Why I Don't Care about Alex Jones Getting Dropped from Facebook, iTunes, and YouTube

In the wake of Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify (and possibly others) banning Alex Jones from their platforms and purging all of his content, I'm seeing a handful of people (some of whom have fairly large audiences) criticizing the social media companies for what they are calling corporate censorship.  The main thrust of this argument seems to be that in allowing the social media companies to ban Alex Jones, we have granted a handful of tech CEOs the power to "determine what 'content' should and should not be available for public consumption", to use one person's phrasing.  While a handful of companies wielding disproportionate control over the media, with little transparency or accountability, is certainly something we should worry about almost as much as government censorship, what happened to Alex Jones is not a particularly good example of it.

I want to emphasize that none of these people are defending Alex Jones.  None.  What they are taking issue with is the social media platforms censoring a content creator without any apparent transparency, accountability, or due process.   However, that complaint is baseless, for a number of reasons.

First, the obvious point: the First Amendment only restricts what the government can do. It doesn't give citizens any protection from private businesses.  Facebook and the other platforms can ban someone at any time for violating their Terms of Service. Users acknowledge that and implicitly agree when they sign up to use the site and check "okay" on the ToS button.  These platforms have had the authority to ban Alex Jones the entire time he's been using their service, they just chose not to exercise it until now.

Second, the near-simultaneous decision by multiple platforms to drop Alex Jones gives the impression that the decision was sudden and arbitrary.  It wasn't. Alex Jones has been a controversy magnet for years.  He has repeatedly labeled survivors of the Sandy Hook school shooting, as well as relatives and friends of the victims, "crisis actors." In fact, he's dwelled on this point so much that the parents of one victim have had to move seven times, and he is currently on trial for defamation, in a lawsuit brought by families of the victims. So lest you think this came out of nowhere, it has been building for a long time.

Additionally, the social media CEOs were not acting (entirely) on their own initiative.  They were responding to public pressure to remove Jones' videos, etc, from their platforms.  That means it's hardly a decision made in isolation.  In fact, given Jones' track record of controversy, it's a bit surprising he has lasted as long as he has.

Third, Alex Jones was an outlier. Some content providers are worried about the precedent this might set, but unless you're harassing victims of a mass shooting, it's safe to say that you won't end up on YouTube's/Spotify's/Facebook's radar.  So relax, nobody is coming to boot you off their platform.

Fourth, the barriers to entry on any of these sites is nonexistent.  Now, iTunes requires a little bit of technical know-how as far as recording, editing, and uploading a podcast; but that's pretty much as far as it goes.  For the most part, all you have to do is know how to create an account and upload content.  So the idea that we're all suddenly at the "tech overlords' mercy" is laughable.  They won't even care unless your content draws a lot of complaints, and even then that's not a given.  Hell, I see more people complaining about the lack of policing on social media.

Fifth, James Gunn.  He's been in the news lately, so the name probably sounds familiar.  The reason he's in the news is Disney fired him because of a handful of inappropriate tweets he posted a few years back. Not even close to the level of the bile Alex Jones spews, but still inappropriate.  Here's why I'm bringing him up.  Gunn certainly needs to be held accountable for those, but the difference between Gunn and Jones is that Gunn grew and changed, and now he contributes something meaningful to society.  He eventually cleaned up his act, got better at his craft, and went on to deliver some top-notch work.  (Seriously.  Guardians of the Galaxy is an awesome film.) These days, Gunn is also widely respected by the actors and film crews he works with, and has a growing movement dedicated to getting him reinstated because of his artistic contributions.  The point is that you contribute something to society, your fans and peers will back you up.  Can anyone argue in good faith that Alex Jones has made a meaningful contribution?

Now, people should be worried when news outlets gradually morph into an increasingly-consolidated oligarch-like structure (for example, the "Big Six Media" or the current Sinclair Broadcast Group situation.) But social media is not like that.  It's opened the door to a multitude of news and information outlets.  Take Twitter: because of it, I've been able to follow literally dozens of news agencies from around the world: Balkan Insight, Der Spiegel, Euronews, to list a few.  And thanks to iTunes, I can find a podcast covering just about any niche topic I find interesting.  So good, independent sources of news are out there, and social media has helped make that possible.

So, to everyone getting worked up about Alex Jones getting sent packing: relax.  It's not - repeat, not - going to usher in some new era of censorship.

Trump's Ongoing War on the Freedom of the Press

So it's been a while since my last post.  I never meant to let it lapse for this long, but sometimes things come up and you know how life goes.  Anyway. . .

There's a video circulating around showing how the news anchors for many Sinclair Broadcast Group outlets regurgitating a nearly-identical news piece.  Somebody took the time to splice a bunch of clips together, and that's the video that's been making the internet rounds.  (Or one of many videos.  I think there could be a few different ones.) Go watch this video here - it's disturbing as hell.

Imagine if you could only get your news from one source.  Even if you agreed with that source, it still presents a lot of problems. For one, you're getting all your information filtered through the outlet's preferences: the stories it deems important, the ideological slant it wants to put on it, the bits of data it chooses to emphasize or downplay, and so on.  Information is vital to a democracy: people need it to make informed decisions at the ballot box, among other things.  If one company, or a handful of companies, control a huge number of news agencies, how do you think those news sites will cover a political candidate that the company favors? Do you think voters will get a complete picture of that candidate, or will they only hear about the good stuff?

Which brings us to Donald Trump.  The Sinclair Group's "newscast" I linked to centered on the problem of "biased and false news" being shared on social media.  Now, that was a newsworthy story, so what's the big deal, right? Well, it's a big deal because this is the full script, courtesy of CNN:

"I'm [we are] extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that [name of local station] produces. But I'm [we are] concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.  The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media," the script says. "More alarming, national media outlets are publishing these same fake stories without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the national media are using their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control 'exactly what people think' ... This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. I [we] understand truth is neither politically 'left or right.' Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever."

Do you see how the news anchors try to convince you that their news affiliate is the only trustworthy source of news? Like how Fox News uses the slogan "Fair and Balanced" when it is anything but that.  Also, the script's wording, specifically its use of the term "biased and false news", reminds you of a certain President's catch phrase, doesn't it? I doubt that's a coincidence, since the Sinclair Group is in the middle of some business dealings that Trump Administration officials are overseeing.

Obviously, the Sinclair Group executives are doing this to get on Trump's good side. Unfortunately, this is taking place at the same time while a steady flow of damning information is coming out about Trump's obstruction of justice, his ties to the Russian government, and his cabinet's unethical and possibly illegal actions.  What would happen if a number of local news stations began undercutting the Mueller investigation, peddling the "deep state" conspiracy nonsense, or distracting their viewers with whataboutism? Fox News and the right-wing media still get a lot of traction among their viewers with their fawning, pro-Trump coverage; if these outlets started parroting that message, it adds fuel to the fire.  On top of that, Trump's position to influence the Sinclair deals gives him a measure of control over the company.  We're already seeing that influence how the company operates, and the deals are still in progress.  If the Trump Administration decides in Sinclair's favor, it will be beholden to him and his cronies for as long as they serve in office.

This would effectively mean that Trump's attacks on the press are moving beyond his "brain vomit" Tweets, and could potentially be disseminated by news agencies with actual credibility, not just a BS-spewing network like Fox.  Trump's attacks on the so-called "fake news" were never in jest.  He means it when he says he wants to make them register, or censor them.  He wants to control the media and its message, and thanks to the Sinclair Group's ass-kissing, Trump could soon have an effective tool to help him with that.  That should terrify you.  It terrifies me.

Targeted Censorship, Autocracies, and Activism

This caught my attention as I was scrolling through my Twitter feed earlier: apparently Twitter is censoring specific accounts at the requests of various governments.  Twitter censored the highest number of accounts (758) on Germany's behalf, followed by Turkey with 721.  France came in at a distant third with 261. It makes sense at first glance, given that right-wing nationalism is on the rise in several countries, doesn't it? History is full of events where a charismatic orator with a toxic message and a massive following, and mass slaughter, form two links on a chain of events.  The link between the two is well-established, so wouldn't it make sense to be proactive and silence the messengers before they inflict any serious damage?  I doubt it's coincidence that Germany has the highest number of censored accounts; they're arguably more aware than any country of the dangers of incendiary rhetoric.

And to be honest, I share Germany's point to some extent.  I'd be perfectly fine if every social media platform blocked racist (excuse me, "alt-right") agitators like Richard Spencer or Steve Bannon.  Heed the lessons of history, free speech be damned.  I bet a lot of people would agree.

However. . . .

That's a knee-jerk reaction.  As good, even necessary, as it sounds, it's a horrible idea once you think about it for a few minutes.  Do you remember which country was #2 on the list of censored accounts? (You forgot already? Good lord, your memory is awful.) Turkey, for those of you who didn't know, is at risk of sliding into an autocracy, according to both the Middle East Policy Council and the Council of Europe's Venice Commission.  Twitter's censorship looks very different when it's done on behalf of a potential autocrat intent on consolidating power.

The United States isn't Turkey, someone might say.  That's true; but consider these two things.  First, there's an old saying that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter; so it's not unreasonable to think that a person or group considered an activist in one person's eyes could be seen as a subversive to someone else.  Censoring a white nationalist's account might seem desirable, but what if someone in government wants to censor an environmentalist group? Or a pro-gun organization? What if a future president decided to censor the NRA or the ACLU?

For an actual example, go research the broad range of groups targeted under the FBI's COINTELPRO program.  In addition to targeting credible threats like the KKK, it also zeroed in on civil rights figures and workers' rights groups.  Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today, and the US government convinced Twitter to shut down his Twitter account.  As a civil rights leader, he would have been undermined in a very important way.  Could that have kept the civil rights movement from ever gaining momentum? Possibly.  Now you see how censoring Twitter can be a potent means of suppressing dissent; especially since it's also effective at growing protest movements.  Occupy Wall Street used it.  So did the Arab Spring, initially.  This underscores how important Twitter can be for achieving social change.

Second, people can be gullible.  Like, really, really gullible - especially if there's a perceived danger.  Sometimes, that gullibility can lead to tragic consequences. The point is that it's not farfetched at all to imagine that someone in a position of authority says, "So-and-so is a threat and needs to be censored," and a lot of people will unquestioningly fall in line.  That's usually the prelude to something worse.


I do get it.  The growing right-wing nationalist movement is concerning, and if there's a chance to neutralize it before it really takes hold, shouldn't we take it? Look at how much chaos the burgeoning movement has created already, and how much it could potentially stir up.  It's pretty tempting to just censor them, so let's do it.  No, because by going for the quick & easy solution, we create greater problems down the road.  Common sense tells you that censorship is a key tool of oppressive regimes, so as satisfying as slapping a muzzle on the alt-right's digital presence sounds (and believe me, I'm all for that), it's guaranteed to come back and haunt us all.