I don't think I could connect Jones or Yiannopolous specifically to anything, just as I couldn't connect, say, Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines.
I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment of many victims of crimes and generally undermined public trust of institutions (including limited support of anti-vax views). I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.
The parents of Sandy Hook victims receive harassment and death threats to this day because of Alex Jones promoting the narrative that they're "crisis actors".
While a practicing Roman Catholic, Yiannopolous also claims to be Jewish (citing his maternal grandmother to support this; I think this is a claim to ethnic not religious connection.)
Jewish ethnically. You personally haven't seen his husband, and you personally haven't seen a public record of his marriage.
OK, so he's a white supremacist who pretends to be Jewish and pretends to have a black husband. Totally makes sense.
Seriously, there is no evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas. The SJW's/leftists are offended by his criticism and call him a Nazi. Everyone who disagrees with leftists is called a Nazi.
Ethnic Jews, black people, white people married to black people -- ALL of these types of people can absolutely still hold white supremacist thoughts, despite how little sense it might make to you and me.
But that's not what I think is going on with Milo; in his case, I think that being ethnically Jewish and married to a black person are absolutely not barriers to associating with white supremacists, anti-LGBT-rights activists, misogynists, etc.
Even by the abject standards of this shitty thread, your comment here crosses into name-calling and personal attack. Posting like that is a bannable offense here. Would you mind reviewing the guidelines and taking the spirit of this site to heart?
I know the rules, and I don't mind getting banned. It's easy to make a new account. I am sick and tired of toxic insane leftist morons getting all the non-leftists banned / deplatformed everywhere, just for having opposing views. This backwards third world shit needs to stop.
I think it's clear to most readers, separately from their leftness or rightness, how badly your comment broke the site guidelines. Why not just take them to heart and follow them? It's mostly not that hard, and will have the nice side effect of making your posts more persuasive.
The guidelines aren't that way because those people necessarily deserve better, but because the community deserves better. When you break the guidelines like that, you're damaging the community you're participating in. Worse, you're damaging it where it's most vulnerable. HN is only valuable because smart, thoughtful people choose to come here.
Come on man. That's a childish thoughtless response. If you actually read my responses to these nutcases you will agree that THEY are the ones damaging the community by mindlessly supporting this third world dark age of censorship.
> The Department of Health can provide certified copies of legal records to verify civil union status in Hawaii to those who are entitled to receive copies pursuant to state law
I got a chuckle from reading that the Domestic Union in Hawaii was signed by Governor Abercrombie, admittedly.
There is zero evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. Why haven't journalists found any evidence to the contrary? I don't care who he is married to. It is utterly irrelevant, trivial, small minded, petty nonsense.
is there evidence that Yiannopolus associated himself with white supremacists? because every piece of material I’ve seen has been about free-speech and social-justice, often questioning the said association created by media
> These new emails and documents, however, clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the political spectrum — and clearing the way for them to enter the American mainstream.
> It’s a relationship illustrated most starkly by a previously unreleased April 2016 video in which Yiannopoulos sings “America the Beautiful” in a Dallas karaoke bar as admirers, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, raise their arms in Nazi salutes.
So someone asks for a nexus between Milo and white supremacists, and someone linking a source with a video of him serenading neo-nazis with their arms stretched out gets voted down?
The it’s-about-free-speech-not-alt-right-sympathy shtick really needs some update...
Would you please not break the site guidelines by taking HN threads further into ideological flamewar? It's predictable, therefore tedious, therefore off-topic on this site.
Even if other comments are already going there, going there worse is not cool.
Free speech has limits, but given Schenk was overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio (and arguably by earlier cases, effectively), is an odd case to cite to support that position and explain the actual limits.
Assuming that "Singing Karaoke while Richard Spencer & co throw up Nazi salutes" qualifies as "associating with white supremacists": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLNLPIRS62g
> Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines.
You're right, you can't because the anti-vaxx movement is as old as vaccines themselves. Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism.
> I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements.
Incitement to violence is a crime. We have processes for reporting crimes and seeing justice is done.
> I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.
"Ideas causing harm" is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Actions cause harm.
Sometimes ideas lead to action, but we should always police the action, not the thoughts. We start down a dangerous path to thoughtcrime as soon as someone is no longer permitted to think or express an idea.
> Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism.
But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.
>But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.
No, but they would likely be censured.
A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.
Wakefield faked data, concealed two financial conflicts of interest, and ordered painful, invasive procedures (spinal taps and colonoscopies) on severely autistic children that were not clinically indicated and that he did not have the training to interpret. He even paid children at his son's birthday party for blood samples, then laughed about them crying during a later talk.
That is not the sort of man I want practicing medicine.
Hold on - I'm not defending Wakefield. I'm saying he did a lot more than falsifying data. The falsifying data alone would eb enough to strike him off, but he did a lot more than that.
> A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.
You're talking about medical error, and I agree you're right there.
I'm talking about dishonesty, and doctors (in England) get struck off for dishonesty relatively easily.
Mistakes happen, and can be remediated. Dishonesty is seen as harder to remediate.
> But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.
Because that doctor is also falsifying data, namely, the data that they're presenting to their patient so they can make an informed decision.
The actions are policed and no one here is suggesting thoughts be policed. These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square. Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products. Facebook isn’t refusing people based a protected status. Should a baker be required to make a cake promoting a hateful cause?
> Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products.
It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the free market bandwagon when it suits their ends. Free speech protections also sometimes apply to privately managed public spaces, like malls.
> These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square.
Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.
It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the slippery slope bandwagon when it suits their ends.
Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner. There are counter examples of course, be these apply only in niche situations.
Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be treated as a public space is a pretty radical idea.
> Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner.
Not misleading at all, I said it sometimes applies, which is true because some states recognize it as a right and some don't.
> Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space.
A private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.
> Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be treated as a public space is a pretty radical idea.
Further precedent I recently came across suggests it's not so radical after all:
Are there no constitutional protections if you live in a company town? Facebook is effectively the company town of mass real identity to real identity communication. One of the Net Neutrality arguments championed by the EFF was that private oligopolies being allowed to do whatever they want with their own property constituted a threat to free speech.
> Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.
Hey, I think Clay Shirky wants his point from 2008 back. Since we actually have more than 10 years to have reflected on this idea, we can now see it's patently nonsense, given that the idea of the "public square" doesn't encompass harvesting the conversations which happen therein, aggressive tailored marketing, and leaking of personal information from everyone who crosses through. Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.
> given that the idea of the "public square" doesn't encompass harvesting the conversations which happen therein, aggressive tailored marketing, and leaking of personal information from everyone who crosses through.
Oh, so marketers aren't allowed to poll, film or listen in on conversations that happen out in public? In fact that's perfectly legal.
> Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.
And free speech protections also need not be limited to overly strict definitions of public square. The question these types of controversies should be raising is whether free speech protections should extend to services like Facebook.
Facebook is a private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a purely private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.
Firstly, I don't think I ever made a slippery slope argument. That seems to be something you've read into my comments somehow.
Secondly, any legal distinction is established via a multi-part test. As a first pass, I would ask:
1. Is the site open and particularly, targeted to the general public?
2. Does the site enjoy widespread use by the general public?
3. Is the site intended to foster open discussion on any topic? For instance, the public itself drives most conversation on the platform.
This isn't necessarily exhaustive, just a first pass. HN is targeted at a technical audience (although its open to anyone), it's typically used only by this subset of the general public, and its content is narrowly focused on technical subject matter, so it would fail two parts of this test.
Facebook definitely passes all three qualifications, Twitter doesn't have as widespread use by the general public but it continues to grow.
> What about all those shadow banned users, are they entitled to their free speech on any website that allows comments?
Shadow banning seems like a poor idea. Terms of service that encourage civil discussion are perfectly fine, and violators should get an explicit and public timeout, never a ban. I've toyed with the idea that repeat offences trigger exponentially increasing timeouts.
Judging violations of ToS should be a transparent process. Something like jury duty as a term of using a service also seems like it might be a workable idea. Corporations have their own motives for censorship, primarily profit motives to draw in advertisers, and so they have incentives to bury anything even remotely controversial and are not incentivized to evaluate anything "fairly".
Jones never promoted the harassment of victims of crimes. Can you support your statements with some direct quotes? Or are you promoting the harassment of Jones with unfounded lies?
Undermining the public trust of institutions is alive and well in the discourse of the US president, who openly erodes trust in the media, the FBI, the DNC, and the IC (including limited support of anti-vax views https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/44952526852981555...). Should the president enjoy protection against de-platforming when others get banned for less?
I am familiar with those lawsuits. Alex Jones did not promote harassment. He did not even factually conclude that Sandy Hook was a hoax, just floated the possibility.
He reported on anomalies, on the conspiracy, on using Sandy Hook as a pretext to take away guns, on Adam Lanza probably using big pharma drugs. He stated that he understands why people would see Sandy Hook as a hoax, because history shows other events have been staged to further a political agenda.
Alex Jones was himself a victim of the media, who put weeks long pressure on SV tech companies and made it look like Alex Jones was sending his followers to harass the victims, long after Alex concluded it was not a hoax, and that Adam Lanza was the killer. They purposely took his statements and unhinged rants out of context and painted him as a transphobic, violence instigator, and maker of death threats.
The trick to attack free speech that is opposed to yours, is to make it seem like violence instigation or racism, so then it does not deserve the protection of free speech. The other is to put pressure on advertisers and commercial platforms and make them guilty by association. We've seen both of those tricks and they are dangerous and spell trouble for the future.
> He did not even factually conclude that Sandy Hook was a hoax, just floated the possibility.
So on April 16, 2013 on his YouTube channel when he said “Sandy Hook was staged, and the evidence is overwhelming” he was just “floating the possibility?”
That’s an awfully definitive statement from someone who’s supposedly speaking of a hypothetical.
Edit: I also see you managed to sneak an edit into your first comment after I provided the citations. What originally read "Can you support your statements" now reads "Can you support your statements with direct quotes." A+ effort at moving the goal posts.
In the deposition he clarifies this out-of-context (it is not the full sentence and not even a correct quote) statement and puts it into context. At that time, he did not think the whole thing was staged, but that the way the media handled it, used it against gun owners, was synthetic. He says some reports about the incidents were covered up. He says he thinks there was a cover-up of some of the negligence in the town and of the school. He did think there was some cover-up, but it was not that the whole thing was staged. Specific areas were faked, not in a totality. He believes school shootings happen, and now believes that Sandy Hook happened.
Even if, it is a far cry from promoting harassment of victims.
Edit: I did that edit not in response to you (I had not read your response yet, just like I made this post without reading your edit), but because people cite news stories, instead of Alex Jones. I am sure you can find news stories stating that Alex Jones instigated harassment of victims, as it was one of the big justifications for deplatforming, but I never saw Alex Jones say anything to that effect. The direct quotes are just not there... Even for your "quote" that is attributed to Alex Jones, it is not a correct quote, nor is it the full sentence, it seems to be Chinese whispered from a reddit thread. I myself got tricked by taking news stories about Alex Jones as factual, but when I saw the actual direct quote/news clip, I saw how what was presented as fact, was the journalists' biased interpretation. I read a news article stating Alex Jones was transphobic and promoting transphobia, but then I saw he was talking about this: https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1179838/2147... and saying it looked demonic to him, and that he did not want this normalized. It was very much in the style of: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/forget-mr-rogers-drag-que...
About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims. Alex Jones did not instigate or promote harassing the victims of Sandy Hook. Some of his deluded followers took that upon themselves. You can find direct quotes where he says they should not do that and that it is wrong.
> About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims.
Also incorrect. All four seek damages for harassment induced and caused by Jones' comments. Two of the suits don't even allege defamation at all, only intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Why don't you read the petitions, affidavits, and the other documents filed with the court? I have to imagine it will be vastly more interesting than blindly repeating the lies you've been fed on InfoWars.
I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment of many victims of crimes and generally undermined public trust of institutions (including limited support of anti-vax views). I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.