What Censorship of Alex Jones Means for the Rest of Us

“What is disturbing is that these are independent companies that seem to have made this decision collectively. In other words, competitors are making decisions about content publication together. Regardless of how you feel about Jones, that should make anyone who is cautious of a Corporatocracy a tad concerned.”

(Pulpit & Pen)  Social media companies are private corporations that reserve the right to deny service to anyone. There is no constitutional right to demand that Google, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or iTunes allow any person to speak freely. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution restricts the government from prohibiting speech, but privately owned companies – whether newspapers, opinion websites, or social media platforms – can censor whomever they want. That said, the coordinated censorship of Alex Jones by these companies should frighten anyone who is seriously concerned with a free flow of information in the Marketplace of Ideas. …

While we rightly resist most forms of tyranny in the civilized world, we should recognize that government by Corporatocracy is a very real threat to a Democratic Republic. And, to make matters worse, it’s not a threat that can (or should) be fixed governmentally. It can, and should, be fixed by the People, however.

JUST THE FACTS

Alex Jones is a conspiracy theorist whose conspiracies are often wrong. On occasion, however, Alex Jones is ahead of the curve on reporting information that is later picked up and validated by the Mainstream Media (who never credit Jones’ media organization with uncovering the information).

I’ll put his work into three categories what Jones’ Info Wars media company does. First, Jones aggregates media stories that are already public and in the realm of more “trusted” media. In other words, small but respected MSM (mainstream media) outlets (like local news affiliates) often cover or unveil certain news stories and the much larger Info Wars publishes the material and disseminates it to a much larger audience. In this case, Info Wars acts essentially like Drudge Report, passing along what others have written. This information is often trustworthy, and I say that as a media connoisseur who also reads far-left news sites as a part of my daily Feedly digestion.  Second, there is independent journalism done by Info Wars, like that written by Paul Joseph Watson. These are stories researched and exclusively produced for one of Alex Jones’ media outlets. It’s here the information provided to the news consumer gets sketchier but is often (but not always) affirmed as accurate by impartial fact-checkers (if there is such a thing). The fact is, Watson and other contributors have broken major news stories that the MSM then feeds upon, regurgitates, and publishes as though it’s their own. There is then a third aspect to what Jones does, which is to provide commentary based upon the daily news, like on his nightly program. It’s here that the crazy comes out. I often find the assumptions drawn from the facts presented by Jones to be off-base, sometimes hysterical, unsubstantiated, or just downright nutty. To reiterate, Alex Jones sources the news stories of others (which is usually good), provides independent research and journalism (which is a mixed bag, ranging from good to awful) and provides commentary (which usually ranges from bad to atrocious).

Jones, in the last few days, has been banned – along with all of his media platforms – from Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. What is disturbing is that these are independent companies that seem to have made this decision collectively. In other words, competitors are making decisions about content publication together. Regardless of how you feel about Jones, that should make anyone who is cautious of a Corporatocracy a tad concerned. And frankly, all of these companies blocking Jones and Info Wars within 24 hours of each other does not help keep millions of Americans from being convinced that there is a conspiracy to silence conservatives (by the way, there is a conspiracy to silence conservatives).  View article →

Related:

Emboldened by Their Successful Deplatforming of Infowars — Democrats Start Push to Stamp Out FOX News