Opinion of the social media banning of Alex Jones and Infowars

[Suburbia]

alex literally still has his own website and plenty of other platforms to push his views. i’m fine with a privately owned company refusing to give their platform to an extremist who pushes ridiculous and harmful conspiracy theories ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ right- or left-wing

but if youtube starts removing conservatives just cuz they’re conservative (or liberals), imma be the first one to call them out. not because they can’t but because they shouldn’t. and the general public will too

This, but it is still a free speech issue.

[IceSpear]

The market decided.

Who knew Infowars lovers were such big government communists?

[Kingpoleon]

I mean, Youtube is a private company so I don't care. If someone spouts vicious bullsh**t like Alex Jones in my backyard I'd probably also be inclined to physically remove that person tbh.

We shouldn't forget that Alex Jones isn't an innocent Trumpist, he's far worse than your average talk radio Trumpist. Nobody is denying him his first amendment rights, he still can say what he wants, but Youtube has the right not to associate with him. Most alt-righters are f**ing snowflakes who want to nationalize the internet because everyone has to hear their their incel takes.

Social media’s very nature purposefully blurs the lines between public and private*. I’m not questioning the right of social media to do things like this - I am questioning the morality of it. Plenty of people tell lies on social media - but it seems only the biggest platforms get punished for it. A social media company’s speech policies must be consistent and not punitive.

*Whether it is an affiliation and an association with business partners or a platform for various views is debatable.

[fhtagn]

They're more than able to because Terms of Service exist and there's no reason they shouldn't be able to restrict content since they're a private company and all, but at the same time it's pretty dumb. There's much worse than him on YouTube that isn't banned.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Freedom banning! Maybe if Jones didn't slander and antagonize private citizens and grieving families, he could have kept his shows here. That's the real reason for all of this, these websites wouldn't have given a f*** and a half otherwise, like they previously did. This has little to nothing to do with free speech.