this lie? Youtube is flooded with videos making this claim against Tom Hanks and others. If they can't sue then Youtube should remove them.
I seem to recall Carol Burnett successfully suing the National Enquirer for falsely claiming she was an alcoholic....it's time for those with power and money who are being maligned with fake malicious stories, conspiracy theories to sue, sue, sue.
9
You know why, right? Because Tom Hanks was floated as a possible democratic presidential candidate. QAnon is not neutrally pursuing the "truth." They have a specific partisan viewpoint.
Same with Alex Jones who went all in on "pizzagate" pedophilia ring but has sad nothing about actual pedophilia in ICE detention centers. That would have been an easy conspiracy theory to promote, about how ICE was stealing kids for a pedophilia ring (not true, just using as an example.) This proves Alex Jones is specifically targeting liberals/democrats/ the left, not just neutrally searching for the truth.
4
FINALLY some 'authority', well at least someone who can get published in the NY Times, has had the guts to state that the Southern Poverty Law Center has turned into a vicious extreme Left reputation assassin for hire (donations). Now what needs to happen is for the NY Times and the rest of the major media to demonstrate their alleged opposition to 'hate speech' by stopping their use of the Southern Poverty Law Center's slanderous attack statements - that the media uses to discredit those who disagree with their editorial positions on an increasingly wide range of issues.
5
Liars who cause death threats deserve no sympathy or consideration.
The Onion gets it better than Mr. French does.
https://www.theonion.com/first-amendment-experts-warn-facebook-banning-i...
6
The Family Research Council IS a hate group. Their leader, Tony Perkins, actively and loudly proclaims his homophobic rants to his flock and would seek to impose his own brand of Christian Sharia on this country. To put him and Mr. Nawaz in the same breath is to insult Mr. Nawaz. The FRC most definitely earns their label from the SPLC and it would be a blessing to the world at large if that hotbed of hatred and prejudice were to disappear from this Earth.
8
There is, of course, a very good reason why certain individuals do not choose to file lawsuits for defamation, and that is the legal principle that truth is an adequate defense. Leonard Pozner did indeed file a suit against Wolfgang Halbig, the Florida investigator upon whose work Jones' rants are based. Halbig eagerly accepted the challenge and arranged to depose Pozner. Result? Pozner REFUSED to testify under oath and DROPPED his lawsuit.
https://memoryholeblog.org/tag/lenny-pozner/
http://americanfreepress.net/37469-2/
2
This piece masquerades as neutral legal expertise, but its author is biased toward organizations that defend hateful discrimination as well as defamation.
French is right that libel and slander are easier to define than hate speech, but he ignores the fact that hate can also take the form of libel and slander – not least by French's beloved former employer "Alliance Defending Freedom." French supports this right-wing, anti-LGBT religious group even though it practices not only hate speech but also libel and slander to advocate for discrimination. For those who don't know, the ADF has actively supported the criminalization of homosexuality, the sterilization of transgender people, the overturning of same-sex marriage rights, and attempts to define homosexuality in terms of pedophilia. Their defamatory claims are well-documented by the SPLC, including:
“The endgame of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent.”—ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley, 2014
“The issue under rational-basis review is […] whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. It clearly is.”
—ADF attorney Glen Lavy, 2003
While the SPLC has apologized for mischaracterizing Maajid Nawaz, a fact not acknowledged by this piece, French and the ADF have yet to apologize to the LGBT community or make amends. Those of us who care about real freedom for all continue to stand against their defamation as well as their hate.
12
@Respondent
Unfortunately, just by looking at the rates of STIs in MSM how can you argue that this is not a public health threat. PC culture refuses to admit that though any other behavior that led to a similar disease burden would be condemned.
@Somebody
This old chestnut, again.
You known who is diseased? The states with the highest STD rates are also those with largely abstinence-only programs of the kind favored by the Christian right.
4
Just head over to today's article describing Jones's insane, frothing-at-the-mouth reaction to being banned from the platforms of a variety of privately owned social media companies, and you will see precisely why Jones is a menace to society and would be banned by any reasonable and responsible editor of any socially responsible platform.
But then, David French thinks that the so-called Alliance for Freedom (which advocates for the re-criminalization of homosexuality and the enforced sterilization of trans people) isn't an anti-gay hate group, either. At the same time, he accuses the highly respected Southern Poverty Law Center of being the problem when it identifies the Alliance for Freedom for what it really is: a hate group. Balderdash, David French. You are fooling yourself. You need to take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror -- and maybe even an extended sabbatical. Time for some serious self-examination. Because right now, you sound self-deluded.
18
I'm not a fan of Facebook but it does have policies under which its algorithms and/or its employees determine what content gets to stay on its platform. Anyone, and perhaps lawyers best of all, can quibble with those policies but at least those policies are, one presumes, in one place easily accessible to the computers and humans who need them. Libel and slander laws, on the other hand, would fill an entire library, would consist of thousands of court opinions from all fifty states and every other country in the world; Not unlike the old saw about the Warren Commission report all these divergent court opinions could support just about any conclusion one was predisposed to make about a particular utterance. Mr. French may be more worried that one of his old employers, Alliance Defending Freedom, may next be on Facebook's chopping block. Despite his protests in his article, ADF has more than its share of hate speech, aimed predominantly at homosexuality. As just one of many examples ADF has certainly linked if not equated homosexuality with pedophylia. Allen Sears, president of ADF until 2017 wrote: “We mention the new promotion of pedophilia in the context of talking about the influence of homosexual behavior on college campuses, because, despite all objections to the contrary, the two are often intrinsically linked.”
2
Are you kidding me? The New York Times is lending their powerful platform to a man (David French) who believes LGBT Pride is a celebration of sexual immorality?
The amazing Southern Poverty Law Center has been fighting the KKK and hate groups throughout the country for decades. They’re recognized as the pre-eminent American organization devoted to fighting hateful extremists. French blasts them because they are fighting the values that David French embraces.
The horror of Alex Jones and his incendiary propaganda isn't a political debate for the left and right. This is a moral question of what's right and wrong. Alex Jones is WRONG. David French is WRONG. Bigotry is WRONG. Let's get it RIGHT.
The Times can do better. Let's get it right.
Roy Steele
San Francisco, California
15
Free speech as protected by the First Amendment is one thing — disseminating demonstrably false information that is meant to defame and hurt others is quite another. Jones is hiding behind the Constitution for his loathsome acts. In an age where anyone can publish information, there is a responsibility that comes with that right, and Jones clearly has abdicated his. Trying to prove libel and slander are fine, but social media sites are within their right to censor hate speech. Jones is also using Trump as a shield, as the president spreads his own mistruths and advances conspiracy theories on a par with Jones’. To be fair, Twitter needs to ban Trump Hate, too.
4
I didn't read the whole article, however, maybe we could do with a little less free speech around here. I'm glad he was booted off of those websites and I don't think those who are offended and harmed by what he says should have to hire lawyers and go through long and tedious legal processes not to have to hear him say those things any more. Really. Enough is enough.
4
I am reminded of the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, and his quote that "men of intemperate minds cannot be free."
A nation of Alex Jones followers would not possess the intellectual or moral discipline-- or the emotional self-restraint-- to be a free people.
Look at this as the political analog of removing a pre-cancerous growth.
8
The problem with nutbags like Jones is not that they offend, but that they are believed, and - more critically - that people act on those beliefs, to the detriment of society at large.
Donald Trump's endless spew of lies is a minor annoyance. That a large fraction of the electorate believe him, and therefore voted for him, is an enormous problem, with dire consequences.
Facebook and Twitter need not police their site for reprehensible opinions, a point that Mr. French ably makes. However, they can, and I submit that they should, police it for the lies that make those opinions seem reasonable to the more-gullible half of the public. The press has a duty to report them, but the duty is to report accurately, e.g., "In a now-deleted internet posting, Trump falsely claimed this morning that...."
Imagine how much better off we'd be if Twitter deleted Trump's more egregious lies. It would deprive his cult of the fake facts that support their beliefs, and - a remote possibility - it might even modify his behavior.
3
This is like what happened when Orson Wells broadcast his "War of the Worlds" radio show. People actually believed the Martians has invaded and were destroying the planet. They sure were bent out of shape the next day when they discovered it was just fiction.
2
Almost invariably, the "marketplace of ideas" serves as cover for sponsored content that is backed by corporate or other big money. Arguments based on the marketplace ignore attempts to overwhelm veracity with marketing.
Social media companies are profit driven. Their policies will follow their approach to maximizing shareholder value. They only care about libel, slander or hate speech to the extent it impacts their value proposition.
I don't know the best way to protect our society from movements that support the likes Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao. I do know I have more trust for counter-messaging from the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center than billionaires or their proxies.
3
I understand the author’s distinction between hate speech and libel.
Alex Jones is a hateful creature, we all agree. But he has also caused intentional physical harm to the Sandy Hook victims. One family had to move seven times to protect themselves from death threats.
As for more opaque opinions on the Right and the Left, we need to be careful who decides what may cause hurt feelings and what may cause personal injury.
The campus leftists have already fallen off the cliff, but they’re ultimately harmless. The right wing provocateurs actually call out for gun violence. Big difference.
3
Sandy Hook was a terrible disaster. Hopefully a court ruling will create a really great disaster...for this creep!
4
So how about the 24/7 libel and slander of the major media and the democrat party and their assassins the extreme Left branding anyone that dares to disagree with them as racists, xenophobes, anti Semites, Fascists, misogamists and printing all manner of dubious MeToo career-killing accusations that even on their face do not appear to be crimes? Well, its apparent that the Left thinks all that destruction apparently is justified, because it like the several millions that Stalin killed in the Gulags (who were not even accused of a crimes) it is in the service of the good cause, the 'liberal' revolution of shoving most Americans into an every one equally in poverty Soviet style police state run by a democratic party 5% of loyal party members.
4
Winthrop: How Artificial Intelligence is going to change human societies will make your dystopian imaginings about the Democratic Party look quaint. You are not only barking up the wrong tree, you’re in the wrong forest.
2
Wait, last I checked Republicans control the White House, and both houses of Congress and a majority of the top 1% in the US are Republican or Independent while only 26% register as Dems. So how exactly are Democrats and the left-wing running the show here??
Or maybe you just wish they weren’t so vocal in their opinions, in which case you’ve got more in common with Jones’s “censors” than you realize.
You lost me citing Ben Shapiro and Heather MacDonald as "mainstream" voices. Anyway, there is nothing stopping Mr Jones from going to other platforms or creating his own website where he can spout his views. His followers are sure to migrate there.
3
@Lynn in DC
True, but that merely converts it from one "problem" to another: Search engines, too, can omit "undesirable" and "non-sanctioned" results. Consequently, censorship risks in the Digital Era stem not so much from government as private industry. (The "Don't be Evil" company is, in fact, working to make a version of its search engine comply with China's repressive anti-dissent speech limitations!)
In my own experience as an e-zine (blog) creator in the '90s — a blog that existed long enough to make it into the Internet Wayback Machine — I had more subscribers in those pre-social media days than I do now. Why? Because after initially indexing my current blog some ~12 years ago, Google quietly went about dropping it. I have suggested to Google that they launch a Blog search much the same way users can perform a dedicated News search — to no avail. The company is geared toward mainline corporate and celebrity-driven results and is not particularly interested in being a platform for independent voices.
Today, I can type the exact name of a post and not have it come up on a search — and this for a blog (social criticism!) that did not host libelous content!
Search engine operators hold the cards to make our digital footprints "disappear" at will. It's only in recent weeks that tech companies have taken on someone "high profile" enough (Alex Jones) to attract attention to existing practice. Social media until recently was a means to bypass search engines. Not anymore.
You started out good, French, then proceeded to contradict your own valid argument. Sorta funny to read, but it's like the mind of all right wingers: twisted for their own convenience.
6
I do not agree with banning him, I believe in the first amendment, and I believe in our court system. This man does this for money, he doesn't believe this garbage he spews out. So lets hit him where it hurts, in the pocket book. Banning him only gives him and his followers more ammo. No matter how disgusting this man is, we cannot go around banning him or his ilk.
2
“We” the people are not banning anything. Private companies are doing what they believe is in their best interest. This is not a first amendment issue; Alex Jones’ personal website has not been shut down by the government. It is still up, his podcast is still airing, it is being promoted and hosted by new right-leaning media outlets that would NEVER promote left-wing ideals just as Facebook (for many reasons) does not want to promote Jones’. He is not entitled to a megaphone, but if he wants one he already has a few.
Sorry, the author may be correct, however, one need only look to the main source of a great many hateful things in our country today, the unrelenting Twitter twit called our president. When someone shoves you you don’t run and hide. Trump and Jones are shoving in the most heinous ways. Big tech is simply pushing back because it can and because it should, and while this may not be the best method, it’s what we have because looking to the great political leaders of the day (sarcasm) for leadership, guidance and help is a useless endeavor.
2
Here's a new theory for Alex Jones: The entire world with all its decent and caring people is conspiring to make Alex Jones and his hate as irrelevant as so much sewer gas escaping from a manhole.
3
The argument here seems to be:
“Hate speech” is vague
Legal terms such as “libel” and “slander” are less so.
The SPLC was mean to me
Internet platform such as Facebook and YouTube can do whatever they want
Therefore, internet platforms should only censor content based on [their lawyers interpretations of] libel and slander.
I hope I’m not the only to see that the conclusion does not follow from those premises.
5
While I share the author's unease with vaguely defined terms like "hate speech", I don't think his proposed solution solves the problem that people want solved. Slander and libel laws cover deliberate falsehoods, but there are many statements that would come under just about anybody's definition of "hate speech" which contain no slander or libel. I could, for instance, state "I hate people of category X because they offend my sense of social norm Y and therefore I think all such people should be deported/sterilized/executed." I think we would all recognize that as speech which people expect to be removed from websites, but it is neither slander nor libel.
2
Hate is a social and cultural problem and therefore administrators and providers of "social networks" do have an obligation to address hate outside of what is narrowly defined by law.
Hate is the result of unprocessed emotional trauma. A beneficial culture would require participants to handle their personal issues privately and not allow them to dramatize in the public domain. This preserves the integrity of the public domain and public discourse. Then you can have free speech and the free exchange of ideas.
Freedom requires responsibility. It is not the opposite of responsibility. Someone in the grips of emotional trauma is not free. Someone in the grips of hate is not free. Giving them a platform while not requiring them to handle their emotional issues is not promoting "free speech."
2
"Hate speech" may well by like pornography, hard to define but you know it when you see it.
In my book Alex Jones's speech qualifies as hate speech and apparently the folks who matter, Facebook, Google, Apple, et al agree.
9
@etfmaven
No, in fact it's lots easier to define. It's like really easy. Whenever another group is targeted based on a feature of that group using language that intends to denigrate, intimidate or threaten them.
2
Normally, during any other administration, I would agree with you. Not that the Dixie Chicks weren't banned, protested, and shunned from perfomance venues by Clear Channel and radio stations for speaking out against the war during the Bush administration.
(In fact, we should be more concerned about the monopolizing of venues and news stations by Sinclair, Fox and Clear Channel.)
BUT, we have a president calling the Free Press, the "enemy of the people," and networks have required a traveling security detail (except for Fox News) so I totally agree with this decision...for reasons of safety.
Desparate times...and if we survive these global climate deniers and Nazi sympathizers, maybe Mr. Jones will be allowed back on Apple, Facebook and YouTube. In the meantime, haters can find him on his podcast.
3
NY Times, Why are you giving Mr. French a national forum? You should follow facebook's lead and decline to give hate groups a forum. The "Alliance Defending Freedom" claims to care about preserving religious freedom. But their positions are not about promoting freedom, but instead are about taking freedom away from those who do not agree with their radical Christian agenda. I will happily give Mr. French funding for his cause as soon as I see evidence that a so called "Christian" is forced into a gay marriage or forced to have an abortion or forced to take birth control. Until then, these "Christians" must stop using our secular legal and government system to force everyone else to blindly follow their own radical agenda. If they don't stop--they will eventually bring on the end of Christianity in any form in the United States.
13
In Alex Jones’ case there is nothing subjective. He has worked very hard to be a sleazebag, and he would take offense if all that hard work didn’t offend the vast majority of any population.
9
Libel and slander are civil remedies brought by one individual against another. So the social media platforms would not be the entities being libeled or slandered. So Mr. French's premise doesn't hold much water (or hope for that matter.) Better he should advocate getting rid of Donald Trump as President- a fine start to getting rid of hate speech and conspiracy theories.
5
Every commenter on this article recognizes that Alex Jones is a fraud. Yet he must be banned. Why? Because we live in a nation of fools. That's the unwritten and unspoken truth that lies behind so many of the assertions in the comments. Just come out and say it; YOU can handle all kinds of speech and distinguish what is right and wrong, what is bigoted and what is not, but you do not trust your fellow Americans to do the same.
10
@tanstaafl
He's not being "banned". Facebook, Youtube, etc. are under no obligation to provide him a soapbox. None. Zero. He can take his fraud to someplace that will peddle it and he can go down to the public square and hold up signs and speak his mind as much as he wants.
5
From the beginning of America we've been 25% crazy. Conspiracy theories have lived and died and then been reborn over and over again. Alex Jones believes he has a right to spew his QAnon nation nonsense and we all have to listen. But Facebook and the other platforms don't have to allow it. They have standards (usually) and you'll get booted if you thumb your nose at them. Jones followers, just like Fox viewers will believe whatever they're told without question. Watch one of the Presidents "hillbilly Nuremberg" rallies and the people there cheer no matter how outlandish the lies. All Trump and Jones have done is put a face to that crazy 25% that used to be hidden from view and only came out after a few beers. The American press corps needs to call out the crazy instead of trying to explain it. We've all seen crazy all our lives. Remember your reactions to a National Enquirer cover in the 80's? We're in a WWE Presidency with an Enquirer Congress. We can't let the lunatics run the asylum.
3
Hate speech and fake news thrive where education has been inadequate. Education is a long-term solution. Meanwhile, libel and slander laws are available immediately. Let's hope all weapons will be used in this fight against hate.
1
This critique is warranted and well reasoned. The SPLC, especially, in it's zeal to go after anti-Muslim bigots has targeted atheists for speaking out against religion. When Ayan Hirsi Ali publishes reasoned critiques of Islam, and describes her own experiences, they call it hate speech. When Maajid Nawaz publishes reasonable critiques of his own religion, they call it hate speech. They seem to define hate speech as anything critical of religion at all. For those of us who see religion, specifically the false use of it, as the major source of hatred and bigotry in the world, the SPLC's actions are both baffling and counterproductive. In short, it appears to me that the SPLC has decided to side with the Muslim extremist, rather than the voices calling for reform. The SPLC has become an extremist group, promoting the most vile and radical and evil practices of Islam, rather than promoting and celebrating the aspects of Islam that promote charity and love. Rather than celebrate the kindness and generosity of Muslims, they celebrate their fear of drawings and love of the veil.
5
While the thought of social media companies limiting speech is concerning, I think all reasonable people can agree that Alex Jones is a cancer that should be removed from public discourse, regardless of the reasons given. Why choose this particular hill to fight?
I fail to understand why conservative writers seem to always choose to defend the First Amendment rights of a particular type of offender. For example, a recent study has shown that professors at universities are more often fired for expressing extreme liberal views than extreme conservative views, yet these First Amendment zealots only pipe up when it's the neo-Nazis who are having difficulties airing their views on campus. A more balanced defense of First Amendment rights would help demonstrate they are putting forth a good-faith argument.
4
Please provide the link to the study you cite. All the media I’ve seen seems to be abuzz about lefties on campus shutting down speech. What have you seen?
2
@Andio Ryan https://niskanencenter.org/blog/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-...
I am not quite sure why my earlier post (which also happened to be a 'Times Pick') was removed, but that doesn't change my opinion about Alex Jones, whom I still regard as one of the most reprehensible persons on the media stage today -- and whose comments and conspiracy theories have been allowed to proliferate for far too long.
And he most definitely crossed the line of acceptibility and common decency by proclaiming that the Sandy Hook tragedy never took place, which is also why he's now facing a libel suit in court.
What Mr. Jones says, is not about the First Amendment right to freedom of speech -- but how to abuse it.
Case closed.
2
"Libel" and "slander" are far narrower than "hate."
It seems Facebook, et al, simply don't want their sites to be filled with hate, however you might want to define it.
3
First amendment freedoms are not unlimited. You cannot "scream 'fire' in a crowded theater." You cannot slander people at will with falsehoods, untruthfully disparage products for profit or personal gain, threaten bodily harm, commit espionage or fraud, and other crimes involving speech or expression. In our litigious society, content providers are potentially vulnerable for spreading illegal or improper speech, and they are rightfully concerned about their own liability and--perhaps--even their role in indecency towards other humans.
Obviously, social media and other outlets never envisioned by our founding fathers creates challenges and a need to devise rules that find the right balance between freedom of speech, and other rights that might be impinged by unfettered speech.
3
Unless there is a direct call to violence all speech should be allowed. I realize that these banners are commercial enterprises, but they have become in effect the public square. We need more speech not less. There is no constitutional right to not be offended. This is 21st century book burning.
3
@art josephs No it isn't. The book is still available. But if you want to stand in a restaurant and read it out loud, the restaurant can kick you out.
2
Social media platforms may be *effectively* a public square, but they are NOT a public square. They are a private, shareholder-beholden sphere. Plain and simple. The difference isn’t small; its everything.
US needs elected leaders to lead. Allowing private companies that are not accountable to the people provide leadership on hate speech is not good enough. Hate speech should be legislated and defined by elected representatives.
3
@jake yeah, but Canada doesn't have a first amendment. Government bureaucrats decide what the people are free to say. No thanks.
1
No, let’s NOT legislate hate speech. That’s a terrible idea. Next thing you know some religious bigot, eg Mike Pence, claims pro gay talk offends him and deems that “hate speech”. Sorry to say but “hate speech” is free speech.
@Dave C
Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms, sec. 2(b) - freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.
We recognize that with Constitutional rights come responsibilities and, just like in America, limits on freedom of expression/speech can and do exist: no screaming fire in a crowded theatre.
1
Allowing crazy conspiracy theorists to hawk their wares on a respectable, public platform, which is designed to promote those stories, even if they are categorically untrue but are popular, damages the United States public.
Where information is acquired adds authenticity. If I say I read it in the Wall Street Journal, then most people will feel that the story has validity because it had to go through the editorial process.
The big tech platforms are more than just a piece of paper to write your story on, or a street corner where you can stand and tell your story and pass out pamphlets. They imply legitimacy in a way that the National Enquirer and midnight talk radio doesn't. They actively push the stories into people's view.
1
@Sharon No they don't imply anything of the sort. They have no implied legitimacy, except in your (and lots of other folks) mind. Wake up, social media is a cancer on society and intelligent thinking.
1
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube et. al. are privately owned platforms. Lets drop any pretense of free, unrestricted speech on these platforms and drop the hammer on anything the site owners deem offensive for whatever reason. Alex Jones still has the right to publish his own site. What he does not have is the right to use social media to amplify his views. No one has that right except the site owners. To expect more from them is naive.
3
Good idea. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant could be applied to some of Shakespeare's plays, although given several comedies with girls pretending to be young men, and the fact that female roles were all originally played by men (actresses were not on stage until the Restoration), I think the Bard can be assumed to be a supporter of Trans people.
2
There is no definition of or orohibition against hate speech under the Constitution. Alex Jones can say what he pleases in public. If it is demonstrably untrue, said with malice, and damages the earnings or reputations of someone else, he can be sued for libel or slander. He can be prosecuted if it is proven his words directly incited someone to be violent. The latter is hard to prove. Private companies like Facebook can most certainly ban him. He is not entitled to a platform there.
5
Perhaps Mr. French should read the terms of service of his employer, National Review (they are online at https://www.nationalreview.com/terms-of-service/), which say "Hate speech of any kind is grounds for immediate and permanent suspension of access to all or part of the Services." Does Mr. French want to lobby NR to take out the reference to "hate speech," or push for NR to allow all the things listed under that category ("language that abuses or discriminates on the basis of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual preference, age, region, disability, etc.")?
Alex Jones is a hateful person who spreads vile conspiracy theories and encourages violence. There's no reason why Facebook, YouTube, and Apple should allow this speech, when even NR wouldn't, by its own terms of service.
7
I read your article Mr. French and I understand it. I just disagree.
Although I see your point about the slippery slope of who decides what is hate speech, I think that the vast majority of people can see the harm that Alex Jones inflicted, and his all-too-frequent 'dog-whistle' incitements to violence.
In my read, bans by social media companies are merely consequences of Mr. Jones exercising his Free Speech. Social condemnation and loss of business are time-honored ways that society has corrected many of its ills. Jones is also being sued for defamation, a legal prescription.
I think as many ways as can be applied to remove hate's mouthpiece is good for society at large. Conversely, if hate is not righteously shamed, history has shown that there is a line, nebulous but there is indeed a line, at which "the vast majority" of people can no longer see its harm, because they too have been infected by propaganda. And then god help us all.
3
The First Amendment guarantees Alex Jones's right to speak his mind (and my right to speak mine). It does NOT guarantee him (or me) a forum for our speech. So FaceBook, Apple and YouTube had every right to pull his content (and pull mine, if I violated their standards). The First Amendment also does NOT guarantee Alex Jones (or me) an audience. Neither he (nor I) can force people to stop and listen to our ramblings. So if Alex Jones wants to stand on a box in Times Square and spout his garbage, he is free to do so (as long as he doesn't block pedestrian or vehicular traffic) and the rest of us are free to mock him, laugh at him and then ignore him and there's nothing he can do about it.
9
This issue of (mis)information dissemination must be resolved on legal grounds rather than on subjective likes and dislikes. What happens when Trump/Mercer, Fox or any other collection of billionaires controls a platform similar to FB or Google? Who is going to stop the lies? Reminds me of the war on drugs. Where there is demand there will be supply. Very sad to say about America.
1
A favorite conservative rebuttal is that Obama lied about being able to keep your insurance. Determining the number of substandard policies is difficult but they do not approach half let alone most.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/10/29/this-is-why-obama...
A failure of qualification in estimating the effects of policy is distinct from groundless, demonstrable lies. Purposely seeking to marginalize people and foment social chaos seeks to distort reality rather than explain it.
2
The social media companies eliminated the likes of Alex Jones who represents all the negatives about lack of truthfulness on the internet. This is a good thing. We will leave it to the the author, David French, to parse how it can be done effectively as Jones fights his way back to dispensing internet garbage to the naive and unsuspecting.
4
And here comes that slippery slope everyone here totally ignored the possibility of now that Youtube has put far-left Rational Disconnect on "limited state" for one of their videos and when someone else uploaded the very same video for Rational Disconnect on their own channel and RD told everyone to go view it there, THAT youtuber also got punished.
When people promote "rules for thee" they tend to forget it bounces back and becomes "rules for me" too whether they like it or not.
5
@Anony grazer The slope is not slippery at all. YouTube gets to decide what's on YouTube by their own arbitrary rules. Do not expect them to moderate the site to your satisfaction. They have no obligation to do so. We're not talking journalism here folks, just social media for all it's good, bad, and rotten.
6
French's has a great and novel idea. But, as he says, if libel/slander are used as the benchmark for policing content, this will likely be much narrower and less subjective than a hate speech standard. The techs would have less leeway to take content down that doesn't malign any particular individual but nonetheless provokes and offends groups. For this reason, I have a feeling that FB, Apple and YouTube prefer the hazier standard, want to maintain their right to take the temperature of prevailing opinion, to make decisions as arbitrary and shifting as public opinion can be, and to hawk a typically corporatist line. Which is to say that they want to appear as if they are boldly doing the moral thing, loudly proclaim their rectitude, and promote themselves as model corporate citizens, all in an attempt to preserve their "brand." In principle I agree with French - hate speech is so subjective as to be undefinable. In practice, I doubt the techs have the courage to be principled.
1
I agree that it would be useful to emphasize activity that crosses actual legal standards, like the civil law standards of libel. But even better would be rigorous application of criminal law when people commit felony assault by threatening violence against individuals. This is done thousands of times a day and almost never punished (AJ fan Lucy Richards is a rare exception).
Like with workplace rape, the crime of online felony assault needs to be reported and prosecuted en masse. What is tolerated is what defines our civilization. We need to change.
3
I don’t disagree with your premise and I always get nervous when First Amendment rights are messed with. “Hate Speech” is as vague as “Pornography” and will always be subjective.
I don’t recall the name of the justice who once famously said he knows pornography when he sees it. There are certainly a few people who have a different view. It’s subjective, remember.
And yet I think the vast majority of Americans would agree that what Alex Jones traffics in is Hate Speech. Private companies have the right and ability to publish what they want, and so in this case, in my opinion, they got it right.
But between two extremes there is always a gray place, where opinion is evenly divided. And what is the threshold for labeling anything - when 99% are in agreement, 90%, 80%.......? It gets muddy.
And yet something has to be done because a “free marketplace of opinion” does not equate to a “free marketplace of venom.” Even so, social media companies have to tread carefully, and perform a job that probably never occurred to them when they started their platforms.
3
This opinion piece masquerades as neutral legal speak in order to extend the limits of hate. Libel and slander are much easier to prove, you're right, but often hate takes the form of libel and slander, – and this even applies to your beloved "Alliance Defending Freedom," a name that flies in the face of what it preaches. As much as you have tried to defend this group here and elsewhere, it practices not only hate but also libel and slander (against LGBT groups in particular). Your group's libel and slander against people it despises deserves to be exposed and protested, as the Southern Poverty Law Center continues to do. You have tried to mock the SPLC's claims, but you have not actually rebutted any of them and they – and we – still stand against you:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-d...
7
@Respondent The SPLC is the LAST cite anyone should be using anymore as they are an even bigger abusive use of censorship than FB, Apple and Youtube and have been doing it far longer than all 3 combined.
Since Jones was using social media, he had to abide by its rules. He flagrantly violated them and got kicked off several sites. Corporations in "right to work" states can lay off employees if they say or do anything that may be perceived as a risk to the company's reputation. If an employee, for example, posted hate speech (e.g., pro-Aryan Brotherhood screeds) on his FB page, which also notes that he works for "X" Bank, that same bank could fire him because his views are antithetical to "X" Bank's stated policies. Any form of media that does NOT want to associate with hate organizations should enforce this policy. Unfortunately, right-wing hate groups--and the Russians--are experts at weaponizing social media and have brainwashed millions of Americans.
Finally, I remember reading an article in Harper's in the late 1980s about the shadiness of the Southern Poverty Law Center and how it twisted or exaggerated the truth to increase donations through fear-mongering. I lost all respect for that agency's ability to report the truth, and this article shows they haven't changed. I'm glad Mr. French pointed that out.
1
John Stuart Mill, similar to Torqueville, predicted that America would fall into the “tyranny of conformity,” a belief that many Republicans hold (especially against the “liberal media.”) We now live in a world with less genuine freedom of thought. Perhaps one could see the ascent of Trumpism as an attempt to counter this conformity: particularly to focus on those that liberalism has left behind. We now have liberals and conservatives alike picking apart progress from the last decades to determine how it led to so much inequality.
Whether or not statements are true, it’s important that they are readily accessible so people can read them, think about them, and consider them. Doing otherwise would lead to large swings between ideological extremes—as we saw in 2016, 2008, and 2000...well, you get the picture.
24
@Armin - "“tyranny of conformity,” a belief that many Republicans hold...Perhaps one could see the ascent of Trumpism as an attempt to counter this conformity"
I find these ideas utterly bizarre coming from anyone speaking of the "left" as a pejorative.
Speaking of "tyranny of conformity" from those that degrade any Republican that does not conform to right wing dogma as a "RINO"?
Trump's rallies are a perfect example of conformist speech. Listen to the chants. Watch what happens to those that Trump does not like with his attacks on their not conforming.
While the right claims the left is shutting it down the right insists on litmus tests and religious dogma that must be codified into law so that everyone must conform.
As I see it Liberalism seeks to allow all people their freedom, while right wingism sees the freedom of others as an impingement on its freedom and seeks to repress it while maintaining their own.
4
@Armin
Your concluding paragraph makes the argument that without people having access to false statements, "large swings" will happen. No, I don't "get the picture" at all. Why is access to provably false statements necessary to the health of a functioning democracy, civil society?
3
@Armin The problem is people don't discriminate between what is true and what isn't. The internet was hoped to be the great enabler of information dissemination, instead is is the most efficient vehicle yet devised to spread propaganda. The art of critical thinking has been lost by the vast majority of our citizens. How than can we have meaningful elections, much more a rational government?
3
Bah. French's opinion is basically like saying.. "Hey, if you've got a sandwich shop and a particular customer comes in every day and rants in racisist & homophobic hate filled rhetoric, you should tolerate that in the name of free speech until such time as you choose to prosecute that person for libel or slander. "
The rational answer from most good people is- "No. I don't want such an unsavory character in my place of business. Nor is it my responsibility to provide a forum for freedom of speech."
Ease of access does not guarantee access (to public debate). The fact that we are talking about communication companies rather than sandwich shops is completely irrelevant. Alex Jones is free to go back to his little table in the generally avoided corner of the county gun show, peddling hats & pins where I first ran into him, and blabber on senselessly about "black helicopters" and other vague conspiracy theories.
Apple, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and the like are not in any manner obligated to provide him with an amplifier.
2
@Joey The distinction is valid - in the sandwich shop, whether the owner, employee or customer, I'm essentially trapped into listening unless I tell the offending person to leave. If you see Jones' name on the post or video, you don't have to watch - you still have to click it to see or hear.
By your logic, one would have to know what Alex Jones was going to say before clicking the link in order to avoid it. Regardless, both the sandwich shop and social media company are within their rights to remove troublemakers from the premises at their discretion. Jones was not removed for his political affiliation (there are PLENTY of right-leaning podcasts and videos still available on all services), he was removed for his own repeatedly loathsome behavior.
There is a problem with David French's logic in this article. He claims his former employer - Alliance Defending Freedom - is unjustly accused of being a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mainly just based on the ADF's anti-gay policies, referring to the ADF as a hate group is a valid stance. I'm sure the ADF wouldn't qualify their policy as 'hate', they would say they don't hate gays. But, if the ADF believes all LBGTQ people are 'sick', 'perverted' or 'unnatural' individuals who are not deserving of equal status with straight people - how is this any different than labeling black people as 'inferior' or Jews as 'undesirable'? Label it what you want, the SPLC has valid reason to list the ADF as they do.
That said, Mr. French's reasons for banning Alex Jones 'speech' online is one of the most cogent I have yet read. Slander and libel are good reasons for a ban - hate speech is a much more slippery slope. It's not against the law to hate - it IS against the law to commit slander and libel and to defame someone's character. Alex Jones should absolutely be held accountable for the slanderous things he has said, and continues to say.
4
Unconvincing. Desperate times require...NOT modest suggestions or moderate actions. Siren and pariah, Jones' lies and misstatements and innuendo are immoral and dangerous. In a bygone era, conservatives would have denounced the hate and trash spewed by any Jones-like figure. Not today. It seems that conservatives and Republicans want the fan base while they tacitly ignore palaver of a huckster Jones. Alex Jones, a Pap Finn character exploiting the animal interior of his ill-bred followers for profit.
2
Alex Jones, and the many like him, almost exclusively on the right, are vile, loathsome creatures. They are bringing what was once a great country down, solely for their own financial gain and aggrandizement.
4
Hope this one finds its way to the supreme court.
There's a huge flaw in this argument. "Hate speech" covers generalizations about groups. Slander and libel only protect against attacks on specific people.
5
Maybe some people are sick and tired of what is “legal” not corresponding to what is “moral”.
2
@Jts An even greater slippery slope than defining hate speech. Even if I agree with your thought, who gets to decide what is "moral?" In this day and age, I think it's hardly self-evident and certainly doesn't have a consensus.
2
"...Mr. Jones’s content isn’t just morally repugnant, it’s also legally problematic. He makes wild, false claims that may well cross the line into libel and slander."
I had to re-read this to make sure he wasn't referring to Mr Trump. Though of course at one time, and not so long ago, gay speech and writings were considered morally repugnant and were routinely banned.
2
A better way to ban Alex Jones? I've got some ideas!
1
I am frequently a fan of David French, and I share his caution about designating and banning "hate speech".
But I also would be interested in knowing what part of the SPLC description of his group is not true. The accusation goes very far beyond just opposition to gay marriage.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-d...
2
Mr. French, his loathsome organization that demonizes gay people, and all others who want to speak their hateful opinions should be permitted by the government to do so, and by us, privately, not a wit. If a private organization or person removes their service to a hate speaker, it is neither a violation of law or common practice. It's simply the marketplace telling them to shut up.
2
@Doug Be careful what you wish for...what if I'm a "private organization" (baker), and I think the promotion of gay marriage (on my cakes) is "hateful speech" to me and my religious beliefs and fellow such believers? ....Humm.....Who gets to decide what the hate speech is? Do you really want it to be the "marketplace?"
1
@KJS If said private organization is acting in contravention of civil rights laws in the jurisdiction where it does business, by refusing service to people based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc., then it is no longer a matter of the "marketplace." You're confusing two completely different phenomena.
Is hate speech really all that vague? No. But today we live in a world where the President regularly uses hate speech and foments violence wholly unchecked by Congress. Trump should have been impeached for stating that the news media is the enemy of the people. Not for the first time, he fomented violence.
The same goes for Alex Jones. It's one thing when Jones states an opinion that has no basis in fact. It's another thing when he foments violence, which is what he did when he claimed that the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre were using a make-believe massacre to restrict gun rights. Now some of those parents are essentially hunted. We can't put that genie back in the bottle.
That's why it's important that Google, Facebook and Apple pulled much of Jones' content. Suing Jones for slander will not change the direction of the people who follow him - it will embolden them. Free speech is very important. But that's not what Alex Jones is doing. Rather, he's using opinion as a device to foment violence. Same for President Trump. The line is there, clear and evident. Let's not pretend it's vague.
4
i don't think 'hate speech' is that hard to recognize / i can recognize it / just takes a little common sense and being in touch with your own humanity / if alex jones wants an audience for his divisiveness and untruths let him find one but don't facilitate him
3
What is "subjective" can also be "intersubjective" and indeed reflect "community standards". Apple, Facebook and Google should be commended for finally taking a stand and suggesting that the United States could possibly rise above tolerating actual evil in defence of abstract principles. Obviously such is beyond Mr French. Obviously he is right at home in a place that values the First and Second Amendments more than the lives of children - and the right of of adults to not be subject to hate-filled and untruthful discourse. Alex Jones first made his claims about the Sandy Hook shooting nearly four years ago. Has Mr French written to condemn his words in all that time? Yet he is so fast off the mark to criticise the actions of the tech giants in protest against his words. It is a time of refection for Mr French and other signs of this American place and time. This article and its publication is a disgrace.
3
Mr. French misunderstands the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . . ") which prohibits the government from passing laws against freedom of speech.
Apple, Spotify, Facebook & YouTube are NOT the government, they are business entities with the right to regulate how their platforms are used. Mr. French, who in January 2016 said he would vote for Donald TRump, seems to be arguing that hate speech is acceptable, that spreading falsehoods is acceptable, and that commercial enterprises should give platforms & airspace to bullies, liars, gun nuts & flat-Earthers.
French thinks that bullying is fine & good, spreading untruth is fine & good, and that anyone aggrieved should sue for defamation and slander. French may have a law degree, but certainly he has not brought a defamation case in an American court or he would know how useless the defamation laws are. First, the costs of bringing a defamation lawsuit are prohibitive for any normal working person. Next, the defamation laws allow all sorts of exceptions and loopholes so that most defamation cases are thrown out of court. And, next, the plaintiff has to prove damages and it is next to impossible to prove that income was lost as a direct result of the defamation.
Mr. Jones can be as ugly & toxic as he wants. He can stand on the street corner and shout his lies. But no business owes him a platform for undermining democracy and the truth.
6
I'm glad that the writer called out the SPLC, but that has been a questionable and biased attack dog of the politically correct as long as I can remember. With the substantial sums they have amassed to sue or "expose" those they arbitrarily target, the oxymoronically named "poverty" center should itself be the target of more lawsuits. It's also just as toxic an organization as its targets are.
1
Hate speech is taught early. Here's an antidote that more young students should see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJE1vY2r3Z4&t=25s
1
We are a nation of laws. But our constitution does not cover the chaos, the degredation and deterioration of our commonwealth caused by the words of Jones. His disinformation, misinformation and hateful demonstrably lying rhetoric serve to confuse and divide the American public. He is a danger to our commonwealth and the constitution. We will be damned fools if we accept the theory that the First Amendment allows speech which is designed to destroy the First Amendment.
5
I think we all know the difference between an opinion, a vile opinion, and a lie.
Donald Trump is ugly: an opinion.
God exists: not a provable fact, but an acceptable opinion since not all facts are knowable. (200 years ago would anyone have believed that there could be invisible radio waves in the air that could travel around the world in an instant?)
All Muslims are terrorists: a lie because it's a knowable fact that not all Muslims are terrorists.
As much as we detest certain opinions, what we need to focus on are lies.
Alex Jones is not only a huge peddler of lies, but he's a peddler of egregious lies that incite other people to engage in threatening behavior. He should have been banned from social media a long time ago. What took those sites so long?
3
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water Mr. French. SPLC has done important work of exposing hate groups across the land for decades. Your complaint just minded me to send them a check! Thanks.
2
Per Mr. French and the ADF, Christians can turn away LGBTQ customers based on "faith," but a private, for profit company can't? Ahhh....I forgot, only Christians have ethics to abide by.
3
David, are you going to represent future Alex Jones's
pro bono?
1
Didn't Socrates practice "hate speech" against the polis?
The Left is reverting to its totalitarian roots and needs eradicated. Utterly eradicated.
2
Alex Jones isn't the problem; we are. The blue wave we hope for may be a simple illusion of optimistic thinking. We might just find instead a red tide. Alex Jones and Donald Trump represent the worst in all of us, and apparently there is more bad than we'd like to admit. We wonder how Nazi Germany could have happened in the twentieth century, but fail to see what we ourselves are doing in the twenty-first. As much as I hate to admit it, Trump knows us better than we know ourselves, and he's capitalizing on that knowledge. We'd like to think that his racism appeals only to his base, but that's not true. It cuts a wide swath across all America. Pogo was right: We have met the enemy and the enemy is us. SAD!
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
1
This is rich, considered Mr. Nawaz is a former Islamist turned Muslim reformer.
Why, what they did was wrong?
I expected to read a nuanced or reflexive proposal about how to deal with professional trolls like Jones, given the risk that they use the ban as an example that superficially supports everything they've said about being persecuted truth tellers.
Instead the author decided that, of all the issues this case raises, the most important, most pressing response is to . . . . attack social justice organizations. Right. Makes total sense. Because Alex Jones isn't the problem, the alt-Right and their deliberate, cynical trolling using free speech arguments aren't the problem, the um, the Southern Poverty Law Center is the problem? Really?! This is a totally cynical and frankly off topic framing of the issue, seemingly rooted in Mr French's own past gripes and conservative agenda.
It's reframing the debate to blame those who, however imperfectly, are trying to stand up to far-right groups, not those groups themselves and the ecology of hate they have nurtured. It's advancing a rather cynical use of the First Amendment, pushed by conservatives, that has nothing to do with liberty but is now claiming to be 'objective' unlike the apparently 'subjective' positions of anyone else. It's promising a 'better way' and then only offers a passing suggestion of libel to that end. Cynical, sad, stupid.
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/us/politics/first-amendment-conservat...
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-the-Right-Weaponized-Free/242142
3
I wish it was Just Infowars. I wish it was just Alex Jones. But there is a whole universe of this political propaganda. I've been overhearing talk radio spreading crazy theories way before 2016.
Just for fun, go check out infowars.com and be prepared to shake your head in disgust. If this is just opinion (as Jones' lawyers call it) then go look at the site and see if this reads like "opinion" to you. The advertisements about "Hillary's evil plans for 2020" are deeply disturbing and since it's advertising you have to wonder what the monetary incentive is for all this garbage.
1
Alex Jones is one of the most repugnant and vile people on the planet. Anyone who goes around saying that Sandy Hook was a hoax gives up their right to free speech. Rights come with obligations.
3
Here is the link to a more recent article on the SPLC by Ken Silverstein that asserts how fraudulent this organization has become, especially when you look at how they manipulate people to increase donations. It now has around $200 Million in its coffers: https://harpers.org/blog/2010/03/hate-immigration-and-the-southern-pover...
Three points Mr. French:
1. It took me less than a minute cruising the website for Alliance Defending Freedom to find advocacy for criminalizing homosexuality --advocating jailing of people you don't like surpasses the bar for hate speech.
2. You advocate using the legal system to combat speech restrictions you don't like. Well, have at it my friend. If ADF doesn't like being labeled practitioners of hate speech, get your lawyers together and sue SPLC. Let us know how that works out for you.
3. Bullying and harassing behavior has been the specialty of right wing organizations for 2 generations --since Ron Reagan showed the way in the 1980's. You didn't mind it one bit until it has started to be turned on you in recent years. Reap what you sow, son!
6
I get that he's an immoral opportunist ... what I can't wrap my head around is the support he gets from, presumably, "intelligent" people. They can't all be lunatics, how do they believe something so demented.
1
You own a business. Do you want your ads running on Alex Jones?
SPLC lists provide cover for a business decision that was always going to happen.
1
Can we please dispense with this notion of "free speech"? Words create. What they create bears a price. Those who speak them must be willing to bear it. If your words create beauty and peace, the price will be far easier to pay than if they create ugliness and division. Mr. Jones sowed the wind. So now reap the whirlwind.
4
This opinion piece masquerades as pragmatic, neutral legalese in order to extend the limits of hate in other ways.
Libel and slander may be easier to define than hate speech, but French ignores the fact that hateful defamation can also take the form of libel and slander. Indeed, this even applies French’s own beloved "Alliance Defending Freedom.” As much as French has tried to defend this right-wing, anti-LGBT religious group, it practices not only hate speech but also libel and slander in order to advocate for discrimination.
Spokespeople from this group have supported the criminalization of homosexuality, the sterilization of transgender people, the overturning of same-sex marriage rights, and attempts to define homosexuality in terms of pedophilia. Defamatory claims are well-documented, including:
“The endgame of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent.”—ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley, 2014
“The issue under rational-basis review is […] whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. It clearly is.”
—ADF attorney Glen Lavy, 2003
While the SPLC has apologized for its apparent mischaracterization of Maajid Nawaz, a fact not acknowledged in this piece, French and the ADF have yet to apologize to the LGBT community or make amends. Those of us who care about real freedom for all continue to stand against their defamation as well as their hate.
3
There's only one way to deal with racists and fearmongers: hit them in the pocketbooks!!!
1
Jones lies. Jones lies loud and repeatedly. Goebbels said that's how you get people to believe the lies. It's why shots were fired in a pizza parlor to stop Hillary's child sex ring.
Jones did not apologize loud and repeatedly to the Chobani Company when he had to pay them for his lies. He mumbled, in a low voice, a barely civil apology. Once.
A private company does not have to give a platform to lies. When Jones provides evidence proof of his allegations, I am sure these platforms will check to see if they fit their journalistic standards and then maybe give them air time.
Ah, yes, commentary from a writer for the National Review, whose lead story on its webpage right now asks the immortal question "How can Americans now trust the intelligence agencies shown to be corrupt in the very recent past?". Corrupt! Meaning that the intelligence agencies failed to give credibility to the usual conservative tropes.
Not hateful like Infowars to be sure but crazy and reckless nonetheless.
Another example of the Times losing its bearings.
win some, lose some. Sounds to me like frenchie is using jones as an excuse to hit the southern pov. law ctr. The rest is fluff. It's what a hitman uses to sound intellectual.
2
It’s hard to tell whether Mr. French is playing the role here of a “First Amendment litigator,” or defender of the gay-bashing organization he shamefully represented. He wants you to think it’s the former. To be clear, if you attack the equal rights of gay persons, you are dehumanizing them and you are a bigot.
2
Facially reasonable thesis. Except when so-called innocent victims of the SPLC's list which are such obvious spewers of hate under the umbrella of religiosity are named. They know how to skirt libel and slander laws and they will tie up such suits or published objections to their campaigns of lies and misinformation (trauma by dogma) with SLAPP suits (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) and their own libel and slander of groups they deem unworthy of being full participants in 100% of American life. It used to be the ACLU that was seen as the big bully toward the right's all to enthusiastic initiatives to deprive folks of their Constitutionally granted liberties; now it is the SPLC. If the "victims" of the SPLC have been mischaracterizized, then let them prove it by denouncing their past errors.
2
If you really want to help the Sandy Hook victims in their legal battle against Jones, they have a GoFundMe to defer legal costs, that is far below its goal: https://www.gofundme.com/honrlegalfund
This is the best way to fight Jones and his crazy followers.
There are a lot of think pieces being written by the people at the moment who need to do more research about Alex Jones. He has decades worth of Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; fluoride in the water, 9/11, global warming, the war on terror - every real or perceived issues is ultimately the fault of Soros, the Rothschilds, Israel, the Zionists, or the international bankers. Mr. French sites The Daily Stormer as vile; Infowars is nothing more than the Daily Stormer with a little bit of camouflage. It's hate speech, nothing more, and has absolutely nothing to do with the "marketplace of ideas"
2
The religious conservative/Putin's NRA-Republican part of the U.S.A is fascinatingly Judicial deceptive and ALWAYS (Careful Kiddos, I can prove said pretty well on case-example Ohio!) deadly genocidal discriminating in their white-washed utilization of Constitutional Free Speech and GOP' banal "Bullying"/ hate-crimes laws. Why?
First of all: USA' primitive 17th Century's Free Speech never includes paid-for and hate-crimes violence-induced Advertisements! (Neither did the similar old U.S. white supremacists' rights to bear arms included anything more than single-shooters FYI)
Thus When-ever you pay for, fund, profit mainly from and advertise with falsehoods and hate-baiting lies ( aka fake news), fake science, obstruction and omission of facts and reality, all business and religious ethnocentric males-fanaticism related money-deals and Ads - be them Facebook or in TV "News" based on ethnic, religious fundamentalism, gender-,status-, "race"- divisive religious white supremacy particular as ongoing politically in violently armed societies as the U.S.A, and as the NRA repeatedly advertised & funded, clearly all increased U.S.A' fake news-instigated White school-shooters, violent religious terrorism and trigger-happy ALEC-republican police-officers-led homicidal genocidal shooting Black people and "illegal "Mexicans , then claiming that your most-deadliest White GOP-lies as FREE Speech shows only that the U.S.A of today is just a Nazi system!
Best
A.E.
Projectheureka LLC
French just wrote an attack piece on the SPLC diguised as a commentary on Alex Jones.
Where did the Alex Jones issue morph into a comment on the SPLC - Nawaz lawsuit and settlement?
French makes an unbalanced argument that hate groups dressed up as religions (the groups he has represented) are unfairly labeled by the SPLC.
But even a brief review of the Conservative Christian Right exhibits Confederate flags next to Crosses, and swastikas - Exhibit A, The photos of Charlottesville during Unite the Right
protests, all while demonstrating open carry AR-15s and chanting 'Jews will not replace us'.
French is just trying to make the hate palatble.
4
I appreciate Mr. French's recognition of the "American traditions of respect for free speech and the marketplace of ideas." As an academic, I deeply value these traditions too.
However, there are also traditions of imposing guidelines on this marketplace of ideas to insure that discussions are respectful of, and appropriate for, as broad an audience as possible. For example, the FCC regulates broadcasts to prevent profanity, explicit sexual content, graphic descriptions of violence, etc. Most newspaper and magazine editorial policies are even more extensive.
It is true that social media platforms will need to think very carefully about how they define their standards for the acceptable expression of ideas and that these standards will continue to evolve. But, then again, that is true of all decency standards.
As much as I am an advocate for the free expression of ideas in the public sphere, I'm not quite ready to give up on rules for a civil, respectful, appropriate exchange of ideas. I suspect that underneath his free-speech facade, Mr. French isn't either. Let's be honest and make this the starting point for the discussion.
2
I can't believe I am writing this, but I agree with David French's analysis here! The companies would be better to focus on the statements Jones has made about the victims of shootings and Obama and Hillary and ban him on those grounds. Hate speech can be in the eye of the beholder. It still allows them to address the pages / videos / sites of groups such as ADF as well since such groups often engage in the same slander of people.
Dangerous times on the internet, not the biggest fan of Jones but still... he's mostly just an entertainer. Banning him just "proves" to his followers that he was right the whole time and they are scared of him. What a stupid thing to do. Let's give him massive media coverage *SMH*. Maybe he was right about some conspiracies... guess we're about to find out depending on how this story plays out.
2
This is a great idea in principle, but the tech companies will fight it like hell. For them, the ambiguity of their policies is a feature, not a bug.
If they actually committed to policing libel and slander, it would cost them a fortune. It's hard enough to find cheap labor that will identify and remove violence and pornography; now you're going to ask a bunch of unskilled workers to adjudicate libel and slander complaints from every country on earth?
Facebook et al. certainly could rely on libel or slander as a justification for banning malefactors, but given the costs, enforcement would be just as uneven—and effectively arbitrary—as it is today. The only thing that will convince companies to spend money moderating their content is exposure to legal jeopardy, which means new legislation. And even then, the cost associated with policing content would likely force a lot of services to take draconian preventative measures, or shut down entirely. Which would probably be a net loss for public discourse and freedom of speech, even if get to put Alex Jones in the "wins" column.
1
Aha! National Review. I was wondering what conservative rag or think tank this author came from.
"Rather than applying objective standards that resonate with American law and American traditions of respect for free speech and the marketplace of ideas, the companies applied subjective standards that are subject to considerable abuse."
So what? Let me guess, you don't have a problem with the fact that "religious freedom" defenses to following the rules of society use a subjective standard that is subject to considerable abuse, do you? Or do you believe that the courts always examine and carefully consider whether religious beliefs are sincerely held, are substantially burdened, and are not simply a pretext for discriminatory beliefs?
1
French's argument takes an unconvincing turn when he says the "malleability" of the "hate speech" label could soon be turned on Ben Shapiro and others. I was curious, so I checked: Ben Shapiro currently has 250,000 subscribers on Youtube. Fox has 1.5 million. Alex Jones was clearly inciting violence and much of his content was obviously not factual at all and he had no staff gathering facts. I see no problem in making the judgement call that conservatives who respect facts and don't urge violence can use the services Youtube and others are providing -- at great cost -- for free. Under French's standard, as I understand it, if I own a newspaper, I have to let ISIS publish any editorial they want, at my cost. Let's get back to common sense on some of these things.
It was cheap to ban Alex Jones this way. Your approach, a long court case, is expensive. I am happy not to waste money on lawyers and Alex Jones.
3
It is interesting how the roles are reversed: defending the rights of the businesses (Facebook, YouTube, Google) would be the more conservative move. Alex Jones is not really "conservative" anyway, nor is he liberal. He is just inflammatory. I defy you to argue that Jones' conspiratorial beliefs concerning Sandy Hook would have been supported by Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, or any other sane member of the GOP. Furthermore, the Americans who are Jones' audience are generally the sort of gun-toting individualists who would hunt somebody down and shoot them for slandering their name and the memory of their murdered child, and really who could blame them if they did? If Jones ends up penniless after a lawsuit on behalf of the parents, he will have gotten off lightly in my opinion.
But who cares? Private companies can make whatever content rules they wish AND may apply them in whatever manner they wish. The First Amendment only applies to the GOVERNMENT oppressing speech and/or censorship. Private companies can make their own rules for any reason. FINALLY, false information peddling is being shown the door!
1
I disagree. There are no subtleties to the hate speech on InfoWars. There is no slippery slope here. The hate speech is there for everyone to see. It is intended to incite the worst possible reactions in people, including harassment and violence. And the person who knows this better than anyone else is Alex Jones. He knows that he is manipulating and distorting the intent of the First Amendment for his own gain , which is money and a certain kind of repulsive notoriety. He is using the First Amendment and a false argument about opinion vs. fact as a cover for his hate-spewing engine. Alex Jones uses the First Amendment the same way a killer uses a child as a shield from the police - so that he can escape from any consequences. His hate speech is neither fact nor opinion; it's hate speech. I would thank big tech for taking him off of their public platforms, but I'm still angry that they've wasted so many years trying to deny the obvious. FaceBook, Apple, YouTube, and Twitter have done incalculable harm to our society by giving people like Alex Jones a public platform for even one day, let alone years.
We all recognize vicious, hateful lies when we see or hear them, so why have we let Alex Jones and others do a number on us with the slippery slope catchall? Alex Jones and Trump are here, in part, because we have twisted ourselves into pretzels to avoid using our moral reason and appear "neutral."
2
I was disappointed by this column. When I saw the words "libel" and "slander", I was hoping for an explanation of how such legally precise and sometimes difficult to prove terms could be used against Alex Jones and others of the lunatic fringe. However, what I found seemed to be much more a criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mr. French did not spend much time on application of the nuances of laws against slander and libel.
1
This is a poorly reasoned piece for several reasons. First, the mere fact that libel and slander have "legal meanings" doesn't render them any more objective than terms that do not carry independent legal significance. One needn't have a law degree to define terms clearly. And even assuming that the current implementation of the "hate speech" standard is "wholly subjective," we can simply formulate a better way to implement an anti-hate speech policy on our private platforms. We needn't abandon the concept altogether.
Second, and more importantly, libel/slander do not serve the same goals as an anti-hate speech policy. For starters, if a person simply publishes racist opinions, there would be no recourse for those harmed. If the goal of an anti-hate speech policy is to remove platforms for racist opinions, then libel/slander are inadequate.
Finally, while the First Amendment's bar against government censorship is designed in part to encourage an open marketplace of ideas, the lack of any such bar against private censorship is designed to encourage the marketplace to function well. Mr. French makes it seem terrifying that ideas that fail to comport with "ever-shifting norms in language and culture" are allowed to sink in the marketplace. But that notion assumes wrongly that there is ever one, monolithic language/culture norm; there isn't. Even if there were, they'd still have no right to a bullhorn.
2
Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy group that focuses on developing and carrying out impact litigation intended to curtail civil rights.
The front of its webpage displays an article titled "How to Make Planned Parenthood Throw a Fit" with the byline "Planned Parenthood displays a remarkable enthusiasm for two things: abortion and taxpayer dollars." Mature. Honest.
It's raison d'etre is to force me to bear a child against my will. Or to keep gay couples from marrying. Hardly a charity. Hardly mainstream. Terrible organization.
2
@C's Daughter
Yet, hardly "hate speech."
To paraphrase a former SC Justice, I can't define hate speech but I know it when I see it.
2
@jeff, Why then you can simply set the standard for all 325 million of us!
1
They didn’t ban him per se, they just decided not to carry his incoherent ramblings and racist rhetoric. It’s a business decision , they decided he wasn’t worth the server space .
2
Do you how hard it is in this country to successfully sue someone for slander and/or libel? Of course you do.
2
For racist speech or hate speech, we can follow Justice Stewart's standard in Jacobellis v. Ohio: "I know it when I see it".
2
I'm sure Broadway producers and Hollywood suits would love to know how the "Deep State" can somehow hire dozens of actors and not have one of them discuss their work with anyone!
Gee, for all of you Alex Jones haters, you all seem to watch his channel a lot. I'm not a big fan of Alex, but i often find a grain of truth in what he is reporting. A lot of time he sounds like chicken little, but he does cover stories you don't get elsewhere.
He does not work for these tech co. and they have no right to sensor him, unless he is repeatedly committing illegal acts. ALLOW ALEX JONES BACK!
1
@Tom Atlandis
There was a lovely, polite gentleman in Germany some years ago. Like me, he was a vegetarian who loved dogs and children. Grains of truth.
He also murdered millions and started a war that took the lives of millions more.
I don't get the time from a stopped clock even though it's right 2x a day.
1
@Lawyermom Sounds like your clock has stopped. This is not Nazi Germany and this is supposed to be a free country. I don't know of any conservative who has any plans to start a war or slaughter millions. I so hope most conservatives eat meat. Its healthy.
With its militant anti-LBGTQ positions and programs both here and overseas, many would argue that the SPLC did not make such a large mistake by branding Alliance Defending Freedom as a hate group, no matter how it drapes itself with the language of traditional British jurisprudence.
2
One cannot help but enjoy the spectacle of a "senior writer for National Review" offering advice on how to decapitate Alex Jones. They're colleagues, after all, when you get down to it.
2
So, hate speech should be regarded as something fungible, comparable in its ever-changing, amorphous nature to, perhaps, pornography? One knows it (or not) when they see it/hear it? Not so fast. Mr. French writes a slick piece, but the intent is clearly to 'relativize' hate speech. Granted, unlike libel and slander, hate speech may currently have no legal meaning, as Mr. French writes, however, it does have very clear historical meaning, which also comes with a body count. Bluntly put, Mr. French, hate speech is no mere language game.
1
These companies are private enterprises not governmental. As such they can impose whatever standards that they choose and screen material as they see fit. As to the First Amendment I do not think it was adopted with hate speech in mind or the internet. The best way to handle a jerk like Jones is to ignore him, make him spend his own capital on a server, a website and the maintenance thereof. Any company or group that wishes to pay to advertise on his sight can be singled out by a consumer and boycotted if he or she so desires, American capitalism at work. How much more conservative than that can you get.
1
This is why critical thinking should be taught in public schools.
4
Interesting article till I got to the part about the author being associated with the ADF (then noticed he also works for the National Review) and saw it devolving into a hit/grudge piece on the Southern Poverty Law Center. Skimmed the rest quickly. While the SPLC is not perfect and makes mistakes, it still has a lot of credibility.
Let the market, not the courts decide. If these companies don't want their platforms used to disseminate this vile garbage, it's their right (and some would argue their responsibility/obligation) to bar it (as the author points out). Libel & slander are high bars, and costly & time consuming to achieve.
Let the marketplace sort it out, if enough folks are not happy with the companies' actions they'll vote with their devices. Somehow I doubt they'll take much of a hit. But then again I was sure there were not enough extremists in the country to elect Trump.
And Mr. French, I somehow doubt that Amazon booted the ADF from the Smile program based on its SPLC rating, but rather on ADF's anti-gay and religious extremist activities. Smile is for true charitable organizations, not ones that foment division, divisiveness and exclusion.
3
Mr. French gets a lot of things right with this article.
But while applying the standards of libel and slander may be the best way to handle the bulk of controversial expressions on the internet, Big Tech shouldn't have to be so stringent when dealing with such cretinous individuals as Alex Jones. Just boot that creep outta there!
He hits on a very important consideration, however, and that is the weaponizing of the term "hate" or "hate speech." "Hate" has become so cheapened by overuse, such as has the word "racist," that it has started to lose its meaning. It's merely another way for lefties to demonize and shut down any idea that doesn't comport with their latest social justice orthodoxy. "Hate" is a deeply consuming emotion. Think red face and a desire for violence. Now, if you simply indicate the fact that a transwoman is actually a biological male, for instance, you are called "hateful."
1
Nice try, Mr. French. The next time you submit an op-ed to the New York Times, why don't you tell us what you and the organizations you support are really up to.
Perhaps you are no Alex Jones, but you do have something to lose if social media choose not to propagate your own version of hate speech.
Any lawyer knows that libel is very difficult to prove. A libel standard would be quite convenient for all sorts of propagators of hatred who are clever enough to stop short of personalized attacks while they denigrate entire groups of people.
The persecution the parents of these children have had to endure from Alex Jones and his supporters is tragic and he should be punished for it. Yes, punished, since it is not merely tortious but plainly criminal, and any just society would punish him.
The persecution LGBTQ youth have had to endure from the likes of the Family Research Council and ADF has driven countless people to suicide. These groups may stop short of outright libel, but they have plenty of blood on their hands.
I doubt that many of us in the United States want the government or any particular watchdog organization censoring social media. But are you seriously afraid that one particular watchdog (with which you plainly have an axe to grind) will somehow capture social media and get your message banned? And even if it did, you'd still be shouting it out from the pulpits and plastering us with it with direct mail.
3
Why doesn't the Department of Justice provide guidelines this clear!
Mr. French is providing all Americans practical insights into the Bill of rights and the First Amendment.
Alex Jones is a sick cowboy,
and his poison harms all Americans, particularly those with less education, and those who grow up in a racist family or community.
1
"there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform"
Are you listening, you wonderful people running Twitter???
1
Alex Jones banned- huge win. David French- "but but it's messy" Mr French did nothing more than plunge into semantics. Who cares about reasoning. As we look to recover from this era of idiocy and conspiracy we need to shut down players like Jones as fast we we possible can. In this instance messy is fine.
2
French wants to use his former employer, the Alliance for Freedom, as an example of an organization that he believes could be inappropriately muzzled on platforms like Facebook. But he isn't very forthcoming about how the Alliance for Freedom landed on the SPLC's list. The SPLC spells out the reasons on its website and it amounts to a litany of actions and statements by Alliance for Freedom leaders identifying homosexuals with pedophilia; supporting state criminalization of homosexual activity; and otherwise demonizing gay people. None of the statements cited by SPLC look like a serious religious belief and many come very close to being hate speech. So perhaps French is right to be concerned about the impact of hate speech policies on organizations like Alliance for Freedom. Now, perhaps French should make the case for a private company like Facebook having an obligation to allow Alliance for Freedom to use its platform to spread those beliefs.
4
We are in a New Frontier with perhaps unforeseeable outcomes when it comes to this technology but we can also debate nuance while the inherent simplicity of what is happening burns the world around us. This is the least that can and should happen. That it has taken this long and that he actually has an audience braying in protest is the more profound problem.
1
Mr. French,
Whether a statement is libelous or slanderous, legally, says nothing of whether it is ethical. A good many things said and written are neither libel or slander, but nonetheless reprehensible and capable of inciting violence.
But you know that, which leaves me to conclude you are merely urging restraint for them.
I too urge them to restrain themselves, from firing workers who discuss compensation in their own workplace. I find no good reason for the US worker to be without his right to free speech in the labor market.
So I agree that these platforms have some work to do with respect to free speech. And that must include looking inward.
1
Mr. French should delve a little deeper into, for example, Facebook's policies rather than taking Ben Shapiro's word for it.
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech
He appears to have left out most of the definition, either because he did not care to do thorough research (which would be a dysfunctional habit for a litigator) or because his point is easier to make the more vague the policy seems. Either way, at least Facebook puts a finer point on it than the author would have you believe.
2
It appears that the public marketplace of ideas has been privatized.
4
@zebra123 Please tell me when it was not so.
1
I’ve never read or listened to Alex Jones. From what I hear about him, I’ve developed the impression that he’s a very sloppy Rush Limbaugh on steroids (I don’t listen to Limbaugh, either). I also get the impression that while Ann Coulter says outrageous things to get a rise out of her ideological adversaries and to get a guffaw (she succeeds through MANY best-selling books, and she copiously footnotes her statements), Jones may actually believe the stuff he posts as literal truth (I may have read everything Ann Coulter has written professionally, her books and her Nation column, and I’m a huge fan).
From what’s been written over the last few days about Alex Jones, the guy appears to be an intentional bomb-thrower with NO redeeming qualities to the content he offers. It appears to be hate speech, pure and simple. So, while “Big Tech” doesn’t have a bright line for determining what “hate speech” is and what is merely objectionable material that offends most people, I have less problem than Mr. French does with them removing his material from their sites.
But Mr. French has a point. Where does “hate speech” become what merely offends some moderator because it challenges her verities? And how can a moderation staff apply any semblance of uniformity in such judgments across many moderators, each with a different set of sensibilities, and literally millions of posts? Where does universal revulsion morph into selective gagging? Where does incitement …
1
… morph into presentation of alternate views? For an Alex Jones, concerted analysis can be focused by a content engine and a consensus decision developed; but for millions of people?
It doesn’t appear to be a legal issue. These engines reserve the right to ban any content, and it’s their company’s engine. It really is a question of these organizations understanding that a free exchange of ideas, which most participants want, requires that views disagreeable to some must be granted or the engine risks becoming merely a platform for emphasizing harmonized viewpoints, losing relevance as a forum in consequence. Yet it’s not a First amendment issue, either, unless we’re going to require private companies to publish everything they receive.
There need to be tight guidelines for determining unacceptable material that are well-understood by participants, moderators need to be well-trained in them, and their performance to such guidelines needs to be measured.
1
@Richard Luettgen
The idea that Ann Coulter has"redeeming qualities" that Alex Jones lacks is ludicrous. They both simply preach to their respective choirs for a paycheck.
3
@Brad Blumenstock
As do Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
You’re not factoring in the importance for a company of doing something (or looking like it’s doing something) about whatever this week’s controversy is, so it can clear the decks and move on.
1
I respectfully disagree.
Freedom of speech is based on the basic human right for protection of human dignity. It is therefore an absurdity to play the “freedom of speech” card to try to protect any person who publicly incites hatred or discrimination against other people, as such action infringes the basic human right, protection of human dignity, from which the right for freedom of speech is derived in the first place.
3
This is a very thought-provoking piece. I wonder how Mr. French reconciles it with his Twitter experience and his comments on NPR's Fresh Air program:
https://www.npr.org/2016/10/26/499440089/harassed-on-twitter-people-need...
In that interview, he speaks of reporting hateful attacks to Twitter and getting them to ban certain users. How does this differ from the Alex Jones situation?
He also suggests that entrepreneurs could create an alternative to Twitter that, somehow, keeps hateful speech to a minimum. Isn't this what "Big Tech" is doing? Aren't they just acting in the entrepreneurial spirit that Mr. French suggests, but rather than starting new platforms, improving their existing ones?
14
The Constitution says that government cannot limit speech or press. This extends to public institutions like public schools. Private companies, homes, or private internet sites are under no obligation to offer free speech.
1
@Vicki He makes the same point. Jones is free to spew his bile. Companies are free to ban him for it.
This seems to be a slippery slope fallacy, and i call it out as one. As has been said, these are private companies, and while the internet may be open, websites are not.
The issue is the type of content that Alex Jones and his ilk generate won't disappear. It'll move to harder to track sites that won't have the sort of public pressure that facebook and others face to divulge its content and practices. What'll we do then, will we even care?
Let them have their speech, and then have to pay for it. In court, in the public sphere. Banning them will only make them stronger.
@chris q Except that when Daily Stormer was banned, it had to move to the Dark Net, where is far, far more difficult for someone to stumble across it. In effect, Andrew Anglin is now limited to preaching to the choir.
Yelling fire in a crowded theater.
Back in the Al Franken, Air America days, I'd listen to Mark Levin to hear how the other side was regurgitating the days talking points. Someone called that made Levin instantly switch gears. It was an eleven-year-old boy, who agreed with his right-wing parents but was very nervous and upset with what he'd been hearing on talk radio. Levin told the boy that his show and others were primarily entertainment. That they gin up the rhetoric to hold onto their audience to sell advertising. Levin was honest and forthright and realized the effect he had on this young listener. What he did at that moment was write a disclaimer. Levin, a lawyer, handled the boy in a mature responsible way.
These programs all need disclaimers recited and posted many times. That they are commercial first, they are not news, they do not confirm their stories and that opinion is not fact. "Crisis actor" speech should be criminalized as harmful.
You can draw a straight line from today's corporate SCOTUS wins to the Lewis Powell memo of 1971. All of this "us or them" media/internet nonsense is a great national distraction to what is the real behind the scenes harm; voter disenfranchisement, unlimited and anonymous campaign finance which leads to court stacking which gives you Gorsuch plus one.
Read the memo. Mr. French, the Right is using the courts against us with one of our favorites, the First Amendment.
4
@Mike B Jones tried the same defense when he was called to task after someone went to the DC pizza parlor with a rifle after Jones promoted the "Pizzagate" nonsense.
An agent provocateur is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act.
It is not the individual words or their meaning that are at issue. It is the intent of the speaker that is the key to deciding what is appropriate and what is not.
50
@Bobp3000
"It is the intent of the speaker that is the key to deciding what is appropriate and what is not."
Intent is a very slippery slope. What you're saying, perhaps without realizing it, is that the speaker cannot decide what his or her intent is -- only listeners can. Trust me, you don't want that. It can bite you in the rear very quickly. Tell your wife/friend/boss, "No, that's not your intent. Your intent is to sow divisiveness, etc."
Intent is far too subjective: it's in the eye of the beholder, and many of your allies would have different explanations of one's intent.
What is my intent here?
@Bobp3000
shall we apply that standard fairly or just to those perceived on the right How about the cow the NYTs is circling wagons around calling all white men "dogs" ? You might wish to ask a Korean what such allusions convey for them culturally before you answer. What was her intent ? one can only imagine Your comment is beside the point we don't need big brother or media to weigh in here. Make up your own mind and read and view what you wish to. You don't have to be concerned about it for others. I for one can easily take care of myself.
1
@Bobp3000
Knowing another person’s intent is very difficult and others can easily intentionally mis-interpret words and action to paint another with having bad intent.
Until mind reading technology is perfected a better standard is needed to decide who is blocked from a platform.
I guess most rational Americans agree that Alex Jones is detestable. If he were standing on my doorstep spouting his filth, he wouldn't be there long.
If, on the other hand, he chose to stand at a road intersection doing it I'd simply drive on by choosing not to listen.
I "drive on by" places like Twitter and Facebook to avoid the likes of Jones.
A pet phrase these days is "false equivalence" but here goes anyway:
I'd rather have Jones spouting off in semi-dark corners of the Internet than festering in a dark, unreachable corner.
Think of it as the 21st century version of the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. Let the sun shine in, it's a disinfectant.
And, if he breaks the law even a little bit, sue him until he squeals and then sue him some more. Just let me know here to contribute.
6
A very simple step the Nation should take in regards to what is seen on the air, on the net, in political ads, in print: the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated, reinterpreted, and applied to anyone making use of or money from the dissemination of information available to anyone else.
If you want to print or broadcast lies you need to leave a space for someone else to tell the truth.
If we think we can live in a civilized society where everyone gets to make up their own reality we have another think coming.
3
@Bob Laughlin So every time the Time has an editorial, it has to invite someone to try to refute it. Your idea won't work in the real world.
The claim that the Alliance Defending Freedom is not a hate group is weak. ADF has defended Jack Phillips the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. I realize that he won his case in the Supreme Court, but a few more decisions like that and A lot of people might begin to consider the SC majority a hate group.
1
Speaking as a millennial, gay, married man - just because you don’t agree with my marriage or lifestyle does not mean you are a hate group.
Hate is a very strong term and to throw it around casually reduces its power. Neo-Nazis are hate groups, non-violent bakers who don’t like gay people are not a hate group. There is a difference between not being an empathetic person (the baker) and being a hater group (A Nazi).
I’m not going to buy anything, wedding cakes or cup cakes, from a non-pro gay marriage baker and I hope the majority of Americans will act the same way. Let this baker’s business fail because he doesn’t serve the community as they want; let his children see what a bad outcome life gives you when you aren’t tolerant. But let’s not make false equivalencies between bakers and Nazis.
2
As others have mentioned, it isn't really Alex Jones and his kind that worry me-it's that he and his kind seem to garner so many followers that concerns me. Sure, Trump routinely tells lies about immigrants taking away all the jobs and committing all the crimes, that climate change isn't real, that tariffs and eliminating regulations will bring back the coal and steel jobs, etc., so to some extent caution is warranted when authorities tell us the 'facts.' But anyone with half a brain should know that Alex Jones is a total fraud-we should not need to silence him. Our problem as a nation is that there seem to be many people with less than half a brain.
197
@Leo About thirty percent of Americans graduate from college. Almost 10% drop out of high school. At those rates, it's no wonder many people seem to have "half a brain." Alex Jones has a loud low booming voice, generally regarded as authoritative. He has been given numerous platforms which legitimize him and his message. Finally, a lot of people *want to believe him, because it confirms what they already believe, something we New York Times readers are guilty of as well. I agree many Americans have half a brain, but I would argue it is easier to control the guy yelling fire in the crowded theatre than the thoughts of everyone else in the theatre.
@Jacquelyn Chappel You touched on the fundamental problem: we all migrate to the news sources that validate our view of the world. I don't have a solution to that problem. But in a world where the definition of 'fake' news is anything negative about Trump, it seems dangerous to start talking about censorship. There is an irony here-Alex Jones is being censored, but it was actually Donald Trump who made Alex Jones a household name. If there is anyone we should be trying to censor, it's Donald Trump! Hopefully, we can do that legitimately in 2020.
@Leo
I use the term "egotism" to describe this phenomenon. Elsewhere - including in my country - it is also true, but in the US more than anywhere else; it is very competitive and individualistic; there is immense pressure on young people to adopt an identity early; they absorb the belief and are subject to the judgement that they are their opinions; and the default position is to defend them/their self/ego and not grow further as a person through further reflection/education. It's not that they have "half a brain" - it's that their brains don't get filled enough, with beliefs of quality. Knowing you are always not as good as you could be is the most important thing you can know. Socrates - the father of our civilisation - said: "I only know that I do not know."
1
This is all we really need to know: Private corporations can ban whoever they like
Really your piece is a rant against the SPLI. Have we become so full of this hate that we can't see that Jones should be banned? Sad times indeed.
7
The Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) is really just the Alliance for Defending Bigotry and Discrimination on Religious Grounds (ADBDRG. Admittedly not a snappy acronym). They’re all for freedom so long as you’re a heterosexual Christian. Not so much if you’re...
- A woman who wants to terminate an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy
- A gay couple who wants to adopt a child
- A same sex couple that wishes to get married
They cite “freedom” and “liberty” when individuals discriminate on religious grounds. Meanwhile, they lobby for legislation that would deny equal rights to millions of their fellow citizens. Evidently government is only a tyrant when it protects the rights of people you detest. When it’s enabling your bigotry, government is “the voice of the people.”
How convenient.
Thank heavens for the SPLC. They call it like they see it, and they see the ADF just fine.
27
What free speech does Alex Jones allow on his platform? Can we post videos praising Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama there, or does he ban them?
5
I would question whether, in light of the pervasive monopoly power of an entity like Facebook, that it has any right to censor. And I mean that literally; It probably has that right, I mean I'd question it.
I would therefore, if I were this ogre Jones, sue them and anybody else who got in the way of my nutcase rants. The notoriety gained of such a tactic would be worth any cost: "Alex Jones, Champion of Free Speech!" Alex Jones goes down fighting!" I say this specifically to antagonize my fellow Lefties, who's fire ready aim methodology of dealing with social issues has been killing the progressive cause since Bill Clinton mesmerized liberals into accepting right side policy while ignoring fundamental character, because he felt your pain.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Jones can just get himself a server and whoop it up as he likes around Facebook. And make no mistake, Facebook is not your friend for dumping Jones, it's just thinking of itself.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." - Salman Rushdie
62
Reply to CK
You say the power of monopoly of Facebook means that it is a public space. You may have something there. I recall Mark Zuckerberg saying that Facebook was more like a utility. Not sure that he meant it in the way you do.
Until laws are changed, a Facebook user agrees to restrictions, including certain limits on speech. Every user agrees to the same set of restrictions.
Beyond the shouting of “fire,” there are, of course, limits on speech. One that might apply to Mr Jones’ speech is the limits on child pornography. Just a thought.
1
@CK Mr. Jones has the freedom to offend. No one is taking that away from him. You have mistaken the vehicle (FB) for the freedom. The NYTimes has standards. The Public Library has standards. Every responsible organization has the right to have policies and standards. The person who violates the standard is typically given a warning or a slap and pointed toward the rules. However if you break the rules repeatedly, you do not get to participate in the game. This is reasonable and freedom is not diminished.
148
@CK Your points are all valid. I know I'm not speaking in a legal sense, but I just can't get past Jones siccing his legion of misfits on Sandy Hook parents. How could any human being be so callous as to disregard and exasperate the grief endured from having your kid shot and killed?
1
Excuse my cynicism but I don't think the ban had much to do with any real repugnance toward Jones' "hate" speech - he was after all a major revenue generator. No, I think they were afraid they would become financially at risk as enablers of slander and/or libel if the lawsuit is decided in favor of the Sandy Hook families.
7
@REJ How was he a "revenue generator" on any social media platform when he didn't have to pay for his content, he simply put it out there the same as everyone else??
It is pretty rich for a person who once worked for one of those awful propaganda mills, the "Alliance Defending Freedom," to be criticizing others for using vague language.
20
Mr. French, your best line was in the top paragraph: "there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform". Law should not be confused with morality. If following the law were our only moral standard, the world would be a terrible place to live. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Alex Jones's rants were "morally repugnant" and that platforms that allowed him to broadcast were colluding with his vile behaviour. But more importantly, this is just one more intellectual dissection of the issue of libel and hate versus free speech that completely omits the major, central subject: the consequences on the victims. For victims your article mentions only people who've fallen afoul of the modern over-enthusiasm for "political correctness". Call it hate speech, libel, slander, the combination of lies and hate has victims that suffer terrible losses of their rights. Violent people absorb these incitements and act on them. Study the Holocaust, please. I haven't got space to tell you what happened to a gullible friend of mine when she started listening to Alex Jones and fell head over heels into a glut of conspiracy theories. I was aghast. Our friendship came to an end and I'm worried about her mental health.
5
I'm puzzled about the SPLC bashing that the Christian right has popularized this year (2018) and how far it has come. Using Jones as bait to push this slanted view isn't good for either the SPLC or those they condemn.
Granted, defining hate speech is difficult territory, but the SPLC has and is providing a valuable service to those who read their bulletins. No one who engages in this arena will come out unscathed, there is much at stake on both sides, however, we need groups like SPLC, ACLU, EEF and others to help us navigate these problem areas. I read their newsletters and form my own opinions.
8
The article makes a reasonable point. But on the other hand, i think it is not hard to conclude that the purulent material that spews from Alex Jones pen should be banned. No amount of daylight will sterilize that.
2
French should have stopped typing this op-ed after this sentence:
"Second, there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform."
It's kind of pointless to write about "extremely vague" policies governing the removal of content, when at the end of the day, it's private companies choosing to boot someone off a private platform. So, again, what exactly is the point of this op-ed?
6
The so-called Alliance Defending Freedom and Jihad Watch are not "mainstream" groups, and are clearly motivated by animus, which is why they are categorized as hate groups. This isn't even remotely a First Amendment issue, as the author tacitly acknowledges. Alex Jones is a vile individual, and private companies have no obligation to aid him in spreading his lies.
13
Leftwing speech police are on the march. The Facebook and YouTube bans on Alex Jones join shadow bans on Twitter of conservatives and even the attempts by Democrats on the Federal Election Commission to shut down the Drudge Report. This isn't a one-off incident. It's the latest and most overt attempt by the left to stifle conservative speech. From boycotts of Fox News, doxxing of conservative pundits and 24/7 leftwing outlets in CNN/MSNBC, the left is making a full court press to control what is spoken and what is heard. They believe they own the truth and are determined to crush any counterfactual information. Where is the ACLU?
Meanwhile the mainstream press is desperate to crush any alternative outlets, as they view it as their job to set and control the narrative, a right that was somehow given to them when they received their journalism (or TV news anchor) degrees. This is a horrible time for free speech, news gathering and the American Public. Fox and Sinclair will be next. Then Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin. The big Internet companies and their leftwing backers are a flipped-switch away from erasing conservative thought from the Internet, either directly or via shadow banning. The truth is just a bunch of bits that Google and Facebook allow you to read. Where is the legislation for information neutrality? Outrageous.
1
@TL: There is no longer ANY actual conservative voices. The former "conservatives" have been marginalized by the likes of people like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al. It's not surprising that people on the right have failed to recognize this. They have been frogs in a pot, warming slowly for quite awhile now.
2
@TL Not for the reasons that you stated, but it is long overdue that your ideology is relegated to the dustbin of history. Part of the problem is that you confuse free speech with the right to say anything. You confuse free speech with the right to propagate outright lies, wherever and whenever you see fit.
If you don't like private firms controlling their virtual real estate, I suggest you start your own social media platform.
1
@TL - Meanwhile?
Meanwhile the President of the United States of America is making the free press the "enemy of the people", threatens, and speaks of prosecuting those who publish information that does not kowtow to the (literal) party line.
There is nothing that the "Leftwing speech police" or the "mainstream press" can do that comes even close to the power of the president and the government.
It is should be is terrific time for the truth. And you aren't going to find it on FOX or Limbaugh, or any of the same ilk that support and repeat the lie after documented lie told by the president. Especially when the right wing "media" outlets have confessed to being "entertainment" and making up stories. Is that enough to ban them? For me there is a difference between opinion and knowingly making up stories and facts - especially when the purpose is rile up a population to support falsehoods.
2
The Southern Poverty Law Center stands on the right side of history. David French and and his National Review do not!
6
I read that the Pozner family has been tracked by right-wing crazies despite this family taking efforts to hide their new home. As a former law enforcement officer, it seems that someone in law enforcement has used their access to computer data allowing this information to be readily available. I suggest that whoever is supplied this data has probably left a computer record with some agency and should be identified.
2
Interesting how it's the 'Rabid Right' that far out numbers the radical left and cries like babies when we point out as ordinary citizens how awful they really are.
French is defending political hate groups thinly disguised as religions. When we look at these political parties like the Evangelicals, posing as religions, and see behind the disguise to point out that Alex Jones is one of their icons, they all start crying foul.
Quit whining, snowflakes.
10
Alex Jones is a poor excuse of a human being ; what I don't understand is how a certain slice of society listens and believes to his lies . Certainly they have the ability to rationalize and separate truth from outrageous lies . Hate speech is reprehensible , and only stirs those susceptible to perpetrate harm . Perhaps it is time to amend the first amendment , being a conduit of hate speech is equal to yelling fire in a full theater when there isn't one.
2
Although Mr. French has previously written about free speech and private corporations with specific respect to the NFL ... maybe the NFL should consider (again) the last paragraph of his current piece?
One would have hoped that, by now, the consensus gentium would have ignored this guttersnipe into oblivion. Evidently, segments of the population are either too desperate or too dumb to hook these guys off stage. I wish cons like Trump and Jones a prolonged, diapered, and desperate dotage.
1
Besides just libel, aren't inciting public unrest, violence and murder crimes? Yes, and just like this president and administration it injects hateful, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic energy into society (and likely has some outside direction and control feeding it).
1
Why do we have to ASK Facebook, Google and Apple to not commit libel and slander and defamation which they have done to all the victims of SandyHook... Why? Tell them this s illegal and unconstitutional. Sue them for libel and slander.. why are they above the law... above the constitution of the U.S.?
As stated many times in your commentary, Apple Facebook and Google have no obligation whatsoever to post anyone’s content. Those who don’t like it can vote with their feet and publish-on or create alternative distributors of content. Removing Infowars hate-speech is fundamentally no different from any newspaper or cable network that continuously editorializes by leaning left or leaning right. I don’t see Fox “News” carving out an hour or two in its evening block for Rosie O’Donnell or The Bernie Sanders Show anytime soon. The American tradition of regulation-free publishing discretion has been going on for this country’s entire existence. The right not to publish is every bit as sacrosanct as the right of Alex Jones to buy a used mimeograph machine and crank out all the crackpot newsletters he wants to from his parent’s basement.
2
French's argument sounds reasonable but in fact is insidious. He states that the Southern Poverty Law Center, is "a formerly respected civil-rights organization". Sorry, but the SPLC is still highly and widely respected. Implying that it is not currently respected is an underhanded attack against its mission and work. It is being attacked by the right for its tough positions against hate mongerers, any and all. His main argument against the SPLC concerns his former employer, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which he calls "mainstream". That's insidious and ridiculous. The Alliance Defending Freedom is a Christian extremist group that works against gay rights and gay marriage. Hey, is being intolerant of gays and gay rights "mainstream"? This groups group's work is today's equivalent of being against inter-racial marriage. Publicly decrying Black-White marriage today would be considered racist. It would be "hate speech". This is why the SPLC calls a group like the Alliance Defending Freedom a hate group, and why Mr. French's piece is a sugar-coated attack on one of the US's best fighters against racism.
13
A potential even better way- adopting UK libel/slander laws? The gist: if you make the claim you have to prove it, and if it's defamatory you're responsible.
No one should be able to stop you from saying what you want, on 1st Am'nt grounds, but why not be held responsible for your speech?
5
Why isn't Alex Jones's hyperbole about Sandy Hook families satire? Rabid dictators don't like satire either and want those who criticize them silenced.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus It's not satire because it's labeled as "news" and has resulted in horrific lives for the victims' families.
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus: The fact that you even asked the question shows that your knowledge of "satire" is lacking. I doubt it, but Jones MAY have meant his Sandy Hook tirades to be satire, but the expense of it is far too great to be considered as such and then dismissed.
@HKGuy
Saturday Night Live has fake news broadcasts too, or they did. There are many satirical "news" broadcasts in the media today. The so-called 'legitimate" news has become a subject of satire all by itself.
Mr. French has a point. It's not hateful to believe that the September 11 attacks were an inside job, it's completely ignorant and devoid of any historical context whatsoever.
Then again, 'libel' sounds a bit suspiciously like it has something to do with books, and 'slander' sounds like a contraction for someone who comes from an island.
I think the Germans have the most experience with banning political "hate speech' which has primarily been directed against Nazism and Holocaust denial. In the US, we have stronger Constitutional protections and traditions of allowing speech, no matter how "hateful" or politically incorrect. The problem we face is that hateful fringe speech and conspiracy theories are now super-charged through social media directing many very stupid Americans into these unmitigated intellectual cylinders of hateful lies. I predict this problem will grow worse and worse until we get rid of President Trump and hopefully return to a more measured and honest political discourse.
3
You're repeating a (Fox-news) untruth. Brett Weinstein was not hounded out of a job; he came to a $250,000 settlement in his favor. His wife received the same. His 'removal' was an agreement. No one was forced to leave campus for DOA/DOP and 'refusing' was not really an option; no one cared if he (or anyone else) stayed or didn't. Many white faculty and staff stayed on campus and not one of them was accosted or called out for it. Going off campus was a voluntary act in response to a request. Using the phrase 'exclusive access to the college' is false and misleading. While I recognize you are just repeating the same tropes Fox News uses to retain an angry audience, I would expect a higher level of informed commentary from someone showing up in the Times.
2
Spot on, Mr. French!
1
It has been said that freedom of the press belonged to those who could afford to buy a printing press. This is another way of saying that to the vast majority of citizens, this freedom was more theoretical than real because, aside from shouting on a street corner, they could not express themselves.
The costs and difficulties of having a forum to spout one's views meant that the use of free speech was limited and, I have no doubt, that those who wrote our constitution saw this as a necessary and useful limitation. We now have not only free speech, but every citizen, without restraint, training or necessarily possessing a moral compass and a functioning brain, can seek to speak to all, chaos. Furthermore, we are only now realizing we, as a society, have to find a way to deal not only with free speech but the all but unlimited ability of random seekers of fame and money to throw out the most vile views one can imagine.
Alex Jones is a high functioning idiot. One can only guess whether he actually believes what he says or merely sees himself as a provocateur, but there is no doubt he does great harm.
If there are no standards of judgement or restraint, free speech becomes a social RPG. How do we deal with these missiles buzzing by our heads? How does, in fact, the good drive out the bad, particularly if the bad is profitable and widespread?
Education is not the answer. People believe someone like Jones because they want to, a power stronger than mere knowledge calls them.
3
@Doug Terry, That's an elegant and beautifully written response to Mr. French. No one is guaranteed equality in the distribution of their speech by the Constitution (which would be impractical even were it desirable). Though, again it bears repeating that in any case like Mr. Jones vs. the private Internet, the First Amendment does not apply because the companies involved are not government entities, and these companies have their own free speech rights.
"Winged nuts" and "whack jobs" have published falsehoods for as long as publishing has existed, in so many forms. But, today, it is easier than ever for them to get an audience. Moreover, we have a president who publicly agrees with more falsehoods than all of his predecessors combined. Sure "hate speech" is vague; maybe libel and slander help define what should be allowed. But those laws have not caught up with all the means to spread stupidity.
4
I have coached high school speech-and-debate for 20 years, and I make a point of teaching my students that "freedom of speech" does not mean "freedom from consequences." Facebook and YouTube may appear to be "public forums," but they are in fact privately owned corporations that have the right to police their on-line forums and to remove offensive content if they deem it necessary.
Mr. French's true reason for writing this column appears in paragraphs 7 and 9. He is upset that his former employer, the Alliance Defending Freedom, was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He then expends a few column inches slagging the SPLC, but that's an issue for another time.
What Mr. French is doing here is a curious case of legal ju-jitsu, almost a reverse "whataboutism." He argues that the ADF isn't nearly as bad as Alex Jones, so the SPLC shouldn't be picking on the ADF. Nutcases like Alex Jones stake out political territory further and further to the right. This has an effect of "normalizing" any person or any organization that is even a millimeter to the left of Jones. Just because the ADF is "not as bad as" Alex Jones doesn't make them any less a hate group. It just means they're willing to throw Jones under the bus.
As many commenters have pointed out, slander and libel are VERY hard to prove in a court of law. Meanwhile, the toxic rhetoric of Jones and his ilk corrode the social fabric of this country. Hit them where it hurts--in their wallets.
13
I disagree w/ author David French. If a Neo-Nazi were to publish on Facebook the statement that "The Jews are stabbing America in the back," or that "Black are genetically inferior", that's not libel. There's no such thing as group libel. But in French's formulation, these statements should not be disturbed because they are aimed at groups, not individuals. Libel laws have developed over centuries. By contrast, hate speech is a relatively new concept in American law and practice which needs time to develop. It's not enough, as French would have it, that Facebook might make a mistake. Of course they might. No system is perfect. What's needed is for Facebook to have a proper process which includes specific standards (they may have that already) and which allows for notice to those accused of hate speech, and an opportunity to review and contest.
2
Hate speech is not as vague and subjective as it may seem. If I say that I hate right wing ideologies, I am expressing an opinion which is protected as free speech. If I say that I hate identified groupes or individuals in such a way as to endanger their security , it is criminal hate speech.
"...there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform." Absolutely correct and true, Mr. French. I hope that all those who have argued in this forum that NFL players have a First Amendment right to take a knee during the national anthem will take note.
@Southern Man Ha. Good luck having football games when they are all kneeling together.
It is often said "Where do you draw the line?"
Now we have our answer: Alex Jones is the line. Let him go find a different theater to yell "FIRE!" in.
2
Excellent piece Mr. French. I agree wholeheartedly with your fine sentiments.
National Review is not on my reading list, but this argument deserves serious thought across the political spectrum. I wish it had gone after the SPLC; that smacks too strongly to my mind of "good people on both sides" after Charlottesville. Yes, there are jerks among progressives; there always are in any public dispute. The real point is the obscenity of what Jones and his like have done and are doing. I did my doctorate with the prime scholar of the Alien and Sedition laws. Prior public restraint is not an option: Madison got it right when he wrote that supposed remedy for the evils of "faction" that that the remedy was worse than the problem. Going after libel is another matter. But the courts take so long and the costs of a private case can be prohibitive. What about the clear public issue of incitement to violence? Will it taker more deaths of journalists, and death threats to scholars, to do something about the facilitator and inciter in chief? That seems to be a matter for political action, not for either private suit by somebody who is rightly aggrieved or for prosecution in the name of the public good. But for Jones and his like libel action sounds smart.
36
@Ed Correction: I wish Mr. French had NOT gone after the SPLC. I think people got my meaning.
1
It's about time the First Amendment is not made a scapegoat and used recklessly to justify everything - good or bad, hate or love, bigotry, racism or misogyny, bizarre definitions of corporations are people, etc. etc. This is an Amendment which is First in our constitution for a reason. Because we are a free democratic society with a right to our opinion and a right to voice them. But he First Amendment presumes that it is used, judiciously, responsibly, that citizens are inherently decent who understand the consequences of that opinion, mindful that citizens can have contradictory opinions than their own, but within the parameter not to hurt and cause harm. But currently, the First Amendment has become important only for rights but the great responsibility to do right is deliberately forgotten. Hate, slander, libel or whatever definitions is unnecessary but common sense is. Unfortunately common sense is not common anymore.
5
That libel and slander have legal definitions does not mean they can be objectively measured. The definitions are nearly as vague as the words themselves. (Yes, I'm a lawyer too.) What the author is really saying - and it's in there if you know what to look for - is that defamation cases almost always end in defeat for the plaintiff. Thus, following his prescription means almost nothing is prohibited, which is the political goal - just a typically tortured lawyerly analysis to get there.
5
@Mike P
Amen. The author's argument is fundamentally dishonest, and he knows it.
1
The major problem with Mr. French's proposal is that a lawsuit requires a plaintiff willing to come forward and bring an action in court and then that suit must be successfully prosecuted at trial and on appeal - usually in the face of well financed opposition. Using that approach you can only stop intentionally blatant, false, and irresponsible publications once someone has been harmed and is willing to come forward in court. We all know how outrageous jones has become and there is no good reason to allow it to proliferate whether there are direct victims or not.
4
A more objective standard for removing platform content is an admirable goal. That said, the one Mr. French proposes doesn't seem feasible. It's hard to imagine a lawyer advising a platform operator to concede -- in fact, to trumpet, as a matter of policy -- that fact that speech it previously published was defamatory.
The Communications Decency Act protects content hosts from the same liability a newspaper publisher would face for libel. But in an age of widespread misinformation and online harassment, that law could prove to be a weaker reed than it seems.
Freedom of speech comes with responsibilities. There are consequences as well. If Alex Jones is comfortable stirring up hate he should be willing to accept responsibility for what comes after. He doesn't need social media to spread his message. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Goebbels, the Klan among others, all were able to spread their hateful messages long before the advent of Facebook, Twitter, or email. The results for some were the wholesale slaughter of Jews, the murders of African Americans, the public humiliation and torture of middle class citizens, and a complete lack of trust in government.
The problem with Facebook and other social media is that the people using it seem to lose common sense in the rush to express their opinions. Social media cannot substitute for conversation with others. Using all caps to scream at your opponents doesn't get the message across. Labelling people ignores the fact that most are not all liberal or all conservative. We're a mix.
The best rule to follow on social media, whether commenting or posting in response is to determine if you would say it to the person if you met them face to face. Another rule is if you'd ever want anyone knowing you said it. If not, don't post it.
1
Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.
Someone claiming to be a constitutional expert advises social media that Alex Jones' speech is protected by the first amendment. And that someone is a writer for the National Review, at that. Well, actually, it's not a surprise at all. It's predictable.
Premises considered, as a fellow legal professional allow ME to boil it down for you, Mr. French: Alex Jones' freedom of speech extends to the end of his nose, and when his "speech" harms someone else it becomes a civil liability and, in some cases, a criminal offense.
There now, I feel so much better after supplying an alternative argument based upon facts and law in response to Mr. French's unfounded assertion that Jones' speech is protected.
20
Come now, Alabama, please read more carefully.
Third sentence: “[T]here is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform.”
So the author claims exactly the opposite of what you say.
It is appalling to see Alex Jones surrounded by microphones and cameras in the photo. In normal times he would be marginalized and treated as a lunatic, not given a public platform -but of course we are no longer in “normal” times.
However, what is the is most disturbing is that Alex Jones like Donald Trump has so many supporters who hang on his every word however hateful and dangerous.
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@Susan
The Internet gave everyone a voice. Now, some 25 years into the Digital Era, the honeymoon is over and the reality has sunk in. It is precisely at moments like this that we need to take pause so that rash decisions do not set irrevocable precedents.
The price of this present reckoning should not be the diversity of the Internet medium — nor the integrity of the First Amendment itself. We choose whether the Jones' of the world shake confidence in our liberties and values — or remind us to embrace them more fully aware of how fragile they are.
We grapple with the same frustrations that followed the invention of the printing press, the radio and the television — for which we have much the same choice: the prerogative to tune out, turn the page, stage a demonstration and to agree to disagree. A healthy democracy is not a nice, tidy bundle of agreed-upon ideas. It is all things under the sun in coexistence — free not because they agree but because it is accepted that they will not.
If a private platform banned Mr. Jones for posting libelous content, the platform would be (or could be argued as) implicitly admitting knowledge of the falsity, and (arguably) responsibility for the content. In other words, stating libel as the reason for banning Jones might be the most expensive statement ever made in the history of private enterprise.
Many European countries (Germany for example) have laws against hate speech, maybe these companies should look to those for guidance.
3
I disagree, and I find it richly ironic when the loudest whiners for free speech rights are the very people who struggle hardest to remove the civil rights of minority groups they happen to despise. The First Amendment restricts the actions of state actors, not private actors. Facebook et. al. restricting offensive content is entirely their right and is appropriate. They get smeared with the stench of foul content. Considering that slander and libel apply to individuals, not groups, your proposal leaves hate groups free to spew fourth their generalized venom as long as no names are mentioned. That's not good enough. I support the use of the hate speech standard instead.
2
We have lost our sense of decency as a community as a result of our slavish application of the First Amendment.
1
For those here who are quick to defend silencing voices, please read the opinion piece published today regarding the apology by The Nation for publishing a poem.
The micro-policing of speech and art needs to stop. And the use of corporate WMD to do that micro-policing needs to stop too. Once you start banning poetry and destroying artistic careers you cross a line into totalitarianism.
We all need to listen more.
1
@Frank
Not giving someone a platform is not "silencing" them.
You can't excuse those who monetize hate -- like Milo and Jones and gay-bashing anti-muslim groups -- by being provocative.
If someone comes to my house and insults me, I have to be peaceful, but not fair.
Most of us -- American culture -- have come a long way over many generations and many bloody battles -- and we can't allow a few provocateurs to profit from selling hate.
We needn't sic government on them. Government is bound by the First Amendment. But business boycotts are not. As long as capitalism is the coin of the realm, we can spend our money where our values lie.
2
@Occupy Government Gay bashing anti-Muslim groups? Shouldn't that read gay bashing Muslim groups?
Another Republican, another slippery slope argument. Color me shocked. Providing actual evidence for an argument is hard so leave it to conservatives to avoid any kind of objective discussion and instead talk about their totally real feelings about how things are going to go.
2
Alex Jones is just a symptom.
What happened to logical "reasoning" with some people?
1
@Jeffrey
The Far Left and Right have both been influential in convincing people to short-circuit the critical thinking process and rely upon how they "feel." From the Right, it's anti-Hillary conspiracy theories; from the Left it's being "woke" as the answer to everything. And of course we have the band leader-in-chief of non-reasoning- Mr. Trump.
Judging by many of these comments, it seems that yelling fire in a theatre (when there is not a fire) is now protected under the first amendment. And anyone who disagrees is a hate monger against people who do it.
Creeps like Jones build audiences through crazy stories. They then realize the power they have over their minions, and can cause great damage. This is just the tip of this iceberg.
For law enforcement, these sites are perfect honey pots.
With great power comes great responsibility.
3
Sometimes things are what they appear to be and Jones appears to be at the bottom of the heap as far as humanity. Interesting though if it weren't for his hateful vitriol what we he have to distinguish himself? To quote the Mooch "a big nothing burger-"
1
A whole lot of words to say "Simple. Just sue 'em. Lawyers need the work." I think we're pretty fed up with simple solutions.
3
After a professional basketball game - one of the players - exercising his right to free speech - makes public comments criticizing the referees for the numerous bad calls they made - while overlooking flagrant fouls made by the other team - causing his team to lose the game --
The next day - as the player's comments make headlines - the NBA suspends him for ten games, while imposing a fine of $75,000 - as a penalty for publicly criticizing the officials --
When asked for your input while attending a project meeting at your company - you express ideas which directly contradict those of the team leader --
The next day (if not later that day) - you are informed that you have been removed from that project and have been reassigned to work on another project - shredding 10,000 documents by yourself in a room in the basement -
After directing two of the most popular and financially-successful movies of the past three years - and having already begun working on the next one - it's discovered that you made a couple of silly and insensitive remarks a numbers of years ago, which makes you guilty of -
"[T]he slightest deviation from the latest and ever-changing social justice style guide" -- and you are "deemed bigoted and, yes, “dehumanizing.”
And are fired immediately while being publicly shamed -- even when you're colleagues, co-workers and friends express their support - although no too much - because they're in fear for their own lucrative jobs --
Very bad indeed...
1
Maybe time to broaden the existing obscenity laws and use the current mechanisms to resolve complaints. Of course Larry Flynt is a hard act to follow :-)
Dissing Alex Jones is merely gonna encourage someone who also engages in false ideation to give him a cabinet-level position in Washington...
5
In order for Mr. Jones to be proven correct in his theories he also has to be able to show at least one way(there clearly are millions ) in which he can be proven wrong using the realities and constraints of the universe and human behavior etc. If his chosen disproof is then met he must publicly agree that he has been lying.
A vague standard (such as hate speech), supported by an articulable reason, is far superior to claiming defamation, regardless of the strength of the defamation claim. The latter standard unnecessarily exposes the social media platform to legal liability.
Affected posters have the freedom to move to another soapbox. Disgruntled followers can move to a different platform.
3
David French point to a more complex issue: the need to define hate speech. As is it is in fact a vague concept, with no tight legal definition. Yet, the effects of hate speech are nothing but vague. The challenge is how to remain a pluralistic society that protects individual freedom while at the same time protecting individuals from the highly emotional vandalism and at times deadly violence of hate, be it exercised by groups or other individuals? As with porn, "I know it is when I see it". There is a subjective, yet consistent agreement on what porn is, even though individuals may have very different reactions to it (ranging from pleasure to disgust). There is a common element in hate speech - misinformation and the spread of ignorant prejudiced ideas. That is a good place to start when attempting a legal definition that will effectively curb it - that is a good place to start.
I don't know how many people have been inside a court recently, but they might quickly learn that the law is remarkably subjective, too. Often relying on the base simplicity of how rich one person is over another, or how better spoken one might be. So criminality for Hate Speech, which in Europe is pretty drilled down to specific hate against a specific group of people is a pretty good place to start the fight against these ranting pariahs. Unless, of course, you'd rather experience the results of not doing anything, which is largely the reason Europe instigated its protections, for it is a protection. I wonder how long it would take for people to cry out for a hate speech initiative if the hooked Abu Hamza had been inciting violence on the streets of New York, instead of in London. Pretty darn quick I expect.
2
Mr. Jones' right to stand in the public square and spout wildly ridiculous, hateful accusations is protected by the First Amendment. That his soapbox is distributed by legitimate media platforms and supported by legitimate advertisers is not guaranteed by the Constitution. The only reason he has achieved this distribution and profitable advertising platform is that he has been attracting a loyal audience.
That enough people want to listen to his awful theories to earn the advertising revenues that make his trash profitable for him and his distributors is a much more troubling, dangerous revelation. Now we have a president who spouts falsehoods and easily disproven conspiracies daily and attacks the press for contradicting him. His debased base prefers to believe him. It is them that frighten me, not the sensationalist commercialized nonsense of Alex Jones.
1
@Randomonium
The first amendment does not protect libel or slander.
My guess is this is an impractical suggestion. That libel and slander do have clearer definition may actually be the problem. Once Apple starts removing slanderous or libelous content as a matter of practice, they may be opening themselves to legal liability: a libelous piece causes damage' the victim now sues Apple for failing to take the libelous content down quickly enough. It's a big can of worms.
2
David French? With an impractical solution? Who would have thought...
The problem with the David French solution is speed. By the time hate speech is litigated, the three day news cycle has caused everyone to forget the insults, disrespect and libel except for the victims.
1
Why overthink this? The social media are simply performing the time-honored role of American-style editor: welcoming all viewpoints but insisting on responsible use of their platforms and rejecting content they judge irresponsible or downright crazy. It has worked very well since before we were a country, and it can work very well in the digital age.
Memo to conservatives worried about being denied access to mass social media platforms:
Try presenting your ideas without using language that inflames, defames or inspires hatred. Support your claims with actual facts that can be verified using credible sources. Avoid making statements that can be interpreted as a call to violent action against other people or property. Eschew spreading "news" that you know to be fake, or that you would recognize as fake if you gave it more than a nanosecond of thought.
Liberals do this all the time, and it seems to work for us. It might even be the reason we are allowed to use these platforms while you get thrown off.
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@Bystander.
But they don't and won't. Hate precedes speech and inlaming and defaming are their goals. You are assuming rationality
@Bystander
Meanwhile, the New York Times just hired Sarah Jeong, because her vicious rants against white people were "in context."
The notion that left-liberals are fastidious in their manner of expression is absurd.
1
@Bystander: Let me say for the record that I find Alex Jones vile. But to claim that liberals (in general) stick to facts? Wow, that is rich. This sickness knows no partisan lines. Have a nice day.
I was beginning to wonder if there was anything a person could do that was so heinous, these companies would take action.
If there actually are legal limits on "intentionally false factual claims" (which, I believe, translates to intentionally false claims) why are the victims of Alex Jones having such a hard time shutting him down? In a sane world, Jones would be standing on a street corner holding a sign saying "will lie for food." Let's not make the good the enemy of the perfect.
I disagree, we are living in abnormal times, and there is a known criminal in the Oval Office, whose actions are abetted by media personalities such as Alex Jones.
Not to take action to silence their messages of hate and division is to yield any sense of truth and decency that remains. The odds are bad enough as it is.
5
I'm wondering whether some kind of disclaimer by the tech companies could be posted to warn viewers, or that the content's creators were listed by name, company, foreign government, etc.? That the veracity of the content was vetted? And who gets to decide what is what? All slippery slope stuff for sure, but short of banning it, do the tech companies, as a private entities, have the will to use libel and slander law's parameters for going after bad actors? Or should that be left for private citizens and their attorneys?
1
The root of this problem is that social media platforms have claimed that they are not responsible for curating or editing content. This effectively means that they don't care HOW their platforms are used, as long as it is legal. In addition to complying with the law, newspapers and other "old" media have editorial policies that at least try to maintain some standards for both reporting and opinion. I am glad that Alex Jones has been denied these outlets, although it is long overdue. But it is also past time to call the bluff of Facebook, Apple and others. Either they are part of this democracy or not. They might not have a legal obligation to screen out others like Alex Jones, but they do have a moral and ethical obligation. Otherwise they are as complicit in the attacks on the truth as Alex Jones. Standards are required, and it's time for them to own up to their responsibilities by accepting what they really are -- media content companies.
5
It is incredible how far right Republicans have moved. This article is a twofer for Mr. French. He can assist in the effort to demonize the Southern Poverty Law Center while making a “reasoned” argument for application of the First Amendment to private companies. Of course this benefit is only for the likes of Alex Jones not overly sensitive college students. There is no reason for private companies to undertake cumbersome inquiries as to whether someone like Jones has committed libel or slander. They need not be bound by such stringent standards. They have their terms of service and can exclude anyone who violates them, even if they are bowing to pressure from the majority of their customers. It is how the vaunted free market works. But as usual right wingers cry foul whenever their beloved market place works against them.
18
@KMC I liek zach's comment "If a site undertakes to ban defamatory speech they may find themselves legally responsible for publishing defamations that slip through."
"there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform"
Then what is it?
Google is the default search engine. They decide what billions can find when searching for information.
Facebook, with two billion users, is our de facto public square. They decide what we see in their platforms. Equally important, they decide who has access to their vast data stores which allow favored users to precisely target political messaging. The Obama and Trump campaigns used near identical Facebook data secured through different sources. The Obama campaign was praised in this paper for their efforts. The Trump campaign was excoriated. If one party's candidate has access to that data and the opposition doesn't, it appears the tech giants have far more power to manipulate elections than the Russia troll farms who purchased a few million in advertising. Why are we up in arms about the Russians while giving Facebook a pass?
Twitter has a similar reach.
Youtube decides what video productions billions can see, or not see.
When Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube share a similar worldview and are comfortable with censorship, their combined power to manipulate public opinion cannot be denied.
2
Even libel and slander law puts the First Amendment at risk. That was how the Supreme Court explained its severe limits on libel and slander law as to public figures by the press, in NYT v Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), which established the "actual malice" standard for the protection of this very newspaper.
The risk feared by the Court was the "chilling effect" on political speech if restrictions can touch on it. If you could do this, then you could do more, and somebody would. In fear of that, and the expense of legal fights, publishers would stop trying to express important political speech.
We see libel and slander law used in some other countries in exactly this way. It is an accusation that was made against Singapore, even when it was an otherwise admirable Western outpost.
Here there be monsters.
3
@Mark Thomason -- I just saw that this has already happened. Twitter has suspended for a month two editors of Antiwar.com, on a vague allegation that their opposition to warlike actions was hateful for saying they were warlike actions.
I'd be glad to see Alex Jones gone. The price mustn't be loss of so much else.
2
If a site undertakes to ban defamatory speech they may find themselves legally responsible for publishing defamations that slip through. I doubt Mr. French as a "First Amendment litigator" is unaware of this, and probably the ADF is standing ready to sue. Better under existing models to work through terms of use, as these sites are doing. Better still to get private corporations out of the business of controlling these venues.
4
@zach bender That's a very good point
Unclear who exactly is going to prosecute these malefactors -- does this author expect Facebook or private citizens to pursue thousands of concurrent lawsuits? -- but we also know that the mere threat of a libel or slander lawsuit is enough to chill the speech of anyone without money. Ever heard of a cease and desist letter?
This author's former employer, the well-funded right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom, along with the Family Research Council, which he also cites, will be in no danger -- plenty of billionaires to buy lawyers and promote their extremist agendas -- but where does that leave the public?
As with media ownership and bought access to media, exercising the First Amendment and pursuing libel cases is for people with money.
14
I agree with Mr. French's argument. I work full-time for a corporation as one of its legal advisors. My daily task is to review its services to verify they conform to the terms of its contracts. In doing so I employ a panoply of well-established legal rules applicable to contract interpretation in general and also more specifically to my employer's business. I supervise a team of attorneys doing this. While I am sure we miss the mark from time to time--we are not Gods--the fact is that we are able to make relatively objective legal evaluations of situations day in and day out so as to maximize the likelihood that the company performs its obligations. This same approach can be employed for evaluating communications hosted by these social media companies. Indeed, I am sure this is already SOP for traditional media companies.
5
Alex Jones conspiracy theorist?
I am not at all surprised by the appearance of Alex Jones in American life and I see no legal or moral leg the United States private and public (governmental) can stand on in attempting to prosecute him or to ban him or otherwise prevent him from having his voice.
The reason why is simple. One look at American life reveals it's the greatest social system ever created which deals with manipulation of reality, with making it difficult to determine reality from appearance. American life as early as the 19th century was considered in novels a confidence man game, and today not only business jams the public with advertising/branding, but the major art in the U.S. is that of cinema/television/acting, meaning any person making the accusation that a conspiracy or con game is going on in a certain case is operating perfectly according to reason and is perfectly within his or her rights, because the fact is billions of dollars are daily invested in manufacturing reality.
American life is not a highly literate, acutely psychologizing life. It's a life where words, psychology, are attached to advertising/branding, where actors are the most highly paid artists, where every interest manufactures reality to best position itself. That a person would not think conspiracies are occurring can only be naive. If society does not want people like Alex Jones it has no choice but to actually demonstrate a love of truth, presentation of the truth over the false.
7
@Daniel12
Why is it folks like you like to pretend the decades from 1932 until 1980 when FDR's new deal and the sanity and progress it brought to our society never took place
3
It's good to see a piece that answers a question I've been pondering: why aren't conspiracy theories against people (e.g., Jones' badgering of grieving parents, Pizzagate) categorized as libel or slander? Is it just because the aggrieved parties must take the conspiracy theorists to court? And what if the originator of the conspiracy is anonymous? I am a fan of the First Amendment, but don't think it should be used to excuse wild falsehoods.
6
If you are standing in my driveway and talking, I have every right to ask you to leave if I do not like what you are saying. The owner of a website has the same right. They are giving a reason in this case, but they are under no obligation to do so. A privately owned and funded website is not the commons, and the same rules do not apply.
415
@mikecody This comment casually ignores the virtual monopoly that these companies have over the online commons. When they collectively ban speech they don't like, the consequences are exponentially greater than a single private citizen kicking someone off his property. There's just no comparison there.
52
@Steve
If you believe these companies have too much power over the "online commons" then why not work to curb that, rather than requiring them to support hateful lies?
@mikecody I agree but the problem is that these websites do not really enforce the policies or they do so capriciously and in ways that hurt people trying to have honest discussions.
I'd love to see Mr. French apply his hand-wringing to other examples of private companies refusing to do business with people they don't like. Say, for example, bigoted cake decorators denying service to people because they don't like how they were born.
While Mr. French is by no means the worst of the conservatives, we all know his argument in favor of hate speech protection is intellectually dishonest. Sorry, but you're not fooling anyone.
72
Mr. French, libel litigation is extraordinarily expensive, in part because the legal standard for a successful suit is so high. Opinion is exempt. To be sure, the subjective and indeterminate term "hate speech" is used as a cudgel by people and organizations to push their own agendas. But tech companies are simply not going to rely on the courts to police their platforms, and they shouldn't. I agree, banning is a bad move. Better to educate users and marginalize a creep like Alex Jones. Exposure. More sunlight, not less.
3
David,
The Founding fathers had not an iota of comprehension about our technologies of today. Letting a 1790 viewpoint guide 21st century social media would no doubt be held insane by Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Monroe.
On the other hand, those who cherish our 18th century forefathers wisdoms seem easily to forget the Grand Bargain: legal slavery for a 13 State Union.
Like Lincoln, we must not allow Constitutionally sanctioned misguided history to inhibit the Founders desire for the Growth of America and to provide for the Common Welfare
21
Hate speech is speech that expresses a view that someone disagrees with .And the disagreement is such that it elicits the the emotion of hate IN THE PERSON WHO DISAGREES . Not willing to acknowledge this feeling in oneself, the person who disagrees projects his feeling of hate on to the speaker of the "hate" speech.
The sooner we all realize that hate is a normal human emotion the sooner we can quit using the term" hate speech" as a way to convey disagreement with what is spoken and instead respond to the "hate speech' with a rational argument.
Unless of course you are unable to conceive of such an argument. In which case it is emotionally satisfying to call the speech simply "hate speech" . Satisfying but not
a rational argument at all.
1
Too bad for him and his "rights." Any normal person knows what hate speech is, what it sounds like, how it makes a person feel. Use common sense when judging free speech. Simple.
10
I think Mr. French is partially correct. Websites should determine whether they would be liable if they printed some of the things that Mr. Jones et al. advocate. I think hate speech could subject them to liability, however, as it could have unintended consequences that subject the author to a lawsuit (e.g., Hillary's pizza shop accused of trafficking in white slavery and the attack that followed). In that sense, it doesn't have to be limited to libel and slander. And for that reason, perhaps the banning of Mr. Jones (calling him a conspiracy theorist as opposed to a hate speech proliferator is way too kind to him and his ilk) is justified.
3
He's not being censored. He's being held to his contracts. Even if the vendors choose poor legalese to defend their actions, it doesn't mean undermine their intent, which is to make sure their users are not acting in violation of the terms of service.
15
Frankly, I think picking one tactic to suppress the rhetoric of Alex Jones is just lightweight. Use any and all legal methods, any time.
10
I agree with Mr French. In my gut, it feels good to see Alex Jones and his toxic spew banned from any platform, but if the criteria isn't really well defined on where the line is from free speech to hate speech, we are on a slippery slope. If the bar needs to be high (like meeting the definition of libel or slander), I'm ok with that. Living in a free society is always a trade off.
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@Jon I'm a free speech fanatic, but Facebook is a private company and free to do what it wants. As long as ISPs don't block content, Alex Jones is free to develop and host his own web site, and publicize it on his programs.
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@Jon
Again, with feeling this time, social media platforms are privately-owned and are not the public square. They are not publicly financed by taxpayers. They are under ZERO obligation to provide space to anyone for any reason whatsoever and they, alone, determine what those reasons are and need not explain or defend it to anyone. There is no slippery slope. Jones can take his garbage wherever he can, including standing on the street corner, but he is not guaranteed anything by Facebook.
1
@Jon except if its hate speech, then it should be charged as a criminal offense
The author here is especially meritorious, because unfortunately today standing on well thought out principle without regard to group affinity is attacked under the color of "goodness." The buys public then adds weight to that easy-to-join side and principle is discarded for expedience.
Censorship of free speech is a horrible double edged sword, and cannot be condoned. The litany of great thinkers who have condemned and who have written against it is long and so impressive that it shatters one's faith in one's fellow citizen to see the public mob fawn over it's application, it's not very different than distant peripheral bystanders at a lynching. That people would applaud manipulative corporations practicing censorship, as though those corporations actually had their interests at heart, is naive and pitiful.
I once looked at Alex Jones and was stunned by it's theatrics and bombast, clearly a hell of an actor. Seeing it enlightened me like inadvertently encountering a KKK meeting would today. I became aware of what is in real terms, and notions that I may have held that support for such things does not exist were dispelled. That was useful to me, I immediately knew more about my fellow man. And guess what? The KKK exists and the public is done a favor when a reporter gets one of them in front of a mic. You either have faith that collectively humans however imperfect know better, or you accept totalitarianism. That's the choice.
1
@CK - Typo, "buys" does not belong in the start of the 2cd sentence.
bothsides, thanks.
1
Facebook and the other social media should ban obvious lies and liars like Jones. But when I asked a Facebook to take down a Holocaust denial post it told me that the post didn’t “offend its community standards.” But Sandy Hook denial is verboten. What is this about?
5
What started out as a piece about the vile Alex Jones turned into one about and against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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Marketplace for ideas? Stupidity, hate, lies, depraved cruelty are ideas? The idea that any of that can be profitable is sick.
Suing for slander and/or libel takes money and resources the common aggrieved citizen does not have. How do any of us sue POTUS and his long history of hate speech - some which could have deadly consequences?
24
To a commentor who said he disagrees with Mr. Jones but would defend his right to speak.
Different views and healthy debate about policy and anything political or important to discuss is how we come to understand the range of thought among ourselves. It's a good distillation of ideas and theories and truth.
But, if I just start saying you are a pedophile with no proof because I want to or if your six year old was murdered and I said you faked the whole thing, then I'm not engaging in protected speech.
I'm committing a crime.
As the author of the article said, slander and libel are against the law.
Free speech has logical restrictions based on centuries of human behavior which has been codified into laws.
That's how the world works.
17
This entire argument is a straw man that moves the goal posts in favor of Alex Jones. As non-government actors, these tech companies can boot Jones for whatever reason they want, as long as it is spelled out in the terms of service, which Alex Jones has to abide by line everyone else. If someone starts posting porn on YouTube, should google have to go to court and prove obscenity? Of course not.
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I no longer listen to the concerns from the reactionary right about anything.
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It takes Facebook years to get around to banning this guy. Meanwhile, an artist friend got auto-banned because she posted some behind-the-scenes photos of a studio session that had part of a bare butt showing.
11
This argument strikes me as akin to agonizing over the best way for a bartender to cut someone off. Jones is a public nuisance who seems to think that being politically conservative absolves him of accountability for his despicable behavior. He can say whatever he wants all day long, but that doesn't mean he's entitled to have it broadcast far and wide by private companies.
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It would be great if right-leaning folk would police their own. Many Jones-listeners insist that Muslim leaders disown violence in the name of Islam. They insist that Democrats apologize for liberal comedians who are rude. So, in that spirit, republicans: Disown this horrible man! You are the ones who want all critical news of your president shut down, while Jones and his lot spread vicious lies. None of you will speak up and let Alex Jones know he's gone too far for you. Actually, I've been to the Q site, and it's pretty far gone. (Why can't they spell??) It's impossible to reason with people who would follow that stuff.
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The problem -- which Mr. French is well aware of but conveniently omits to mention -- is that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, Apple, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are all immune from suit under the law and cannot be sued even if they turn a blind eye to hate speech, libel, slander, etc. on their websites. The only repercussion they face, currently, is in the court of public opinion, which is something but not nearly enough.
If the law were changed, stripping the statutory immunity from anyone running an online forum, all these companies, and others, would be compelled to actively police their forums to prohibit defamatory content posted by others, whether by Alex Jones or by anyone else.
Mr. Jones would still have a First Amendment right to put up whatever kind of drivel he wants on his own website but at his own risk and on his own dime. And, the internet would be a less "lively" place, but also one where people are far less subjected to online abuse by others.
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Both the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom spread anti-homosexual rhetoric that is defended based on religion. It was not that long ago that the Bible was used to defend the discrimination of blacks in this country either. I would consider consider the Southern Poverty Law Center’s listing of theses groups correct. They are strongly opposed to same sex marriage and continue to speak out against it. Their religious beliefs are not the entire populations and others should be allowed to pursue their happiness. If I wanted to hear their viewpoint I would attend their church.
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Fully and utterly support French's argument. I find Jones to be repugnant and disgusting, but his banishment from platforms must stem from the falsehoods he promotes as fact. If he states it clearly as opinion he has the fundamental right to speak it.
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@tagomagotexas - Agreed he has every right, disagree that the tipping point is: "falsehoods he promotes as fact." That would ban every reference to a god, which does not of course exist.
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@tagomagotexas
Your premise (and the author's) is fundamentally flawed. He's entitled to his opinions. He's not entitled to a platform to spread them.
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@Brad Blumenstock - McCarthyite!
A couple of points.
First, thank you Mr French for making me read YouTube's T&C. I noticed there is no prohibition on making defamatory statements. There should be, as well as invasion of privacy and use of likeness prohibition. They do well to lay out IP infringement, hate speech and nudity, but don't address defamation or privacy rights in terms of the content "aired".
Second, while defamation is more of a legal system issue, it would be reasonable for YouTube to investigate a defamatory situation and if evidence warrants, remove the defamatory content while warning the provider. If the provider wants to plead their case and appeal, there should be a process for that as well. In the case of the Sandy Hook hoax claims, these claims are clearly and intentionally wrong. Perhaps Jones doesn't really believe in what he is saying, but that doesn't excuse that what he is saying is both not factual, and damaging to the victims, their families and others alleged to be in on the hoax.
Third, a proven (in court) or a repeat offender should have their privileges terminated. Would the NY Times continue to publish articles written by a reporter that repeatedly defamed subjects? So why should social media outlets? At what point does enabling the offender make you complicit in the crime?
6
Where is this type of response when right-wingers are bashing people? I don't understand. Every single time someone that is promoting hate is banned, there is someone that thinks there's something wrong with it. Someone explain to me the social utility for misguided hate? What good is it for? Why on earth do we need a voice like that? You can't. So be gone Alex Jones.
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David, of course any private corporation is entitled to make its own editorial decisions. But here you hint at the inevitable conclusion criminalization of hate, in public forums, is unconstitutional.
There are two distinct components of any hate crime: 1) the defacement of the synagogue, and 2) the reason why the anti-Semite did it. By increasing penalties based upon motive, it’s impossible to sidestep the fact we’re now criminalizing the opinions of the perpetrator, in blatant violation of the First Amendment.
A rational SCOTUS will strike down the irresponsible (and dangerous) criminalization of hate - the sooner, the better.
Bad enough that in this country you and your kids have an elevated risk of being gunned down randomly by an fellow citizen bearing arms and a grudge.
But even worse, if you survive you will likely be bankrupted by medical bills and have to beg for charity, and then face the emotional torture of unhinged strangers accusing you of being a crisis actor and hounding you online and in person. Hard to think of any other nation that would conspire to amplify the grief of the bereaved in such a determined fashion.
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@Xoxarle
Fantastic comment! It's very pleasing to know some Americans can think in real context and not only in ideological abstraction. To hear from afar how these children were murdered and then to hear a public figure has denied it happened - just sick!
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Wow. Such an important topic, and so difficult to get right. I think Mr.French is on to something here, but off base on some others. And the same thing is true of the readers comments. We should all start by agreeing with Mr. French that there is a big difference between legal and voluntary censorship. I wish we used different words for the two. There is a term on the internet, but we don't use it enough. Moderated speech. What facebook etc is doing is not censoring, it is moderating.
While I agree with Mr. French that we should strive to minimize moderation, because that is how we communicate and respect each other, if I were running facebook, my goal is not controversial political speech, making and spending time with friends in a safe environment. Therefore I agree with FB that "hate speech" does not belong on their site. I would disagree with youtube. Their site is anything but family friendly. I think they have made a mistake to moderate Mr. Jones barring libel, slander, or dangerous untruths.
There is a complaint in the readers comments that libel and slander laws are not being enforced. While a concern, the readers language implying there is a limit to public free speech is very concerning. Free speech is one of the best remedies oppressed people have. To limit it will undoubtedly come back to bite them hard. Much in the same way that the erosion of of congressional norms that the democrats helped to erode are now coming back to bite them.
1
Would this approach work for radio and television? What about shopping malls?
1
Seems to me like the more fundamental issue is that internet content lacks regulations that exists for TV and radio content. Probably time to wake up to 21st century and regulate internet content the same way we do with TV and radio.
13
"Second, there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform"
Don't be so sure. The Supreme Court has often had an ideological bent. Now that it is firmly in right-wing hands I wouldn't be surprised if it supports the rights of right-wingers. As the NYT reported a month ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/us/politics/first-amendment-conservat... conservatives have weaponized the First Amendment, and this issue will give them another wedge to prevent any restrictions on speech they like.
There is a certain irony to this. As Ralph Nader noted in the article above, Citizens United was the end result of a case he won against prohibitions on a pharmacy advertising drug prices. When the court turned conservative, they ran with it.
What could happen here? Back in the 60s the debate was over liberal protests against the war, union marches, etc. In a 1968 case the U.S. Supreme Court stated “[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”
While the Supreme Court (more sympathetic to property these days) has backed away from this ruling the precedent is clear. The internet of today is the shopping center of yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if the court steps in once again to help those on the right.
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@Mike T.
You raise interesting points. Does Citizens United v. FCC extend the rights of private corporate bodies to express their political interests? If so, then does FB have a political speech right (beyond DMCA, DOPA etc.) to remove content which runs contrary to FB's expressed political interests?
4
I'm good with banning him for hate speech, thanks.
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That Jones has an audience should be a wake up call to the entire nation. He may be the most disgusting human being I can think of, certainly the top ten.
26
Hmm. Were you also against banning 9/11 Truthers a few years back? You know, like Van Jones from CNN? Or was that OK because they were anti-Republican?
@Achilles
A very jonesesque sort of ambiguous attack you have posted there.
Care to clearly state the facts you are willing to defend with proof and a reasoned argument and ask an honest question about whatever it is you are asserting?
This supposes tech companies wish to make a distinction between public and private. Good luck with that.
Alex Jones vitriol is the equivalent of yelling fire is it not? It has real consequences. It causes real danger. Lies cause real damage. He is inciting others, directly and indirectly. Accuracy has a place in disseminating falsehoods. The courts do not work fast enough to contain the damage in advance and the law needs to catch up. "Burn the witch" has a long history, a toxic one we may want to stop in our modern era.
15
@poslug Well said. If he were standing on a street corner spewing his opinion, that would be okay. Problem is he has a media tool at his disposal, and he uses it to his advantage. THAT is what makes his speech so dangerous.
7
Speaking of lies, we've been forced-fed the notion that the invisible, guiding hand of the market will create fairness, balance and diversity in media. As a result, we've seen any sort of regulation of media ownership tossed to the trash heap, resulting in unprecedented consolidation. Most of our media is controlled by just a few mega-corporations. That consolidation has led to tremendous limiting of opinion, perspective and access to information. In addition to this, there has been a great purging of alternative media by google, and a demonitization of many popular political webcasts by youtube. Just as Conservatives decry "shadow banning" by twitter, these mega-media filters have lessened the public's access to multiple opinions. Only the corporatist, multinational media gets heard. This is a far more pernicious censorship, since it's done in the name of free market capitalism. Talk about an oxymoron.
4
The trouble is that livel and slander laws are seldom enforced, especially against public figures Our president commits both regularly, starting with birtherism, and has never been held to account.
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@M.
I had the impression that French recommends using the rationale and standards of libel and slander in a private environment. I did not read that he recommend FB charge Jones in court.
1
Mr. French asks companies to use a strict legal standard for banning content from the platforms. That's nice but very impractical. Libel and slander are only proven after the fact. If these companies have to dissect each post from Alex Jones, et. al., and ferret out the ones that just might pass legal muster, then they have to engage a team of lawyers everyday. And once the post is on the platform, the damage is done, even if later removed.
I applaud Facebook, Apple, and You Tube for banning this guy wholesale. If he wants to pay for his own platform to spew his hateful nonsense, he can. The companies have reason to support him.
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@Ken L Yeah! To heck with constitutional protections and the First Amendment. Old White Men wrote that document. What did they know?
1
@Achilles, no. I believe 100% in the First Amendment and the Constitution. But that does not apply to private companies operating a web platform. They do NOT have to invite or include Mr Jones. As I said, Mr. Jones may exercise his rights on his dime, freely. Subject to being sued by others enjoying their constitutional protections, of course.
1
@Achilles
They knew a great deal more than we do. I would beware of maligning the constitution at this juncture in time. The center needs to hold against over-reaction by both ends of the political spectrum.
It would prove very difficult to determine libel or slander before the appellate courts complete their own determination in most cases. So the private social media websites would be making decisions where they have limited knowledge and expertise. The “hate speech” criterion is even more amorphous as no one knows what it really means. One man’s hate speech may be another man’s PhD thesis criticizing some ideology. This issue is particularly perplexing right now as our President is a world champion liar, obfuscator and conspiracy theorist. Where is Walter Cronkite when we really need him?
Deplatforming people like Jones is the only way to deal with them. They don't argue in good faith. They knowingly lie to a gullible public. They propagate hate with full antipathy towards the violence it will engender. You can't reason them down towards reasonable (reality-based) positions. You take can only away their megaphone and watch them wither away into irrelevance
24
What about using speech to incite violence. Isn't that a crime?
17
@Jean
What you are asking is whether any of Jones's followers are charged with a crime of violence and are claiming they were incited by Jones (as a defense)?
Do we need a better way to treat Alex Jones ? If anyone is less deserving of a better way,it is he. He is inhumane,vile and evil to his core. He does not deserve redemption or forgiveness for what he has done.
20
Excellent.
I have always thought that the term "hate speech" was the most ludicrous, meaningless term. We often think we know what it is, and can recognize it when we hear it but we can often simply link it to some idea we simply disagree with. We cannot take the millions of ideas we simply disagree with and when we hear them spoken, call them hate speech. We need to define the bounds as you suggest with the legal concepts of libel and slander. And make sure the "speech" fits those definitions. For example, I'm an atheist and see no value in believing in ancient mythologies regarding gods and in fact I'm one of those convinced that religion is a horrid institution that distorts and damages minds, social interactions and isolates people into tribes. When does my public criticism of religion become "hate speech?"How can you possibly fit the word "hate" in front of the word "speech" and differentiate it from free speech? From opinion? Hate is an emotion and there is no justification for ever putting it in front of the word "speech.
Thanks for this review of the problem.
7
Many of the comments I've read so far express that Facebook et. al. can ban these types of views, and possibly should - see arguments saying that the legal process takes too long, that slander and libel are too high a bar, that if someone is yelling on another's driveway, that property owner can ask them to leave.
All true. And asserted clearly in the first paragraph of this piece. The issue raised by this piece is not whether or not private companies can ban people; as the writer says, "there is no First Amendment violation when a private company chooses to boot anyone off a private platform."
The issue is the divisiveness of the invective peddled by Mr. Jones and those like him. However, the malleability of "hate speech" in these times has become so extreme that everything has the potential for opening the speaker to excommunication from society.
Mr. Jones is beyond the pale. He says things that are demonstrably false, and apparently incites his listeners to violence against ideological opponents. That is wrong to anyone, no matter where you are on the spectrum. But the notion that opinions we don't like are now "hate speech" is a slippery slope towards an even more divided country. More and more the loudest voices are the only ones heard, on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and they demand purity above all else. Debate is morphing into a place where you can't have a dissenting opinion for fear of being labeled as a hatemonger.
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@Joe Turner Inciting his listeners to violence against ideological opponents is a good enough bar to clear for me to have this man banned from these websites. I have never once heard him denounce the dozens of his listeners who have committed felonies by harassing Sandy Hook parents, or who entered a pizzeria and fired a weapon because of his crazy theories. Freedom of speech is fine but when you are consistently causing others to commit acts of violence I think its fine for the privately owned platforms that are hosting that material to kick him out.
2
@Joe Turner
The definition of hate speech is vague, the author writes. I think the courts will find that libel and slander may have better definitions, but are just as vague in their application. Consider how many interpretations there are of the second amendment or the Bible.
1
Facts are facts. Sandy Hook happened. What Alex Jones is doing is exploiting facts for his own enrichment. He is not expressing ideas or opinions for the sake of furthering an argument.
2
Just because a tradition is sacred doesn't mean it can't be abused, especially by those in power.
Today we are seeing the First Amendment being viciously abused by those in power. The most egregious example, of course, is the "money is speech" and corporate personhood nonsense that allows the rich and powerful to manipulate elections almost at will. Money is not speech, money is power. Corporations are not people, corporations are businesses.
Also, it looks like any serious attempt to bring the duration of election campaigns down to a reasonable level, one that works just fine in many other democratic countries, will run up against "First Amendment" principles.
Another example is religious freedom. This sacred principle is being debased by a furious reaction to women's rights and gay civil rights. In the name of religious freedom we are seeing women being refused legal medication and being made to run a gauntlet to get into a Planned Parenthood office. In the name of religious freedom we are seeing gay people being denied services and being treated like second-class citizens by those running public businesses.
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are critically important to our democracy, but that doesn’t prevent them from being held hostage and misused by those in power.
11
The best means of dealing with offensive speech is to expose it to the light of day. Offense should never be a reason to shut someone down. I understand these companies are private and may control content how they wish, but as a larger societal issue the trend is chilling. Understanding and hearing what one considers to be bad ideas is just as important as hearing those one deems as good.
5
Gee,Trump does this all the time - what' the problem? DJM
French calls Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council mainstream? Ha! Considering their entire purpose is to strip a discrete group of people of their civil rights and make them second class citizens, that is rich. They're mainstream in the same way that the KKK was once mainstream among certain hateful members of society.
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@Mike They are evil organizations, true. But calling them the same as the KKK dilutes the critique of the KKK, a terrorist organization, and fails, utterly, to counter the evil opinions that these evil organizations spread. We need to stop the ADF and the FRC. Banning them and labeling them has haters will have the opposite effect, and will backfire, making our critiques of actual right wing terrorist groups weaker.
The SPLC has denounced a Muslim woman as an anti-Muslim extremist for campaigning against female genital mutilation. They do a lot of good and necessary work, but I'm re-thinking my support.
Meanwhile, the answer to Facebook's corporate power is to simply get off Facebook.
8
@franko May I suggest you do further research into the allegation. That one sentence does not paint the entire picture.
This article disparages the Southern Poverty Law Center as a way to bolster its arguments about when and how to censor hate speech or hate groups. I still respect SPLC and prog contribute to the organization. If they made a mistake and paid for it, I trust they have learned.
I also read and follow ProPublica, and find their investigative reporting to be thorough and in many cases groundbreaking.
But when I looked at the Alliance Defending Freedom, I saw a website with stock photos attempting to show that they defend the freedoms of all religions, but mainly serve to uphold the sexual mores of white Christian fundamentalists. The organization was founded by white Christian men, and seems to be focused mainly on anti-abortion and now anti-gay/transgender. Maybe this organization deserves to be listed as a hate group since it is against or "anti" certain groups of people.
58
French writes for the National Review; 'nuff said
14
The most dangerous hate speech in America comes from Trump
29
Social media platforms are under no obligation to provide a platform for haters, the same way Benjamin Franklin or the NY Times are under not obligation to let people like Jones use their printing press. The Nazis and racists among us can create their own social media platforms to spread their chaos and anarchy, and we'll really see how much support they receive.
3
Interestingly, Mr. French makes the point several times that private corporations can ban whoever they like. From my perspective this is the more important issue that should be made clear. Facebook, Apple, and the likes are not designated "free speech forums" and they should not pretend to be. They routinely ban content that would be considered "indecent" which is legally protected speech under the First Amendment, so to make this a conversation about Free Speech is to miss the point: these purveyors of content get to make choices about who and what they want to promote. The question really is, do they have any moral compass or are they just in it for the money, civil society be damned? In this case, at least, finally, after much public pressure, they have come down on the side of decency.
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@Jamie
The problem -- which Mr. French is well aware of but conveniently omits to mention -- is that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, Apple, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are all immune from suit under the law and cannot be sued even if they turn a blind eye to hate speech, libel, slander, etc. on their websites. The only repercussion they face, currently, is in the court of public opinion, which is something but not nearly enough.
If the law were changed, stripping the statutory immunity from anyone running an online forum, all these companies, and others, would be compelled to actively police their forums to prohibit defamatory content posted by others, whether by Alex Jones or by anyone else.
Mr. Jones would still have a First Amendment right to put up whatever kind of drivel he wants on his own website but at his own risk and on his own dime. And, the internet would be a less "lively" place, but also one where people are far less subjected to online abuse by others.
1
@Jamie I do have an example that could provide you with an answer : at the beginning of the "Affaire Benalla" in France, Facebook banned most if not all content related to this matter and the reaction of the government, which conveniently allowed the latter to claim that "nobody is talking about it on Facebook".
I would say they're in it for the money.
@Jamie
Right on point. On my knees before you.
There is no better way to ban Alex Jones. Alex Jones has a huge following. People want to hear what he has to say. Also, if you used these tactics, they will soon be used against you. With that said, I find Alex Jones to be very entertaining. I don't watch his program everyday but when I do, its hilarious. I always enjoy watching Alex Jones programs.
1
@Ezra Taylor
I've always thought Alex Jones was playing the biggest joke on the world with Infowars. That one day he would admit that it was all a joke/con job and we all fell for it.
1
@Rocket J Squrriel He has admitted that, in court during the child custody battle between him and his ex-wife. She cited his statements and behavior on his website and podcast as evidence of his psychological instability and lack of fitness to be a parent, he countered that his public persona was just and act and a big joke. His millions of listeners haven't received the meme though, in my experience (I have met some of them), they take him dead seriously.
While a very satisfying suggestion, I feel that the writer hasn’t dealt much with corporate legal teams.
“The far better option would be to prohibit libel or slander on their platforms.…to “conduct their own investigations. Those investigations would rightly be based on concrete legal standards, not wholly subjective measures of offensiveness.”
While Facebook, Apple and others indeed have some of the biggest (and best) legal resources at their disposal, blithely suggesting that tech companies (who also have their shareholders to consider) side with complainants to initiate libel and slander proceedings isn’t so cut and dry.
Corporate legal is often loathe to go to bat for (e.g. ‘endorse’) a third party whether it be individual, group/organization or another company — since this opens them up to extensive legal (and even PR) headaches. Further, consider the indirect business costs of litigation by diverting key personnel from productive activities; from a company’s perspective this may be more consuming than they are willing to bear.
I’m NOT saying it’s right to avoid addressing the libelous and slanderous (and frankly, disgusting) nature of Alex Jones’s actions, particularly when many tech companies have provided the platform enabling such grotesque hate-speech. This is an awesome, feel-good academic suggestion -- it simply neglects to address the inherently and deeply entrenched trepidation of the corporate legal world. This is business, after all.
2
Perhaps if youtube and facebook banned the propagation of outright lies. I don’t think they need to get bogged down in legalize to do this. Contrary to what the current administration would have us believe , there is an objective reality. The earth is spherical, Sandy Hook happened, climate change is happening, the Clintons are not running sex rings out of Pizza Parlors, the Bushes didn’t plan 911 and the holocaust happened. Allowing, these platforms to be used to propagate this kind of inflammatory disinformation is irresponsible.
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@Sue Nim
The problem -- which Mr. French is well aware of but conveniently omits to mention -- is that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, Apple, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are all immune from suit under the law and cannot be sued even if they turn a blind eye to hate speech, libel, slander, etc. on their websites. The only repercussion they face, currently, is in the court of public opinion, which is something but not nearly enough.
If the law were changed, stripping the statutory immunity from anyone running an online forum, all these companies, and others, would be compelled to actively police their forums to prohibit defamatory content posted by others, whether by Alex Jones or by anyone else.
Mr. Jones would still have a First Amendment right to put up whatever kind of drivel he wants on his own website but at his own risk and on his own dime. And, the internet would be a less "lively" place, but also one where people are far less subjected to online abuse by others.
@Sue Nim
"All silencing of discussing is an assumption of infallibility."
-John Stuart Mill
You want Youtube and Facebook to ban positions on topics you've decided are "outright lies"? If I were to ask you 10 consecutive questions about the shape of our earth, could you answer them? If you could, thats great! Kudos to you. But if you couldn't: then you've accepted the majority position on the topic on the basis of something other than your own verification. If you've accepted the majority position on the shape of our earth on feelings or trust for the consensus of authority, then you can benefit from more speech, not (as you suggest) less speech.
The other aspect of your response that needs to be addressed are the degree to which normal, rational people can deviate from the positions you've stated above. Climate change is happening, but by how much and is any of the standard position alarmist? In your suggestion to youtube and facebook, would they be justified in banning the speech of Richard Lindzen?
Do you support youtube or facebook outright banning mentions to Robert Faurisson?
I write this not as an endorsement of the positions above, but rather to question respectfully what seems to be the assumption of infallibility as well as highlight how not cut and dry the issue of banning content is.
With respect
David
3
@Sue Nim and we have the First Amendment which allows for all of this kind of speech. The platforms are private, so they can ban what they like, but how about disclaimers posted on the page, warning the viewers that the content is false, misleading, or contrary to the platform owner's beliefs, etc.? Or, that the purveyors are foreign and hostile entities? That could get interesting.
I can’t recall ever hearing about a successful libel or slander case in the US. In any case, these laws are very narrow anyway. So really there needs to be some sort of remedy for those pandering conspiracy theories that does not require the judgment of the law.
7
@ENR
There are successful cases but you're right in that its very hard. Britain is notorious in how easy it is to win a libel case. Subjects of books who aren't British have sued and won cases against authors who aren't British either. Just the fact that the book was published in Britain is enough. I'm glad to say that US courts laugh at requests to enforce the judgments here.
4
All the facts presented here are in the first three paragraphs. It IS that simple. The rest of the article is Mr French cherry picking from a variety of sources to present a doom and gloom scenario to back up his narrow minded beliefs.
24
**Moreover, ProPublica acknowledged that it used the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list (at least in part) to compile its own analysis of “hate sites,” including sites for groups like the Family Research Council.**
This sentence suggests the Family Research Council ought not be included in the hate-speaker category. Do some research and think again. FRC does not believe in equality under the law and speaks out vehemently against it. At the top of it's long list: virulent anti-gay stances, pro govt invasion and control of women's bodies, entirely successful, history distorting decades-long demonization of Hillary Clinton, part of the evil-axis powers that have successfully shaped contemporary elections into extraordinarily destructive hate affairs). Do people die from this behavior? Think of hate crimes up to and including murder. Think of how we've sat on our hands for decades while the world burns, and people burn to death in them. Think of immediate further degradation of our air and water with the negating of fossil fuel restrictions and that impact on the ill, the elderly, the young, the unborn, and actually everyone. Do people die from this behavior? I certainly think so.
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@arla Let's be clear: the FRC is an evil evil organization, but they are NOT a hate group. They are just very wrong. Just like the Republican party, which is evil, unamerican, and arguably racist, is not a hate group.
When we lower the bar for "hate" to include all opinions that are wrong or evil, then we end up ignoring opinions that are better off countered with engagement.
I understand the dudgeon Mr. French feels for the banning of his former employer, the ADF, while the SPLC rules the roost.
Libel laws don't solve that problem. What is libel, after all? Are the facts really false? Did the libeler know they were false? Did s/he really act with malice in bad faith? What if they just apologize before trial, and find a new victim?
The nexus here is between the 18th century constitutional conception of "speech", the 19th century conception of corporations as "persons", digital media, anonymous postings, online "privacy," "fake news", trolls, bots and, foremost, the corporate imperative not to do right, not to "not be evil", but to make money ... lots of money.
The only problem with a more forceful law against bogus information and hateful intent, as we find in Germany, or a more stringent conception of libel, as we find in England, is that it would require a constitutional amendment.
But then I'm among the tiny band of people who think our constitution is relict law and desperately requires a large number of amendments to make it cope with the 21st century. Read Article Five, people.
Meanwhile, Mr. French is stuck in the past, and advises "if a screwdriver won't pound the legal nail, try your shoe."
7
@drollere Yes, of course. Your revised Constitution would dispose of the First, Second, Fifth, and 14th Amendment, as well as the Senate. Most likely it would limit the vote to LA and NYC. "Freedom for Me, but not for Thee".
2
They are private companies and can do as they wish...your argument is specious It has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment which applies to the govt.
10
@Mitzi
So you wouldn't have any problems if I bought Facebook and started banning liberal groups?
2
@Rocket J Squrriel
Nope - knock yourself out. Just be prepared for a good number of Facebook users to vote with their feet and leave.
Matters like these always bring out, wrongfully, the cries of "First Amendment violation!" (as Mr. French is quick to address and disabuse).
It always amazes me that those people that memorize and recite the Second Amendment apparently have never bothered to read the First.
15
"The far better option would be to prohibit libel or slander."
And who is to determine what is libel or slander? This is merely kicking the can down the road. Suppose the board of censors is made up of a Religious and Atheist? And who gets to choose the censors? Government sized corporations like Apple, Google, FB, Amazon? So now we allow para-governments to "make laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"?
3
@shreir How about an AI truth filter that annotates all the mendacious calumny and labels it as such. Can we at least limit the broadcast while allowing the speech? I don't have this kind of freedom to speak. I have guilt and shame, which means only psychopaths get to talk. This isn't just one liar. This is a cabal and they are in the highest office. How do you propose we bring justice to an unjust situation?
1
As the article states, libel and slander are specific legal terms. Not (yet) a theological matter. Libel is a written or published defamatory statement, while slander is defamation that is spoken by the defendant. Until christians (in name only) make our nation a theocracy, it's a matter of law. Hence the, um, lawsuits against Jones. The topic is how to utilize the law for conspiracy theorists. Strange how you have a conspiracy theory for this conspiracy theorist topic!! : D
1
@deb
Well, that's progress. We have now determined that slander and libel translates into defamation--in legal can-kicking at least. Now if some brave soul could offer a definition for defamation. Would it be calling a politician a bigot, a tenured professor a fool, etc, etc? Apart from taking the vow of silence, may I suggest we all learn to communicate in code so as to leave ourselves the maximum degree of plausible deniability. But see Shreir's List of Safe Internet Terms.
David French is to be commended for what he is doing here -- looking for legal ways to stop Alex Jones. But we have to be careful about Mr. French. He disparages the Southern Poverty Law Center for labelling his former employer Alliance Defending Freedom a hate group. However, the SPLC's site states the AFD:
"has supported the recriminalization of homosexuality in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and claims that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society. ADF also works to develop “religious liberty” legislation and case law that will allow the denial of goods and services to LGBT people on the basis of religion."
If these statements are true -- and I do not see French denying them -- then it's fair to say that the ADF is indeed a hate group.
I'm not implying French is remotely comparable to Alex Jones. He's not. Jones is vicious and exploitative, whereas French is thoughtful and well-meaning. Even so, what French represents is still a significant hate problem in our society.
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Exactly. He makes his own counter-point. If the SPLC is wrong about the ADF, why not Alex Jones? Think about traffic laws. Some people are safe driving at speeds well above the average, but not everyone is; because of the drivers that cannot be trusted, all of us are forced to drive at a certain speed, sometimes lower than we would prefer. There has to be a line somewhere. Political correctness is about respectful behavior/speech towards the other humans around us. Some of us do use it as a shield against critics, but isn't it a worthy trade that some things shouldn't be said, and some jokes can't be made, so that all of us can feel accepted, or least not unwelcome?
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@Msckkcsm French is thoughtful, and self-serving - he carefully couches his hatred. Much like Republicans who wish Trump would pollute more and tweet less, he's worried about the scrutiny loudmouths like Jones bring to his racket. He wants hate speech to more acceptable, and Jones ruins that.
26
@James It seems to me that what is called political correctness is a manifestation of what I have heard referred to as the Platinum Rule: Treat others as they wish to be treated.
Why does this man rate publicity from the NYT? I have never read his views and question what he has ever done? Why is he important? Facebook is nice for connecting and sharing photos with family and friends, but who gets news and information there?
7
@Donna Gray
Unfortunately, I think tens of millions of people get their news and information from Facebook and its links to fake news sites. That is primarily how the Russians were able to influence the 2016 election.
6
to @Donna Gray:
I'm told that millions get their "news" from Facebook. Hard to believe but people believe that if it has been placed on a social network or the internet in general, it must be true. People are terribly naive and can not think. How has our education system failed us so miserably? Humans will not last on this planet very long; just look around you as climate change becomes obvious and our leaders deny it; the world human population continues with exponential growth, nuclear weapons proliferate and morons are elected as leaders.
9
Seriously? How sad that millions get news from Facebook. I still wonder how the Russians used Facebook to influence our election. I am over 65 and can't believe how easily swayed young folks are! Don't they have minds?
I say this as a card-carrying liberal democrat, this phrase is right on the money: "...the slightest deviation from the latest and ever-changing social justice style guide..."
It's getting so at times the term "hate speech" is used in ways that border on, well, hate speech. Simple disagreement is not "hate." Being uncomfortable with someone or with some situation is not "hate." Simply trying to be true to what you believe and how you see the world, when stated in a reasonable, level tone, is not "hate."
Genuine hate speech does exist, no question. No question whatsoever. It seems to be primarily directed against minorities of all possible stripes (overwhelmingly), but I've heard some vile and unfair things said about Christians--I'm talking about just average church goers--by my liberal friends.
Yeah, I hope the Sandy Hook parents nail this creature to the wall--in court.
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@Jack Klompus Why should a grieving family have to move, seven times, to prove financial harm enough to sue in court for Alex Jones to be stopped? Why is the bar so impossibly high for them, but you can present hearsay about rude things your liberal (read, heathen) friends have said about your Christian (read, decent, GOOD Americans) friends?
The pity is that social platform didn't ban Alex Jones YEARS ago - this article is the NYT defense of hate speech - a "slippery slope" argument that says it's all good.
3
@Jack Klompus
You're just saying the term can be misused - so it shouldn't be used at all. Then you contradict yourself and say its application is certainly justified on occasion. You've every right to deny that purported "hate speech" is "hate speech" as the occasion dictates; but denying in abstraction that the term can ever be adequately defined, or ever be aptly used, is a fool's errand.
1
Alex Jones is undoubtedly a horrid person. He is making a living by telling terrible, hurtful lies about people who have had the most tragic experiences in their lives - that of losing their children to murder. Imagine how it must feel to then hear someone accuse you of merely pretending to grieve.
What must this man Jones possibly be trying to achieve here? I don't know the details of the libel laws but surely Jones is a perfect example of one who should be sued for his lies. Hit him in his pocket because it doesn't work to appeal to his conscience as he doesn't have one. Since I first heard of what he's been up to, I haven't figured out why he wasn't sued a long time ago.
10
If you try to drive people like Alex Jones underground they will become MORE popular....not less. They will have real grievances and this will damage mainstream political culture even more than it is already damaged.
THINK LONG TERM.....banishing Alex Jones is a terrible idea. Far better is to let him have his spotlight and point out the insane things he says out in public. Make his viewers defend what he says, and make it public. Sunlight is the best disinfectant....
19
There are few humans on the public stage as reprehensible as Alex Jones, and how he is able to get away with the things that come pouring out of his mouth is beyond credulity.
His knack for tastelessness knows no bounds, and that was made all the more apparent when he claimed no one died at Sandy Hook.
Evidently Mr. Jones was too busy inventing conspiracies and lies to see the photos of the grieving and distraught parents who are now suing him in court for libel.
There is a difference between freedom of speech and the right to abuse it.
And Alex Jones is living proof of that.
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@N. Smith Well, that's your opinion. And what's wonderful about America is the First Amendment gives you the right to state your opinion. You progressives are forgetting that.
1
@Achilles No, not just opinion. There are actual facts here --those children were actually slaughtered, Alex Jones chose to lie about it and foster that lie to enrich himself (get business for his loathsome website), millions of horrible people choose to believe his disgusting lies. There should be some restraints and some consequences for people who use public platforms to promote destructive falsehoods. You conservatives are forgetting that.
@Achilles
From CNN:
"We've clearly got people where it's actors playing different parts of different people," the suit quotes Jones as saying on March 14, 2014. "I've looked at it and undoubtedly there's a cover-up, there's actors, they're manipulating, they've been caught lying and they were pre-planning before it and rolled out with it."
I would say that claiming someone faked the death of a child, never had a child to die, was lying, was acting, was perpetrating a hoax, and was doing all this to make money - to a point where the parents have to move roughly once a year because of the ensuing harassment and death threats, is pretty much the definition of defamation and has nothing to do with free speech.
Having to move because of reactions due to someone else's speech sounds oddly enough like crying fire.
"Hate Speech" definition varies across the globe in all democratic countries and are dependent on local cultures and history. Europeans have banned speeches and writings that deny their past sins in WWII. Asian countries similarly ban hate speeches against any religion, religious groups, minorities and even majorities!
Democracies are not perfect! We live its imperfections.
I, a pragmatist, applaud the banning of Alex Jones on all platforms. Occasionally some innocent opinion maker may get banned, but such errors are bound to occur in all democracies.
7
Beg to differ, but if you follow the legal history of slander and libel laws you learn that as remedies they have become almost worthless for the very same reason. That is that the interpretation of content is so subjective that there is no common ground. No consensus can be reached.
Add to that the mere fact that anything truthful about whatever is broadcast undermines the legal basis of slander (now a foregone remedy) and libel is going the same route as well.
So now we can say anything about anybody especially public figures and get away with it. That's the tradeoff for free speech.
A pretty good deal, I'd say.
27
Beg to differ: by no definition are the Sandy Hook parents and relatives “public figures”, so your high bar is actually pretty low. Applying the slander and libel clear precedents and it seems to me he’s gone down with all hands.
Public figures have a harder time, I agree, but mostly they bought in to the public square with all of its advantages...and hazards.
There are many restrictions on speech. Like inciting violence through speech. I have always wondered if Donald Trump could be sued by a journalist for inciting violence against the press. That might be a better way to go after the hateful speech by people like Alex Jones as well.
16
I looked up the precise definitions for libel and slander, as the article arguing for their use didn't feel the need to, and according to my search they relate to false statements made about individuals. But does it also protect groups or organizations?
If I say that lesbians wear Doc Martins to communicate with their mothership in orbit over Venus (channeling my inner Alex Jones), is that libel or slander? I'm not attacking an individual. I agree that vaugery is a problem, but specificity can lead to exposure.
6
@Thad, neither. You aren't attacking an identifiable person or group ("lesbians" identifies people on a characteristic, yes, but is less precise than, say, "Bob Smith," or even "Bob Smith, Inc."); further, you're not actually attacking them. Communicating with the mothership, while false, is arguably not reputationally damaging; Doc Martens are downright awesome.
2
Well said, David. In today's culture of outrage, there's no telling who or what can get caught up in the passion of the day, and be ruined.
5
Nails it, I think, for why the term "hate speech," its adoption and proliferation, is a threat to free speech. And when our politicians start using the term and applying it in the political sphere (where it is most likely to be abused), we tip closer to legislating speech.
Stay clear!
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@smacc1
Have we ever legislated this type of speech? No. Are there any bills before Congress presented by anyone to do so? No. Or give some evidence. Which you cannot.You are free to say anything you wish in the public sphere, but you may meet social disapproval when you do. Tough luck.
"Hate speech" as a term is not a threat to free speech. It is a form of speech to be able to confront the words other say that denigrate groups and inspire violence. I think your fear is that it is somewhat successful in shaming folks when they do use hateful speech. And that it is helpful when folks push back against hateful speech as it educates others that tolerance and diversity are in the common good. I think your fear is that the good old days when you could bash different folks with no social repercussions are over and you wish they weren't.
3
@smacc1
"[L]egislating speech", or simply deciding what is appropriate to say and what is not, has likely been going on since human beings have been speaking. Every community is "a moral community" - even if it is an extremely immoral one. Absolutism is poor pragmatism. It's got a half-life. It's not sustainable.
@GRW The main "legislation" in the US is the 1st amendment free speech clause. From what I understand, there are really no substantial laws in the US that mess with it.
But this is not true elsewhere in the world, including our neighbor to the north and European countries, none with "1st amendment"-like speech protections. Tread lightly there.
There is a fine line, and I'm suggesting that the use of the term "hate crime" is a somewhat sly attempt to chip away at the US' resistance to legislating speech. If enough people in the US generally agree, for example, that a law or two prohibiting "insulting or demeaning" others seems A-OK (heck, it's mean!), it's at least conceivable there could be an attempt in the future at passing some.
It wouldn't be good. People need to wise up.
My understanding is that the First Amendment's protections are very broad, but there are two situations in which they cease. One is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded venue when there is none, and the other is what lawyers refer to as "fighting words" -- untrue or skewed speech that is designed to incite violence or create problems. I'm pretty sure Jones and half of what is said on Fox falls within those categories. Lying, especially in regards to topics of national and international importance, is not a legally protected right. And yes, we do have libel and slander laws, too.
52
The bigger problem here is that these sites supposedly ban hate speech, but as we saw with InfoWars, they are very reluctant to actually do anything about it. It took a lot of public pressure over a prolonged time, and ultimately one platform - Apple - deciding to take the plunge before the rest of them jumped on board.
The number of times I have flagged comments on Facebook that very clearly seemed to go against their standards and got a reply back that they had decided it did not - it's truly maddening when a site seems unwilling to play by its own rules.
And of course, that's without talking about Twitter, which has refused to take InfoWars down off its site. To say nothing of its pathetic rationale for keeping Trump's Twitter on there - its "newsworthiness." I wasn't aware that was a mitigating factor.
21
True, loose definitions provide a slippery slope.
Since when is a site on the internet the "public square"? I, for one, operate and administer a listserv. I set standards, and unsubscribe anyone who violates them. You don't have to subscribe ... but you DO have to adhere to my standards on my platform. Don't like it? Set up your own, but don't try to re-write laws that would have made Peter Zenger publish what the government wanted.
16
I may not like Alex Jones. I may not like what he says, but I would fight to defend his right to say it.
9
@Mark, depending on what "it" is, he may not have a right to say it. And he certainly isn't free to say it wherever he wishes. Nothing guarantees that right.
4
Replace “may” with “do” and you may by on to something.
@Mark Alex Jones has a right to spew his filth, but he doesn't have the right to spew his filth on my private platform. Apple and Facebook are not obligated to allow him access to their platforms.
12
I do not like Facebook at all. It has essentially made billions by attempting to privatize the internet which was a public good.
But I just don't think it is reasonable to expect Facebook to know how to deal with this. It is legal for Facebook to ban (or not ban) this "content". The current court case of Alex Jones demonstrates that it is VERY difficult to determine whether libel law prohibits most offensive speech. So how is a company supposed to do that proactively? And do we even want them to? Instead of pushing the responsibility onto Facebook, why can't we as citizens collectively form a set of guidelines we want these firms to follow? Perhaps the government should lead this. Perhaps a non-profit that consults with constituents from all across society. Perhaps there could even be a vote taken by users? We don't want Facebook making these calls and I feel sure they would rather follow a set of standards rather than invent those standards.
13
The likes of Alex Jones (and indeed the right wing machine) says things that are so out of the ordinary, false, and outrageous - that the rest of us just respond emotionally, and incoherently (see MSNBC for daily, incoherent, outrage).
Maybe we worsen the situation by an emotional response that is non-developmental, and only serves to energize the hate mongers.
I like this article. Because it tells us - although in a very round about way - that the best way to get hate-speech is to make the hate-speakers pay money to victims, and pay to make amends. Cash.
Why Alex Jones, the entire spectrum of right wing hate deserves suing in court with existing laws. People threatening bodily harm ('hit 'em, I'll pay for your defense") should similarly be sued and made to pay. I am not speaking of a few thousand, I am talking about hundreds of millions. Let republican voters send money to haters who eventually have to pay to a fund that can be put to some good use (let's say starting with fixing falling bridges in America).
No one can change the hearts of people like Alex Jones, or even the people who chant "lock her up" or "I like Russia, but not democrats." Until they see deep consequence, and deep personal loss.
65
@Kalidan "The likes of Alex Jones (and indeed the right wing machine) says things that are so out of the ordinary, false, and outrageous "
So does Louis Farrakhan and he associated with President Obama, Congressman, Senators and City Councilpeople. Why isn't he being banned? Why is the party that has dozens of his supporters called the "anti-racist" party?
3
It is time for all those who peddle hatred, prejudice, and foment violence through their lies and conspiracies to pay a dear price. That seems to be the only penalty that such bottom-feeders seem to understand. In that group, I include Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity - - heck, most of Fox News! Words that encourage the worst in people are as bad as actual weapons and maybe worse. A single weapon - a gun, a knife - is limited to doing harm within only a certain radius. These broadcasters - emphasis on "broad" - spread their venom to millions with a single breath. Despicable!
192
@Okiegopher Well, that is your (subjective) opinion.
2
@Okiegopher
For reference, libel is written. Slander is spoken.
Agree. And CNN, MSNBC, NYT also for keeping their audiences wound up against anything Trump. They incite hate to anything Trump. Granted, a great number of people hate Trump and they have their reasons, but these media outlets just compound the problem of hate. And some have been fired and reprimanded for their excesses. It is a business and making money to cater for their audiences is goal number one. Simple.
I wish the article had clearly defined the terms "libel" and "slander" and explained the differences between the two.
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@David E
False statements of fact that derogate the person about whom they are made. Traditionally, libel is something printed and slander something said, but these days that distinction is falling apart.
2
@David E, "libel" refers to written defamation, and "slander," spoken.
@David E Libel and slander are types of defamatory statements. Libel is a written defamatory statement, and slander is a spoken or oral defamatory statement.
The notion that private corporations can ban whomever they want is sorely outdated in the age of Facebook, Instagram and common social media.
Fine when an unruly customer interferes with patrons but not so when the only real forums are private, as if the public square was bought by a corporation, who then decided who could speak and who could not.
Inalienable rights expressed --called "traditions" here --are sacrosanct to the American Experience -- and why it works so well.
The law needs to get up to speed. Pronto.
10
@Marty O'Toole
One solution may be to require corporations to swear an oath of sorts --to uphold the state and federal constitution(s) --as a requirement of doing business.
Much as states should required corporations to list management/executive offices with working phone numbers as a requirement of doing business -- so folks don't get stuck in inept customer "service" (a k a hollow script reading sans accountability).
2
Really! You want the government to tell Facebook what it can and cannot accept on its site? Facebook is a private company.
13
Yes, Facebook is a private company, and under current laws and regulations they can control speech on their platform. However, the laws when written did not contemplate that a single private entity would have direct, daily (hourly?) communication to 2 billion people. That kind of reach and power has only been possible by world leaders and governments who do have significant restrictions on how they can control speech.
We need a healthy debate on what the responsibilities should be when this much power is concentrated into a single entity regardless of their ownership structure. Many find Zuckerberg to be reasonable and responsible but imagine if Facebook is purchased or controlled by a less moral and thoughtful regime - would you support restrictions in that case?
Complicated stuff.
3
I respectfully disagree.
It is simply way too long a process going through any judicial proceeding. Quick action can or may be required to avert danger.
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@Peter Hirschl
These private companies could simply state they are removing hateful content due to libel and/or slander concerns rather than hate speech. These private companies are not obligated to wait for long legal proceedings to make the exact same decision they have made. The difference would only be the reasons they use to explain removals.
1
@Peter Hirschl
Private platforms wouldn’t have to prove libel in court in order to be justified in citing that as reason for banning certain content. The point is that if they did state that they were banning libel rather than hate speech, it would be more difficult to mount objections.
@Peter Hirschl
I agree, Peter. As well, that could be used as a tactic to the abuser's advantage: keep spewing hateful messages so that things are tied up forever in courts (wasting taxpayers' money) and nothing gets resolved. Also, that would keep the abuser's name in the public eye perpetually, increasing his/her visibility, aka free advertising.
1
The notion that private corporations can ban whomever they want is sorely outdated in there age of Facebook, Instagram and common social media.
Fine when an unruly customer interferes with patrons but not so when the only real forums are private, as if the public square was bought by a corporation, who then decided who could speak and who could not.
Inalienable rights expressed --called "traditions" here --are sacrosanct to the American Experience -- and why it works so well.
The law needs to get up to speed. Pronto.
5
One of the greatest tricks Satan played on the American populace is the illogical notion of “inalienable.”
1
@Marty O'Toole There is no inalienable right to hate speech in the US
8
@Mitzi
You think so. Then why is our President able to express hateful speech on Twitter?