In the controversy surrounding the coordinated corporate censorship of Alex Jones’ notorious Infowars franchise across multiple online platforms, journalist Glenn Greenwald made an under-appreciated tweet in response to the various leftists and Democrats who’ve attacked anyone objecting to the censorship as “defending Alex Jones.”
“The world’s dumbest and/or most deceitful people have always been those who equate ‘I defend X’s right to speak’ with ‘I defend X and their ideas,’” wrote Greenwald. “It’s the scummiest tactic there is. They did it to Chomsky when he opposed prosecuting a Holocaust denier.”
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1026938000062783488
The tweet got mostly lost in the shuffle of warring opinions at the time, but it so perfectly summed up the general gist of the debate. Principled leftists have objected to the way a handful of Silicon Valley plutocrats have been handed unlimited authority to determine what ideas and information are suitable for public consumption and coordinate to remove the online audiences of any speaker deemed unsuitable. The fact that they started with a widely reviled speaker shouldn’t matter, the argument goes, because sooner or later the powerful people who are able to censor will begin censoring in the interests of power. This always ends up hurting the left (the actual left, not the McResistance rainbow-flag-on-a Reaper-drone “left” that is permitted a platform in mainstream America), because leftists are the political faction that stands in the most stark opposition to the status quo which holds existing power structures in place.
These few principled leftists brave enough to take a strong stand on the issue have been attacked and smeared with amazing viciousness by leftists who are blinded by their hatred of Jones, and by Democrats who know that censorship will never hurt their power-enabling faction. The position that the left is always the real target of censorship was ignored and replaced with the absurd straw man argument that anyone objecting to the coordinated de-platforming is defending Alex Jones because they love him and think Infowars is awesome.
And now, just days after these foam-brained livestock applauded the removal of Alex Jones’ audience by their beneficent Silicon Valley overlords, we are already seeing Facebook deleting the pages of leftist outlets. Imagine that.
Inevitably, the lack of pushback against the banning of Alex Jones from most of the internet has only emboldened social media sites to expand their censorship. Now Latin America news site Telesur has been banned from Facebook – without explanation https://t.co/IyepS3baqN
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) August 14, 2018
TeleSUR English, the English version of a prominent left-leaning Latin American publication, has had its Facebook page deleted without explanation. This is the second time that Facebook has done this, and as of this writing, more than 24 hours after it was initially reported, the page is still gone.
Five days earlier, the left-leaning Facebook page of Venezuela Analysis was temporarily unpublished, reportedly just as it had a story getting high-performing circulation regarding The Guardian‘s fact-free conspiratorial false flag allegations about the attempt on President Maduro’s life.
TeleSUR, incidentally, happens to be headquartered in Venezuela, which is of course the primary topic covered by the unaffiliated Venezuela Analysis. Venezuela, incidentally, happens to have the single largest confirmed oil reserve of any nation on planet earth. It also, incidentally, happens to be the target of relentless imperialist sabotage attempts by the US-centralized power alliance. The propaganda arm of that same power alliance, incidentally, just so happens to be regulating Facebook’s content.
Oh yes indeed.
What's also disturbing about this is Facebook outsourced its Venezuela censorship to a dark money NATO front group, Atlantic Council, which also funds reactionary Venezuelan regime-change figures. This is rank conflict-of-interest, imperial corruption https://t.co/trRWmF8fCT
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 14, 2018
The Atlantic Council is an extremely shady NATO-aligned think tank with ties to powerful oligarchs. It’s an organization with tentacles in world-shaping events like the international response to the establishment Russia narrative, from the DNC hack to the discredited war propaganda firm Bellingcat to Russian trolls to the notorious PropOrNot blacklist publicized by the Washington Post. A couple of its lackeys happen to have attacked yours truly with a Twitter-based smear today, but no hard feelings, moving on.
Two weeks after an Atlantic Council fellow published a bizarre screed in Defense One explaining why there needs to be a “NATO of infowar” to propagandize westerners for their own good, Facebook announced that it was forming a partnership with the Atlantic Council to fight “disinformation” on the platform.
And now here they are, shutting down pages which dispute the official imperial narrative about a nation that sits firmly in the crosshairs of the US-centralized empire, and doing so with absolute impunity.
But hey, at least we shut down Alex Jones! Right guys?
"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States."
~ Dick CheneyPay very close attention to how the MSM differs on its coverage of the "regimes" on this list. Particularly #1 and #4. pic.twitter.com/A8vNxqxIX7
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 6, 2018
I talk about narrative all the time because that really is what it’s all about. Humans are storytelling animals; if you can control the stories you can control the humans. The problem we face is that those who are controlling our stories are using them to advance power-hungry agendas that happen to be killing our ecosystem while driving us toward Orwellian dystopia and escalating tensions between two nuclear superpowers.
The plutocratic empire is held together by sheer narrative control, by the ability of ruling oligarchs to control the stories people tell each other about what’s going on in the world. The fact that trust in plutocrat-owned media is at an all-time low and people’s ability to network and share information is at an all-time high has not escaped the attention of our rulers, and they are doing everything in their power to stop us from sharing unauthorized ideas and information with each other.
This isn’t a game. We have no time to be playing around cheering for the silencing of political opponents while the noose gets tighter and tighter. In a corporate system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship, and censorship is never a friend of the left. Ever. The reality of our situation is that online dialogue has been funneled into platforms owned by billionaires with clear, demonstrable ties to government agencies, and now they’re beginning to censor that dialogue. The longer we wait to fight this, the weaker we become and the more tightly constricted our voices get.
Act now.
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34 responses to ““Duhhh, Stop Defending Alex Jones! This Will Never Hurt The Left, Derp Duh!””
This kind of “Gang Rape” censorship is unacceptable. Why would anyone want to ban Alex Jones? His lies about the Sandy Hook massacre are coming back to bit him anyway, as the distraught parents have had enough. Banning others from speaking is evil and nasty. It’s always important to know what the stupids are up to – on both sides.
Even though I believe much of what Alex Jones says is utter nonsense. I refuse to add my name to those who wish to censor his words. Even Bill Maher has spoken out against this kind of “Gang Rape” censorship. It’s important to understand what those we agree with are saying, but it’s even more important to understand what those who we disagree with are saying. All voices must be heard, even the patently stupid.
“The people of Newtown better hope this doesn’t all coming crashing down on them.” —Dr. Carver
grr… “come”
The Great Nigel Parry has spoken…
“Alex Jones was hate speech, incitement, and disinformation.”
Thank you, Minister of Truth!
Shall I tune to CNN next, All Knowing One?!
Do you know what the word “conflating” means? Because that is exactly what you are doing. Removing Jones has nothing to do with “free speech” or “censorship” or whatever it is that you have imagined. But it has everything to do with rule violations, FCC violations, failure to pay fines, etc. And yet you babbled on about all these other issues as if they were facts… wow. Just wow. This is why I stopped reading your site – you all too often get your facts and even your opinions wrong.
You could at LEAST get your facts right, that way, you’d actually sound properly informed and better able to pass the information on to the rest of us.
Private platforms can “ban” anyone that they want, especially so since they are free services. They can change their Terms, their rules, whatever. It’s just stupid to pretend that they don’t have this right. And it is utterly irrelevant if they all did this at the same general time – could it be that once the news got out that Jones was in violation – the other sites ALSO decided to check his pages out? The fact is – Jones screwed up – everywhere and everyplace he’s been banned. That is a FACT.
Which you did not bother to even mention.
Unlike you, I don’t know anything about teleSUR (and I’m guessing you really don’t either), but do know a great deal about Alex Jones and his little corrupt empire.
I have a very special pet peeve with this yapping dirtbag… Infowars and I go waaay back… long before Jones became what he is today. After checking him out – I refused any further cooperation with this man. But I kept an eye on him for years and years, exposing his brand of bullshit when I thought it was necessary.
Since then, I’ve exposed this dirtbag over and over again, hoping, praying (well, sort of, I don’t pray) that SOMEBODY would shut this fk’n clown up, the longer the better. I’d piss on his grave if given the chance. He has suckered his fans for millions and millions of dollars, fabricating endless conspiracies and fear-mongering CRAP. He’s been forced to ‘tone it down’ in these latter years, but I still remember this arsewipe when he was a relative unknown – there was nothing he wouldn’t do to gain attention, fans and $$$.
He has damaged the lives of thousands of people. The conspiracy rat hole he has devised is a topic I’ve spent some significant time on, and where I could, I tried to help these same people. Families, lives, futures, fortunes have been utterly ruined by this man – and some people have died, because they believed in his brand of bullshit. Once you dive down into the darkness, it’s VERY hard to come back up, and those that do generally have paid a pretty high price.
It’s not “free speech” when you’re fomenting violence either. Jones is behind the movement to start a civil war in this country and murder millions of Americans. His “reasons” and that of his brain dead “followers” are not valid for this call, nor should they be hiding behind their First Amendment “rights” to practice their brand of hatred (and stunning ignorance of facts and history).
Jones belongs in prison. I’m still hoping that is where he winds up. Private platforms that removed Jones have not only the right do this as a violation of their terms, they had an obligation to do this to prevent this man from furthering his calls for violence. Jones isn’t a victim of anything other then his own rampant stupidity, rampant xenophobia and greed.
lol… Jones is behind the movement to start a civil war in this country and murder millions of Americans? hahaha… What about CNN that told lies about WMD that actually got millions of people killed? Don’t be a stupid fucking moron. Wake up. Prison? Your talk offends me. Your hate speech against Jones is offensive. You’re a stupid, self-centered, egotistical, narcissist. You should be sent to prison. hahahaha… yeah. That’s how stupid you sound.
Should AT&T be able to ban someone from their platform because they deem what they say “hate speech”? No. Neither should anyone else.
I agree with the two points that
a) Private companies have a right to change their internal rules for the purpose of doing such an act
b) Alex Jones cannot be trusted – while I believe in conspiratorial ideas, the way on how his channel works shows an obvious example of “controlled opposition”, where he has a mixture of information that is valid, overlaid with bouts of needless portrayal of anger. That he praises Trump ever since he became President (even as Trump has acted more or less in line with how previous Presidents have behaved to screw US), and is seemingly friends with Roger Stone (as per “Get Me Roger Stone” documentary, sure it was made by liberals who may have their own partisan means but a guy that has regard for notorious president Reagan via a tattoo at his back is a red flag in and of itself) means he’s basically part of the problem.
But whatever your views are with Alex Jones, it’s difficult to deny that this event alone is a gradual sign that private companies are showcasing their capability to censor content at the behest of the government. Sure, we started seeing someone be censored that “deserves” it. But for this to not happen to lesser people attempting to expose lies – I doubt it.
Deplatforming Alex Jones is the thin edge of the wedge. He is an easy target, because of the many outrageous and indefensible claims that he makes. Thus, banning him seem OK to many people. Yet even in Jones’s case, and in many others yet to come, someone has to make a judgement as to what is unacceptable speech. Undoubtedly, it will involve those voices whose speech is considered too far out of the mainstream, which means dissenters of all stripes. And I do think that left-leaning voices will be silenced the most, because they tend to be more factually based and reasonable, which makes them more dangerous to the elites.
See Q’s response to the Alex Jones story–pure psy ops–I think the intended message–if can censor Jones–a sometimes dual agent–then no one is to big or to small–what’s the Donald have to say about all of this???
Alex Jones was hate speech, incitement, and disinformation. Not the same as Telesur, a news outlet with a slant. These are two separate issues. Don’t conflate them in the name of free speech. They are entirely different issues.
No, you’ve completely missed the point.
No, you did. Conflating is exactly what this article does.
The Great Nigel Parry has spoken…
“Alex Jones was hate speech, incitement, and disinformation.”
Thank you, Minister of Truth!
Shall I tune to CNN next, All Knowing One?!
Should CNN, that told lies about WMD that actually got millions of people killed, be banned too? Double standard. Wake up.
Likely Alex was just a distraction.
That and maybe he wished to be banned.
When I think about it, its kind of distressing that msm is controlled and really most people dont see a problem in that. They will care ehen is too late.
Problem is education, lack of.
And why does a person who struggles to put food on table care about fop. And its nice getting paid for agitprop.
here is another thing the oligarchs are worried about……….https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/14/climate-change-bites-big-business/
From the amount of off-topic rage against Judaism I am seeing in the comments here and on a wide variety of alternative sites I visit, it appears that the inability of the Jewish community to control the apartheid and fascist elements of Zionism and the state of Israel are now bubbling over into rabid xenophobic anti-semitism, successfully repressed and controlled in public discourse for some 70 years. While anti-semitism is stupid, because every individual human has worth and is to be respected, and because we all owe a great deal to brilliant and creative Jews like Einstein, Chompsky, and Pinker, and immoral, because it denies rights to an entire group of people that we demand for ourselves and our groups, when groups don’t police themselves but instead use their privileged status to abuse others, payback is both understandable and inevitable. Israel has already thrown away any chance for a two-state solution; let’s see if it is equally adept at sabotaging a one-state solution. If so, there is always the Russian autonomous Jewish oblast on the border with China where all Jews are welcome. Please: differentiate between Zionism, Israel, and Judaism/Jews. To fight the first two is not anti-semitic; to fight the last is, and it means you are a xenophobic no-nothing no better than your opponent.
While I agree with the sentiment, there can be no more ironic misspelling than “no-nothing”.
I was shadow banned by Disqus for repeatedly challenging the rabid Jew hating comments that increasingly hamper discussion on left leaning websites.
All my Disqus comments, when seen through my account, are marked in red as being ‘spam’ but appear (to me only) as normal on the websites where they are posted. Other users do not see them at all.
Emails to the websites involved and to Disqus have gone unanswered. In fact, Disqus states on its website that shadow banning is necessary to protect the public from “fake news”.
So, yeah, only Nazis and fascists need worry about censorship. /s
So sorry this happened to you. Highly unfair. I am angry. I will be sure to let people know if I find their Disqus comments marked in red as Spam. Hopefully, platforms will stop using Disqus and other blog moderators that discriminate.
I think the jews are victim of thier success.
We should all form cabals based on ethnicity and memberships in clubs and strive to gain wealth and control of others for the benefit of those like us. Like _ or baptists.
Oh and now on facebook, Cynthia McKinney says that her page is about to be shut down, and she has posted the alternative sites she is on. Guess we might expect that you, me and all other loudmouth activists will soon not be on facebook, and it will become a shopping hub for the foam brained.
Oh and now on facebook, Cynthia McKinney says that her page is about to be shut down, and she has posted the alternative sites she is on. Guess we might expect that you, me and all other loudmouth activists will soon not be on facebook, and it will become a shopping hub for the foam brained.
Yes, all very true–good article, etc.–but if you don’t out the man behind the curtain–you’re pissing in the wind. Jones [as a known dual agent] may have been apprised of their decision his shut his site down–which only adds to his fame and legitimatizes him as a counter-force to the empire: I’m not so sure I buy it the narrative.
But more to the point–anything that happens in the world–is under the control of the zionist regime figuratively headquartered in Israel. We all know the persuasion of the owners and controllers of the subject social media sites–everything is carefully crafted for the unwary gentile–after all–these people also control the media, government [over 100 prominent dual israeli citizens in the US government– http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50008.htm%5D and invented the field of psychology.
The narrative/meme that we should offer is the necessity of bringing the ancient Jew/Gentile conflict out into the open and seeking conflict resolution: “THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM BETWEEN THE GENTILE AND THE JEW–WITH A DEEP RECORDED HISTORY–IT HAS WREAKED WORLDWIDE HAVOC [WWI, WWII, etc.]–AND GIVEN THE WORLD’S CURRENT PRECIPITOUS TRAJECTORY–WE’VE GOT TO BRING THE TWO PRIMARY PARTICIPANTS TO THE TABLE– TO FIND A SOLUTION– WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME!
I am hoping Caitlin won’t shut me down for broaching this primary conflict.
How hard is iit to build a social media platform without any Deep State subsidies/ties/info gathering revenue, that enables people to talk globally and freely? Is this impossible, given our current circumstances, or could we crowd fund it?
There is Bitchute and, reportedly, Ray Vahey is working on a Disqus-like network. I use Bitchute for redundancy. I’ve had enough YouTube vids disappear on my blog. I don’t care about bitcoin but that’s partly because I’m too stupid to understand it. But I think progressives might be smart to start using alternatives, even while they still use evil originals, although why progressives don’t discriminate is beyond me. No matter how evil Facebook proves to be, progressives can’t tear themselves away. It’s like Frodo with his ring, trying to get out the house and leave it behind, but almost not succeeding. However, unlike the creators and boosters of alternative social media, I don’t believe that the war-making State can’t find a way to kill those. Still, You do what you can.
What part of “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” does the pretend-left not get?
That’s what I think about Alex Jones.
That’s great, perfect description of the McResistance rainbow-flag-on-a-Reaper drone ‘left’. Excellent.
I like that too!
Keep up the good work, You are supremely spot on, the powerful will go to any means to have complete control! #EnoughIsEnough! What David said is also spot on, the powerful are really getting nervous, it is about time!
Their getting nervous could be end up being very dangerous.
The trigger is being pulled by the silicon valley moguls, but the coordination is coming from higher up. You can see it in the way it is playing out. Some folks with a lot to lose are getting nervous. Good.