What the fuck (7 Viewers)

[clint van damme]

Even if it causes people to shoot up pizza shops because Alex Jones fed them bullshit?

Or bully a grieving parent to take their own life?

 

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[Brighton Sky Blue]

Or bully a grieving parent to take their own life?

Speech that incites violence shouldn’t be legal, the problem is deciding what qualifies. That and libel-the rest should be fair game.

 

[clint van damme]

Speech that incites violence shouldn’t be legal, the problem is deciding what qualifies. That and libel-the rest should be fair game.

That's why it's ok saying I support free speech but setting the parameters isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

[Grendel]

Of course people should have the platform to debate ideas across a variety of views and political beliefs, that doesn’t mean that a) a cancel culture is taking over and b) that it should give free rein to people with some pretty horrific views. There is still enough distinction between discussing controversial ideas and giving a platform to a racist.

No one would dream of giving a platform to a Holocaust denier for example... denying that to someone would not be evidence of a cancel culture either.

Well mr Corbyn and Mr Livingston have shared platforms with holocaust deniers

Linda Bellos and Peter Tatchell have been no platformed as their views were not acceptable

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Even if it causes people to shoot up pizza shops because Alex Jones fed them bullshit?

Firstly, there are laws against inciting violence and disturbing the peace. That’s very different.

I quickly googled the incident you referred to, and admittedly, I’m not really familiar with it. But, I’m aware of some of the absolute nonsense Alex Jones comes out with as I’ve watched his appearances on the JRE podcast (he might be batshit crazy, but is entertaining). Anyway, was he inciting violence? I don’t think so.

I listened to what he said, it didn’t inspire me to go out and be violent and commit murder. Too often, instead of planing violence on the individuals who commit the crime, we look for external factors to blame. E.g. video games, certain commentators and so on.

Since he’s apologised for the whole Pizzagate hoax, it implies he may feel guilt about it all.

 

[clint van damme]

Firstly, there are laws against inciting violence and disturbing the peace. That’s very different.

I quickly googled the incident you referred to, and admittedly, I’m not really familiar with it. But, I’m aware of some of the absolute nonsense Alex Jones comes out with as I’ve watched his appearances on the JRE podcast (he might be batshit crazy, but is entertaining). Anyway, was he inciting violence? I don’t think so.

I listened to what he said, it didn’t inspire me to go out and be violent and commit murder. Too often, instead of planing violence on the individuals who commit the crime, we look for external factors to blame. E.g. video games, certain commentators and so on.

Since he’s apologised for the whole Pizzagate hoax, it implies he may feel guilt about it all.

A worker at the pizza shop got shot because he said Hilary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement (The shop didn't have a basement).

He said the Sandy hook massacre was faked using actors his followers harassed the grieving parents. One father took his own life. Entertaining? Really?

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

A worker at the pizza shop got shot because he said Hilary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement (The shop didn't have a basement).

He said the Sandy hook massacre was faked using actors his followers harassed the grieving parents. One father took his own life. Entertaining? Really?

The he was entertaining on a podcast he appeared on with Joe Rogan. It’s the one of the most watched podcast episodes on the internet. Only his show with Elon Musk has more views. To make this point obvious, Joe Rogan is a comedian.

Do not conflate that with some outrageous comments he’s made on his own shows in the past, which he has been sued for.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Firstly, there are laws against inciting violence and disturbing the peace. That’s very different.

I quickly googled the incident you referred to, and admittedly, I’m not really familiar with it. But, I’m aware of some of the absolute nonsense Alex Jones comes out with as I’ve watched his appearances on the JRE podcast (he might be batshit crazy, but is entertaining). Anyway, was he inciting violence? I don’t think so.

I listened to what he said, it didn’t inspire me to go out and be violent and commit murder. Too often, instead of planing violence on the individuals who commit the crime, we look for external factors to blame. E.g. video games, certain commentators and so on.

Since he’s apologised for the whole Pizzagate hoax, it implies he may feel guilt about it all.

The problem is he was a conspiracy theorist with a huge audience that took what he said seriously and ended up committing crimes because of it. Ben Shapiro has I think also attempted to argue that if you say ‘x person should die’ and someone kills them you aren’t responsible because it wasn’t an instruction. Anjem Choudhry was another who should have been locked up for preaching his nonsense long before he was-but is too clear cut an example.

Long and short of it is I don’t know where you draw the line. But if someone carries out violent acts inspired by your words you should at least face some kind of scrutiny

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

The problem is he was a conspiracy theorist with a huge audience that took what he said seriously and ended up committing crimes because of it. Ben Shapiro has I think also attempted to argue that if you say ‘x person should die’ and someone kills them you aren’t responsible because it wasn’t an instruction. Anjem Choudhry was another who should have been locked up for preaching his nonsense long before he was-but is too clear cut an example.

Long and short of it is I don’t know where you draw the line. But if someone carries out violent acts inspired by your words you should at least face some kind of scrutiny

You’re right. There is a fine line between inciting violence and freedom of speech and there is nothing wrong with scrutiny. We have gone off on a bit of tangent and debated some v extreme examples - which is interesting!

Genuine question: on his show, did he actually incite his audience to violence?

My vague understanding is that the vigilante did his own ‘research’ on various social media platforms - and Info Wars definitely would be a part of this to. Again, as far as I’m aware, Alex Jones isn’t facing any legal action for this shooting. Unlike the sandy hook situation where he made false comments and was sued and forced to pay damages to the families (rightfully so).

Don’t get me wrong, freedom of speech can have unintended consequences.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

You’re right. There is a fine line between inciting violence and freedom of speech and there is nothing wrong with scrutiny. We have gone off on a bit of tangent and debated some v extreme examples - which is interesting!

Genuine question: on his show, did he actually incite his audience to violence?

My vague understanding is that the vigilante did his own ‘research’ on various social media platforms - and Info Wars definitely would be a part of this to. Again, as far as I’m aware, Alex Jones isn’t facing any legal action for this shooting. Unlike the sandy hook situation where he made false comments and was sued and forced to pay damages to the families (rightfully so).

Don’t get me wrong, freedom of speech can have unintended consequences.

Free speech isn’t there to protect people who want to say they love apple pie but those who want to express unpopular views. That’s why you have to look at the extremes to decide at what point does that speech become more dangerous than liberating. Jones didn’t give an explicit instruction to shoot anyone up but he spent a long time calling Clinton the devil and spewing openly libellous comments. He shouldn’t have gone to prison necessarily but he should have had to face some kind of questioning.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Yes, but there’s clearly an issue with student groups in universities pressuring their institutions to cancel speakers from the centre to right speakers. This has even spilled over to certain left wing speakers who may have a single controversial view. Going back to Germaine Greer, she was cancelled because of her views about trans people, and her talk had nothing to do with trans issues.

Also, there is an increasing tendency on the left to exaggerate the perniciousness of conservative speakers. This was possibly been copied from the right, where they dismissed people anything to the left of social democrats as ‘Trots’, ‘communists’ and so on.

I listen to Ben Shapiro a fair bit to challenge my own assumptions about the world. But, I’m not a conservative. Since he’s outspoken about political correctness and ‘woke’ politics, amongst other things. He’s been branded ‘Alt-right’, ‘white supremacist’ and some views discounted because he is a ‘white cisgender male’. Yet, he routinely brands the ‘Alt-Right’ as evil, is Jewish, and at various points was receiving the anti-Semitic abuse from white supremacists.

I don’t really agree with Farage on a lot, but it bothers me that people call him a ‘racist’, ‘fascist’ or ‘xenophobic’ and the UKIP a ‘neo-nazi party’ (more extreme end of criticism). They’re lazy arguments and these kinds of lazy arguments is why the liberal-left have continued to lose the argument on immigration for over a decade now.

You’ve also go comedians no longer wanting to do uni gigs because of the threat of no-platforms or being ‘cancelled’. This is not a good sign.

I’m rambling. So I’ll end on one point, it’s better for people with terrible views to be challenged in public, by the public rather than to be ‘no platformed’ and driven underground.

As soon as Nick Griffin and the BNP were ‘legitimised’ by given a slot on BBC QT, they were embarrassed, Griffin looked a fool and the BNP’s support started to crumble. The best argument against no-platforms.

I'm all for the allow everyone to speak and let them look stupid. Unfortunately the people they're aiming their stuff at are those with lower intelligence or non-enquiring minds. Susceptible people.

So we need a more robust way of dealing with things that they say that are blatantly untrue. Heavy fines and prison for saying stuff that is untrue. We also need to make those that retweet it etc culpable as well so people have a responsibility as to what they retweet and might be more careful about it in future, reducing the spread of such material.

Maybe also a trustworthiness rating in their twitter/facebook so people who have been proven to spread/retweet untrue things its blatantly obvious in their user name.

Of course this is easier said than done with anonymous accounts and the possibility to just start a new account if your rating goes down, but then they will lose their followers or have to rebuild it.

I'd also add that although cancel culture is a big problem with 'woke' etc and calling anyone even moderatly to the right of centre as extremist views it's also a problem across the spectrum. There are those on the right who decry anything left of full on capitalism as Marxist or extreme socialism, wanting everyone to have exactly the same regardless of effort or ability etc, which is bollocks for the vast majority of those left-leaning.

 

[shmmeee]

I'm all for the allow everyone to speak and let them look stupid. Unfortunately the people they're aiming their stuff at are those with lower intelligence or non-enquiring minds. Susceptible people.

So we need a more robust way of dealing with things that they say that are blatantly untrue. Heavy fines and prison for saying stuff that is untrue. We also need to make those that retweet it etc culpable as well so people have a responsibility as to what they retweet and might be more careful about it in future, reducing the spread of such material.

Maybe also a trustworthiness rating in their twitter/facebook so people who have been proven to spread/retweet untrue things its blatantly obvious in their user name.

Of course this is easier said than done with anonymous accounts and the possibility to just start a new account if your rating goes down, but then they will lose their followers or have to rebuild it.

I'd also add that although cancel culture is a big problem with 'woke' etc and calling anyone even moderatly to the right of centre as extremist views it's also a problem across the spectrum. There are those on the right who decry anything left of full on capitalism as Marxist or extreme socialism, wanting everyone to have exactly the same regardless of effort or ability etc, which is bollocks for the vast majority of those left-leaning.

The ultimate problem is we’ve removed all gatekeeping from knowledge and with it respect for expertise. I don’t know how you put that genie back in it’s bottle. Everyone with google thinks they know every subject and won’t defer to people who have spent their life undertaking rigorous study.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Free speech isn’t there to protect people who want to say they love apple pie but those who want to express unpopular views. That’s why you have to look at the extremes to decide at what point does that speech become more dangerous than liberating. Jones didn’t give an explicit instruction to shoot anyone up but he spent a long time calling Clinton the devil and spewing openly libellous comments. He shouldn’t have gone to prison necessarily but he should have had to face some kind of questioning.

It’s a valid point to make. Equally, I do believe the law does draw boundaries quite well, generally speaking.

I'm all for the allow everyone to speak and let them look stupid. Unfortunately the people they're aiming their stuff at are those with lower intelligence or non-enquiring minds. Susceptible people.

So we need a more robust way of dealing with things that they say that are blatantly untrue. Heavy fines and prison for saying stuff that is untrue. We also need to make those that retweet it etc culpable as well so people have a responsibility as to what they retweet and might be more careful about it in future, reducing the spread of such material.

Maybe also a trustworthiness rating in their twitter/facebook so people who have been proven to spread/retweet untrue things its blatantly obvious in their user name.

Of course this is easier said than done with anonymous accounts and the possibility to just start a new account if your rating goes down, but then they will lose their followers or have to rebuild it.

I'd also add that although cancel culture is a big problem with 'woke' etc and calling anyone even moderatly to the right of centre as extremist views it's also a problem across the spectrum. There are those on the right who decry anything left of full on capitalism as Marxist or extreme socialism, wanting everyone to have exactly the same regardless of effort or ability etc, which is bollocks for the vast majority of those left-leaning.

This last paragraph is something I said early on. The ‘left’ has weaponised ‘fascist’, ‘racist’, ‘homophobe’, ‘sexist’ and so on in the same way the right tagged anyone they didn’t agree with as ‘socialist’, ‘communist’ and so on.

I don’t think it is the responsibility of social media platforms to fairly judge people on their ‘respectability’. I also don’t trust them to do it fairly either. There’s obvious biases and inconsistencies to how these platforms deal with ‘breaches’ to their guidelines.

I absolutely do not like what Katie Hopkins has to say on most things. Yet, equally, I completely disagree with social media outlets removing her off Twitter, for example. Protection of freedom is one of those things where it has to apply universally, even people who’s views I abhor.

Again, there are defamation laws, so people can’t make wild and libellous claims without consequence. People also misinterpret things all the time.