Alex Jones..

Roar87 said:
So your child is gunned down and you're worrying about what some random conspiracy guy is saying on Youtube? Clearly if they were offended it's because someone brought it to their attention who wanted to stir up a story. He didn't send anyone to harass the parents come off it.
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There would be zero issue if his viewers were not actively harassing the people that Alex James labelled.

But they were and are. Thus you are entirely right to have a problem with the chain all the way to the source. And the platform hosting it.
 
Hotwired said:
There would be zero issue if his viewers were not actively harassing the people that Alex James labelled.

But they were and are. Thus you are entirely right to have a problem with the chain all the way to the source. And the platform hosting it.
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Alex Jones isn't responsible for what his viewers do unless he is telling them to do that, no one is responsible for what their viewers/listeners/fans do or say based off their content. Activision isn't responsible for instance if someone plays Call of Duty and shoots a school up, Quintin Tarantino isn't responsible for someone killing someone after watching one of his movies either, it doesn't work like that.
 
Roar87 said:
Alex Jones isn't responsible for what his viewers do unless he is telling them to do that, no one is responsible for what their viewers/listeners/fans do or say based off their content. Activision isn't responsible for instance if someone plays Call of Duty and shoots a school up, Quintin Tarantino isn't responsible for someone killing someone after watching one of his movies either, it doesn't work like that.
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Excuse me what?

You listed two scenarios which cannot be described as being based in real life.

Alex Jones is emphatically insisting that real people in real life, with real addresses that you can send hate mail to, are lying frauds.

Exactly the same blame for the results can be put on a newspaper publishing false news of real events and people. And it is.

If I go on my media platform with the agenda of selling the story that Roar87 sexually molests dogs and you get a load of abuse and hate mail are you really going to stand by your position that there's no blame on me, only on the people who take action?
 
Hotwired said:
There would be zero issue if his viewers were not actively harassing the people that Alex James labelled.

But they were and are. Thus you are entirely right to have a problem with the chain all the way to the source. And the platform hosting it.
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In that case we should shut down all the media then because they are all inciting someone.

At the risk of crossing the beams, if someone goes out and physically attacks Trump, in your world that person isn't responsible for his own actions, the anti Trump media is?

The Alex Jones and Sandy Hook thing as nothing to do with either of us. It is only between Jones and those families and any civil case.

StriderX said:
The internet is a series of private houses (always has been) and they are within their right to tell you to get out when you're costing them money or being a tit. It's deeply contradictory for the free speech people to say that a company can't do what it wants.
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The Internet was a free speech zone back in the day. Before all the 'normies' invaded it and are now trying to regulate it.
 
Hotwired said:
Excuse me what?

You listed two scenarios which cannot be described as being based in real life.

Alex Jones is emphatically insisting that real people in real life, with real addresses that you can send hate mail to, are lying frauds.

Exactly the same blame for the results can be put on a newspaper publishing false news of real events and people. And it is.

If I go on my media platform with the agenda of selling the story that Roar87 sexually molests dogs and you get a load of abuse and hate mail are you really going to stand by your position that there's no blame on me, only on the people who take action?
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If you truly believe that then you should say it, if you don't then you shouldn't. If you believe it and later find out it was incorrect and apologise then I will still not like you, but you shouldn't be stopped from speaking. If someone attacks me because of something you've said, they are responsible for the attack, unless you told them to attack me or knowingly said something that was untrue. Alex Jones believed what he was saying at the time. We shouldn't punish people for speaking what they believe to be the truth, even if it sounds crazy at the time, because there's always the times where it sounds crazy but it's true.

If a newspaper prints a bad story, or does something bad, it issues an apology, perhaps it pays some compensation. Alex Jones on the other hand is removed from every public discussion forum.
 
So I can justify myself lying as long as I claim I think it is true?

You can't prove I know its false so my word will be good enough for that too. I might never apologise for lying because I can keep on saying I think it's true.

Meanwhile you get a variety of unpleasant things disturbing your life because I'm lying on purpose for attention and other people believe I'm truthful.

Nah, if you're busy slandering someone you deserve every civil case that lands on you as encouragement to check your facts before getting out a megaphone.

And you mistake private membership forums for public forums. This isn't a public forum, you need membership to say anything and you can also get it revoked.

He is free to speak in actual public forums. Newspapers aren't piggybacking on private forums to spread their word. Alex Jones however was hitching a ride on the goodwill of private companies that provide broadcasting and word distribution services.
 
Sorry that Twitter story has completely missed the problem and I'm not surprised it's been written by a woman as it fails to address issues that boys face growing up.

Young boys will always say things to shock and that are on the edge of acceptability. They also feel a need to belong in a group. Today's culture seeks to impose the maximum punishment for the most minor indiscretion in relation to speech or opinion. When this happens boys will seek out people or places with people who think like them. Often found online.

Echo chambers are created and with no checks and balances from the real world people are drawn into the extremities. Happens on the right and the left.

Trying to indoctrinate young boys into overly liberal progressive culture, when all they want to do is grow up and figure out trying to manage their hormones and emotions isn't going to help. You just need to let them express themselves without being demonised and let them find the middle ground wherever that is.
 
cheesyboy said:
This is very true, albeit parents should act as a hand on the tiller for guidance.
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Guidance yes, indoctrination into progressive politics, no. I personally never talk politics with my boy and it's banned in the house.

Being forced to watch Trevor Noah is a fate worse then death. Give me George Carlin and Bill Hicks anyday for a master class in scathing attacks on the fringes.
 
Thecaferacer said:
Trying to indoctrinate young boys into overly liberal progressive culture, when all they want to do is grow up and figure out trying to manage their hormones and emotions isn't going to help. You just need to let them express themselves without being demonised and let them find the middle ground wherever that is.
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I think this is an excellent point.

It seems that the solutions proposed in the twitter post above, feel like a highly reactive and intense 'American' solution to a problem. In the case of young boys who might need a gentle 'steer' in the right direction to keep them on the rails. Instead - they're bombarded with an intense doctrine of political and social stereotypes, rules and red-lines, all of which probably just confuses boys and forces them to one extreme or another, when all they really needed was perhaps a little nudge.
 
Werewolf said:
It's operating within the same laws as every other company in the US
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It's not operating within the law though, US citizens have a clear right to free speech and Youtube's terms and conditions and systems of censorship such as hate speech are in breach of that. Then there's the way the big tech/media corporations are conspiring to shut people down and cut off services/payment systems to competitors. One very recent example is 8chan getting shut down because one of the killers posted there, he also posted on Facebook/Twitter and probably several Google platforms but were they shut down? no. The big firms are hostile towards the US citizens right to free speech and the competitors popping up who do try to protect that right are being attacked by a powerful group of established corporations under the guise of supporting terrorism etc.
 
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mmj_uk said:
It's not operating within the law though, US citizens have a clear right to free speech and Youtube's terms and conditions and systems of censorship such as hate speech are in breach of that. Then there's the way the big tech/media corporations are conspiring to shut people down and cut off services/payment systems to competitors. One very recent example is 8chan getting shut down because one of the killers posted there, he also posted on Facebook/Twitter and probably several Google platforms but were they shut down? no. The big firms are hostile towards the US citizens right to free speech and the competitors popping up who do try to protect that right are being attacked by a powerful group of established corporations under the guise of supporting terrorism etc.
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You seem to have a very wrong impression of what the US law defines as free speech.

Hint.
It doesn't mean anyone is required to give you a free ride.
It just means that the Government cannot (with some limited exceptions) stop you from speaking out in public spaces, or producing documents/films/whatever at your own expense.
 
mmj_uk said:
It's not operating within the law though, US citizens have a clear right to free speech and Youtube's terms and conditions and systems of censorship such as hate speech are in breach of that
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That's not the issue. YouTube claims it is a hosting platform which means they are immune from being responsible for the content posted.

However when they start removing content which they disagree with on a political basis then they become a publisher, which means they are directly responsible for all content published.

I've no issues with YouTube, a private company, deciding what they want posted and what they don't, as long as they acknowledge they are a publisher and act within the rules of a publisher.
 
Thecaferacer said:
That's not the issue. YouTube claims it is a hosting platform which means they are immune from being responsible for the content posted.

However when they start removing content which they disagree with on a political basis then they become a publisher, which means they are directly responsible for all content published.
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I'd sort-of agree with you regarding them maybe acting as a publisher rather than a host, except they aren't removing content that they disagree with politically necessarily - they're removing content that advertisers don't want to be even vaguely associated with. Stuff like some frothy-mouthed **** pushing conspiracy theories in order to sell dietary supplements with dubious benefits, for example (;)).

Thecaferacer said:
I've no issues with YouTube, a private company, deciding what they want posted and what they don't, as long as they acknowledge they are a publisher and act within the rules of a publisher.
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In that scenario you may well see an awful lot more people like Jones banned from the platform, because they would very firmly lock their rules down to be as advertiser-friendly as possible. As it stands, you can still post a whole range of utter ******** on YT and the worst that might happen is that you wouldn't be able to monetise it.
 
I'd honestly say it's the advertisers fault, it's a simple case of survival for Youtube if it can't pay it's bills, and if that means some people have to be expunged, then that's just how it be.

The only way to resolve this is to force advertisers to be content agnostic, and that's rather illiberal.

As otherwise something like Youtube could therefore not exist, beyond using a subscription model.
 
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