"The writing is on the wall. The banning of Alex Jones and his media outlets is the clarion call for a massive culling across the social media platforms. And this move should not be confused as anything remotely connected to strength. Just the opposite. With audiences abandoning the leaking ship of the legacy media in droves, pressure is now being placed on the social media giants to remove the ‘dissenting’ voices.
Naturally, this is not the American way. From the time of the nation’s founding, prominent statesmen, like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, bitterly fought over what sort of country America would be. There was no such thing as ‘political correctness’ to stifle debate, which was always robust, intelligent and combative.
Our tech titans and government representatives simply lack the foresight and courage of the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who famously proclaimed: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
That should be the motto of every social media company today that hopes to aspire to the demands of honest – and occasionally brutal – democratic debate. "
@Robert_Bridge
Twitter exiles Alex Jones to Internet Archipelago as crackdown on American discourse heats up [rt.com]
And is this already happening here in Agnostics.com with posts being parked in private parks only visible to the person posting, messages disappearing, comments disappearing, blockings to suit snowflake inclinations, cognitive dissonance?
The fairness doctrine that Reagan removed needs to be brought back. I have no problem with Alex Jones and his Info Wars, fox 'news', or any non main stream thing that is out there.
My issue is the name calling, the hate, the lying. The calling opposing views or commentor stupid because they disagreed with what was posted/ said.
Lying without counterbalance makes for some really stupid people. They NEVER learn how to present an opposing view. Presenting as fact without proof is another issue, the biggest example is Jones' idea the school shooting was a hoax. I read he was being sued. Free speech has consequences.
As to this site I have not experienced any problems with messages disappearing or comments disappearing, I did block one person. He (I guess it was a he) kept insisting my opinions were stupid and did not matter it was weird so I requested he be blocked from messaging me when he refused to stop messaging me.
Did you see the exchange between Alex Jone and Ted Cruz? IMO there's a pair of whack a doodles but I digress. At one point Cruz states he does not know who Jones is. Jones is so full of himself he REFUSES to believe Cruz when he states he does not know who Jones is. I did not know who Jones was until 2 years ago. Jones is so obnoxious, so disturbingly strange I would not want to run into him on the street.
And there are more than enough walking the streets as it is! Messages frequently seem to go missing and of late there has been a spate of posts and comments cancelled, postings stopped. Another member informed that posts are parked in bays only visible to the poster not the rest of the members which must be the case with posts requiring higher level approvals.
Freedom of the press should apply
Like internet freedom?
@FrayedBear no
Part of the power of the marketing of social media was the freedom of expression, the privacy and the anonymity to share opinions of all kinds and allow the "Undesirables" to simply fade away in to obscurity as "decent Normal" people would simply ignore them.
That however is not what happened, because what the governments failed to remember was that people are in the majority of cases idiots.
Morons, bigots and misery mongers are in the majority, because almost everyone has a beef about something and is looking for someone to blame it on who is not themselves.
When computer technology was made so simple even a cretin could use it the internet became a gathering place for discontent and a world wide open forum for dissension.
At which point it becomes clear the internet was never free, private or anonymous and that everything everyone says has been recorded, stored and in some cases used to track down people with the "wrong" ideas without ever openly discussing what a "wrong" thought is.
Soon to it becomes clear than the one thing more dangerous than a moronic idiot, is an educated idiot who not only thinks they know better than everyone else but thinks everyone else should know better too and starts playing at being the thought police.
Public opinion becomes mob mentality, democracy becomes Ochlocracy and the mob begins demanding back freedoms they never had in the first place and that freedoms be taken from the "wrong people."
I was once asked how dictators rise up if the majority of the people are not behind them, because surely majority rules?
I said no, dictators are carried to power by a loud minority with powerful media on their side, you need not oppress a majority, you simply tell them they oppressed until they are so frightened they oppress themselves or worse demand to be oppressed in order to feel safe.
Social media is the most powerful weapon ever given to the human race, the governments thought it would be their tool, instead it was wrestled away from them and turned on them like a child with daddy's gun and now their reaction is to try and snatch it back by legislation, to put the safety catch on after the bullet has been fired.
Well said Len.