World Affairs Brief, August 10, 2018 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
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THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE WAR AGAINST FREE SPEECH
Alex Jones is the most prominent conservative fighting a battle against censorship and financial revenue as the major internet media platforms ban his content and refuse to pay him for his popular content. The Powers That Be (PTB) are working every angle to bankrupt Alex. It started months ago when YouTube denied him his advertizing revenue from the millions of viewers who watched his video commentaries. Then an establishment legal firm conjured up a lawsuit against Jones on behalf of several Sandy Hook families complaining they have been threatened and harassed by Jones supporters. This week it mushroomed to an outright censorship ban on Facebook, Youtube, the Apple Store, Spotify and others after CNN orchestrated a pressure campaign against him and targeted all the major social media tech giants. Supposedly, Alex is guilty of “hate speech,” one of those nebulous and political correct epithets that can be skewed to cover almost any criticism of anyone else. The claim of hate speech itself, if left to stand, is a major attack on the principle of free speech. This week I’ll discuss the backlash in support of Jones, and the issue of whether these are strictly private companies are, in fact, really public/private partnerships akin to public utilities that should not be able to suppress free speech.
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Is It Illegal to Censor Jones? This is bound to become more of an issue as this attack on free speech continues and expands against other conservative, conspiratorial voices. The first question is “Are these companies truly private?” If yes, then they can do whatever they want on their social media platform. Or can they?
According to the reigning legal argument in civil rights and anti-discrimination circles, once you (as a private person or private company) open your business to the public, you are no longer private as to your ability to discriminate. I oppose this expansive view against the privacy of property, but as long as it is accepted by the Left, it can and should be used against them.
These social media companies are clearly inviting all the public to participate and thus are not free to discriminate. That is perhaps why they are justifying this in the name of “hate speech,” as if that gives them a legitimate test of criminality that allows for discrimination. As I and others have pointed out, you can’t make hatred illegal any more than you can any form of negative opinion against another is illegal. In fact, if there was ever was an outpouring of hatred here, it is against Alex Jones and his points of view.
You can outlaw incitement to violence, and it appears they are trying to equate hate speech to violence, as if they are always synonymous, but they are not. Only when someone is yelling hateful speech and directly inciting violence is this true, but the Left is trying to expand the view of hate speech backward to any negative criticism of someone. Point of fact: there is no way to draw the line except at the most violent prone end of the incitement spectrum. Everything less than that has to be protected speech or Free Speech is gone.
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