Facebook Banned Infowars. Now What?

"Hate speech" as a criterion is a disaster waiting to happen. The perfectly reasonable justification was that a preponderance of articles/videos contained false statements, many likely libelous or slanderous. One need only point to the tort arising from Mr. Jones's statements that he is in court over. The downside to that argument is that it suggests internet publishers should start to enforce standards of accuracy, as is done by the journalism profession. But hat would introduce a gigantic cost center that the companies had been avoiding since their IPO's. So instead they're doing exactly what Jones is accusing them of. Twitter's criticism was precisely correct: they are owning their irresponsibility instead of being disingenuous like the other companies.

I run a B&B. I advertise it as a hate-free business. Guests using hate speech are asked to leave immediately. Hate speech is a form of pollution much like cigarette smoke. While smoking is still legal in the US and Canada, business owners can restrict smoking on their premises. Likewise, those who smoke or use hate speech, are free to do it on the street or within their own homes. Their freedoms are not impinged upon at all. Facebook, You-tube and Spotify are businesses too. They are entitled to evict those who use hate speech. Hate speech is very easy to define. It is any language used to denigrate people who don't look like, pray like, come from the same culture as or carry the same prejudices as the person indulging in hate speech. And yes, a lawyer has confirmed that I am within my rights to evict guests using hate speech as long as they are forewarned in my house rule.

Many here, especially those sincerely believing your government or president are stupid, will probably desperately not like it, but I (a poor european political analyst) see it the FB basically jumped the bandwagon of extremely risky groupthink gamble -it is no more just about free speech and A. Jones unbearable rants everybody sane anyway takes with a big grain of salt but now it becomes a full blown political war no corporation of whatever size, not speaking a relatively easily replaceable internet message board as FB, has a slightest chance to win against federal legislature in a case the dems do not gain the US House majority in November - and the chances they do are now similar way "sure" as Hillary winning the 2016 pres. election (-in fact she had no chance to win it and from the hard numbers of results and turnout it was absolutely clear already just after the June 2016 primaries..) - then given the multimillion number of the Infowars followers and the dozens of millions of the GOP active supporters the ban decision can prove being a suicidal one and likely just its own shareholders could sell&sue FB into oblivion not speaking the US Congress would rip it into pieces anyway using draconian antitrust measures together with opening it to whole variety of suits proceeding then under the auspices of the Trump&GOP Senate appointed judges. In any case looking into the recent primary election numbers I surely wouldn't buy FB shares now. You have been warned.. ;)

How about actually working through the "questions" instead of dropping innuendo about them at the end? I feel like I know less now than when I began reading this piece. Facebook et al are not "platforms" or "mediums;" they are full partners in the "content" they purvey. Accordingly, questions of censorship are entirely beside the point. Stop the concern-trolling and start thinking seriously.

It seems that this is less about what Jones said, and more about the MSM fearing they no longer control the dialog, and frantically trying to get that control back.

Don't like it? Don't read it! Act as your own censor for yourself alone.

The handwringing over what to do with the likes of Mr. Jones is laughable. Mr. Jones' cowardly and vicious treatment of the parents of Newtown's murdered children is grounds for removal. Period. His vile conspiracy about child `actors' is lunacy. His words amount to harassment; his words have lead to threats against these families. Many, in fact, have been forced to relocate. Mr. Jones is lucky he's not behind bars, never mind on Facebook. Mr. Dorsey, wake up! Mr. Cruz, shame on you.

Anyone dumb enough to listen to Alex Jones should be allowed to. It isn’t up to media platforms to decide what should or should not be said in America’s online platforms. If you want to swim in Alex Jone’s sewage you should be allowed to. When you get cholera or typhus from wallowing in his filthy rhetoric, don’t expect free healthcare from the rest of us.

I'm looking through the NYT's homepage, seeing all the meaningless stories like this that makes transparent the corruption of both the mainstream and online media, wondering where their in-depth coverage of the Muslim group who got caught running a training center for school shooters is at. No place on the front page I can find. Terrorists who are training children to kill each other is less of a concern than an idiot whose political beliefs are different than theirs. Wow.

The government can not censor or forbid speech. Corporations can. No one is guaranteed the right to a platform for their views. Jones has no right to have a show on NBC, nor Youtube. If anything these places where people post photos of cats are not strict enough. They foster hate, intolerance and false news. They are responsible for the man who shot up the Pizza Pong in Washington because his addled mind believed it was the location for pedophiles. Kevin Roose, you should learn to relax

This brings up a very difficult question. Recently, in Germany, Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen and founder of the National Front Party in France, was convicted of Holocaust Denial. Holocaust Denial is perfectly legal in the United States. Should it be? Also, recently, a very conservative Presidential Candidate in Brazil was convicted of racism. Spewing racist garbage is against the law in Brazil, but it is perfectly legal in the United States. Should it be? Who is right about this, us or our allies?

Many dimensions. There is, of course, the distinction between government censorship and private companies setting policies. Then again, are Facebook and others more like public utilities? This is an old, but important, argument. And, do we progressives hang ourselves on our own petard when too easily banning some voices, when ours might be next, particularly as we have less political and economic power? And . . . Alex Jones is a lying menace, but so is our president. On balance, given the subjectivity and risks involved in deciding what speech is allowed, true or offensive, I come down on the "more speech is better speech" side. Other than occasionally adding a bit of irrational fuel to the angry nutcase bonfire, fools like Alex Jones convince no one of anything. Let his idiocy rot in daylight.

Good on you Mark Zuckerberg. This is your company with your terms of service. You can do whatever you want as far as I'm concern. This is not an issue of free speech. If someone comes to my house and spits out hate-filled language, I have every right to kick that person out.

It’s funny. The loudest people talking against Infowars are the ones you’ve never Heard his show. His listeners know that all the stuff they say is not true.

Who would you rather be the guardians of your freedom of speech: the US Constitution or Facebook’s user agreement? If you don’t think you could be next....you’re wrong. It is as simple as that.

I wish Facebook had never been developed. I see no intrinsic value in the platform. In the years to come, normal people will have left Facebook, and Facebook will be nothing more than a platform for anarchists and other trouble makers.

A constitutional right to free speech that doesn't apply to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc needs reconsideration...

These are privately run platforms choosing what content they want to host, not the US government banning them. These companies are free to restrict the usage of their platforms however they want. This is really no different from a content provider banning pornography however it is defined. There are no "free speech" laws being infringed upon here. Infowars supporters can decide for themselves if they want to leave these platforms in protest. If they do leave, I say good riddance.

Facebook , Twitter and other internet monopolies need to be treated like utilities. Since our politicians not longer prevent creation of monopolies because these corporations are their donors, they need to be regulated. Alex Jones is a cretan and his denial of Sandy Hook is terrible, but these decisions should not be left up to corporate oligarchs. There should be a court or process where people may have a hearing and know exactly why they are being banned. If left up to the Oligarchs will they next take down anti-war protesters, people who against their products, whose next. Taking down Alex Jones has now made him a martyr and now much more popular than ever. His app is now near the top at Apple. The best way to fight people like Alex Jones is with more videos, articles against what he is saying, not banning his speech. Here is a good conversation on this with Joe Rogan and Jimmy More https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgB-pmwlwDw

Good for Facebook! Some powerful entity has to start taking a stand against the hate, fear and promotion of violence that is taking over this country.

"With the exception of violent threats and hate speech, he wrote, “we lean toward free expression. It’s core to both who we are and why we exist.”" I'm tired of seeing such assertion repeated by the press without being challenged. Facebook does ban a lot of content on grounds that have nothing to do with either violent threats, hate speech or privacy but just happen not to be controversial issues among the American public. The first and most obvious example is of course sexual content which is banned altogether on grounds that are purely and strictly moral. Bare nipples don't harass or threaten anyone but they're still banned. Another more egregious example would be extremist Islamic videos (think ISIS recruitment or propaganda). Most of those videos don't actually promote threats or even hate speech. However, the message they are sending is morally abhorrent to Americans liberal and conservative alike and therefore, they get banned. It's as simple as that. White supremacist or christian fundamentalist videos on the other hand, while equally abhorrent get to stay on because they appeal to a significant portion of the American public. Pretending that Facebook doesn't pass some form of moral jugement is extremely disingenuous. What Facebook doesn't do is pass moral jugements that are divisive among Americans.

Good, his posts and videos are hateful and have absolutely no merit. If you want a flag bearer for free speech at least find someone who has a remote connection to the truth and rationale thought. He is only trying to sell merchandise to increase his own bottom line before someone cuts off his scams.

Do we want Facebook to be the arbiter of politics and speech? For me, I don't. Infowars have been active online for years, yet nothing was done until now. Optics and pressure really forced FB to remove Alex Jones--nothing more.

OMG! This Neville Chamberlainesque, "Peace in Our Time", hand-wringing from the "slippery-slope" folks is beyond it all. Free-speech doesn't mean yelling "fire" in a theater when there is no fire, just to see the patrons trample each other. So there are sensible limits to "free-speech." What harm would Jim Jones, of "drink the cool-aid", have done if social media was available to him to spout the same conspiratorial nonsense as Alex Jones? Facebook and other social media platforms were absolutely not on the radar when the Founders wrote this flawed document hundreds of years ago. "Radar" wasn't on their radar, either.

Facebook should have gotten rid of Alex Jones mis-info wars along time ago. Facebook doesn't need Mr. Jones' brand of nonsense. Alex Jones is just a loud-mouth salesman claiming to be a "gladiator" in a battle. What battle? He is fighting for the triumph of stupidity over intelligence and intelligence just scored another victory.

I don't buy that this was anything but a calculated move to attempt to push away the negative PR that WILL come once Alex Jones is indicted. Info Wars is an obvious purveyor of Russian propaganda, so much so that they messaging, language ["Globalist", "But her emails", "George Soros", "Hillary", "Obama", "Witch Hunt"] and coordination matches the Kremlin's points so closely. He's had ALEXANDR DURGIN as a guest..Info Wars is an important tool in attacking American institutions and events. Facebook must be getting all kinds of subpoenas that lets them know what exactly Mueller's team is looking at. Roger Stone goes down first. Then the unregistered propaganda channels.

None of this would have happened until we got a better president in Donald Trump. Alex Jones and Infowars have been online for MANY years without being banned. Alex has proven so many things, it is not even funny at all. We all know there is bad people in the world in high places and off the grid. Banning Infowars was unconstitutional and wrong. They have no right to define hate speech because they are the promoters of hate on the left. They are the ones that want the civil war, that only came about when Donald Trump was elected president. Companies like Facebook have NO BUSINESS in banning people who have been online and using free speech and telling it like it is for many years. I know many cops and business owners who know for a fact we are NEVER told the whole story about any of these shootings, whether people actually died or not. We have a RIGHT to question EVERYTHING, and rightly should. Mark Zuckerberg has proven beyond a shadow of any doubt he is greedy, a liar, a manipulator, and sides with the CIA and NSA in surveillance and monitoring of the public. There is no question of that. So if they want to ban Infowars, then they are showing their hate for conservatives, the true Constitution, Christians, the real truth and accountability. Facebook in all reality should be banned, and anyone like them, including Google and Apple, which are just as bad.

This is not a free speech issue. Alex Jones' right to free speech remains as it always has - unfettered. Private companies, however, do not have any obligation to provide unfettered free speech to anyone and everyone. That is not what the Constitution says. "Congress shall make no law...". It says nothing about Google, Facebook, ABC or any other private entity setting their own standards for what is acceptable. If Infowars wants to pay for the development of a distribution platform, the maintenance and oversight of said platform, and all bandwidth costs associated with it, there is absolutely nobody stopping them from pursuing that goal. In the meantime, as a customer of Facebook I am more than happy to see their drivel no longer clogging my newsfeed.

The challenge with Facebook and as far as I can discern, most moderated comment platforms, is the people who are running them and the guidelines being used are not based on critical thinking skills. Where are the philosophy students? Zuckerberg himself lacks critical thinking skills, and as a result, like so many of us, is driven by his casual, emotional thinking. It's time to learn how to deliberate. Let's honor Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman's ground breaking work that fanned a behavioral economics movement and is captured in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, by developing our deliberate, higher ordered thinking abilities. Clear and high expectations that are relatable and attainable are exactly what Social Media needs - it's the missing link to their ability to support healthy human development. It creates the safe base and caring relationships that generate a sense of belonging, builds skills, creates an opportunity for meaningful participation and community involvement. There is nothing wrong with intervening in lower nature habits. It's the role of every parent and every pro social leader. In fact, These companies can delve into research on parenting styles and human development; explore social construction theory, and set a goal - integrate our society. How is it a bachelor's degree in behavioral science does not create an easy avenue toward working in education? Social science is how we create a world that embraces climate science.

One could take another approach and charge Alex Jones with mail fraud, since he is using deceptive and deliberately manipulative statements to conduct his business and defraud the public. Worth exploring by the lawyers whether that would fly. I don't know. It would take him out of commission for good.

Missing the point again. Facebook et al claim some kind of immunity from civil liability, being only the conduit for the message, not the originator. As soon as they start monitoring and censoring the message, they become liable to some extent because they are no longer an innocent bystander. Facebook's choices are really, on the one hand, to do nothing and face the backlash, or to crack down and employ plenty of lawyers to handle the tide of lawsuits from both sides over defamation etc.

It blows my mind that anyone could possibly think it is not only just fine but important that people like Alex Jones be able to broadcast their lies about specific people and occurrences that results in harassment of those people. When children and their teachers have been murdered in cold blood, by what stretch of the imagination is it a public good that sick people like Jones get to further the suffering of the parents and families of those victims? Some of these families have moved to new states and even hidden out to protect themselves. No wonder they are sueing Jones, and I hope they win bigly.

The fact that Facebook is a monopoly and unregulated is likely to be a big factor in this problem. (The encouragement that it has given people to sit on their duffs all day in front of a screen is also leading to other societal problems. How many kids with diabetes nowadays? How many lonely and isolated people nowadays?)

Facebook banned Infowars because of optics. Zuckerberg and other owners of social media platforms which make their billions from mining and selling their customer's personal data to advertisers are playing the odds. For me, "Now What?" is not a question about where censorship of social media is going, but where advertisers will be going when they realize their speculative investment in personal data is not paying off. If you think the speculation in China's largely unoccupied real estate, already crumbling is heading for a massive market correction, just wait until the monetization of content on social media is shown to be purely speculaton. It won't matter how many users and followers you have if they don't buy what you're selling what use are they to your bottom line? So far nothing I've read points to any data on how effective these ads are. They're all still just peddling the numbers of users and assuming exposure will generate sales. If anyone has any real data on how effective, in terms of actual sales, advertising on social media platforms actually is, I would love to know.

While acknowledging that Jones' theories are extremely unlikely and could, theoretically, possibly, just like anything else, lead to violence or harassment it's important to remember that one man's "misinformation" is another man's "information" and one ought to be entitled to form a worldview of his own liking. That's central to the American way of life. Like most traditional media companies and for self-serving reasons, the NYTimes fails to address the subjectivity of truth and reality in general. It's a legitimate question that philosophers and scientists have been debating for hundreds of years with no clear answer except, at least for these tech companies, in this case: truth is established by the group that hoots and hollers and makes the most noise about the mere possibility of violence and harassment. Let information out there, let people weigh it, and let them come to their own conclusions about how to act/vote/etc. accordingly.

Free speech is one thing; madcap lies are another. "News" needs to have an enforceable truth-in-advertising meaning. Huge private forums should be subject to public forum analysis, and I do not agree with those who defend Facebook's censorship by saying "well, it's private." It is too huge. It should be seen as an "essentially public forum." However, I believe we need a quasi-public institution (like the Federal Reserve) to define "news" and to sustain standards of what can be called "news" or "fact" -- with meanings and interpretation somewhat sensitive to the size and resources of the outlet, without ANY "news" entity ever having a "free speech" license to flatly lie. If it is fact-checked, call it "news." If it is "opinion," call it opinion. If it is self-gratifying hallucinations, call it "fiction." Fiction needs to be so-labeled, and then rant away.

Facebook is a private company. It and other social media platforms can ban whoever they want. If we as the public don’t like that, we should stop making Facebook and others like it so central to our lives. Nobody is forced to use Facebook and you can quit at any time. The First Amendment only applies to the government for good reason—the government, unlike Facebook, holds a monopoly on state violence. For that reason, the worst thing is for the government to get involved in this debate, especially this particular administration.

I believe Alex Jones has the right to say what he wants. Offensive as his theories are, I hope we don't slide into censorship. However, it could be argued that "censorship" is ONLY something the government does. Whenever anyone else does it, it's called their "right." Our big problem isn't that Alex Jones may be censored. In fact, it's the opposite: we have a President that actually endorses and encourages his "theories."

When a collusion of tech companies owns the public square and buys congresscritters, there is no meaningful difference between corporate censorship and government censorship. It is only a matter of time until this cabal decides that progressive agendas are a threat to their profit line.

As long a money is involved, social media platforms will never stop publishing hate that promotes violence.