The only difference between InfoWars and the other hundreds of banned white supremacists and fear-mongers is that InfoWars had an audience that helped keep the lights on at those companies for a while. The chilling part isn’t the arbitrary enforcement because there are dozens or more examples one can find and that activists have been submitting to the companies for years, it’s that there is clearly a layer of money and prestige protecting those voices that the companies fear removing. Facebook only acted because they are being taken to the cleaners, and the others fallowed suit because Jones had so many flagrant offenses that banning him is simple once you are not scared of a competitive disadvantage. I mean, YouTube spent years actively not giving Jones a third strike that would close his channels. Of course it is easy for them to take action at literally any point.
Even Twitter who was being super smug about it suspended Jones nearly immediately because he literally posted a different call for violence against other people immediately after being removed from other platforms. Like, the unequal enforcement of the rules has favored Jones and people like Jones for a decade. There’s literally no reason to use this as a jumping off point for discussions about political speech in semi-public areas.
On the incitement front he tends to stay just inside the lines of legality. The key test is whether the speech in question is intended to lead to imminent lawless activity and if the action is likely to be taken. Statements like “we have to take the country back from globalists” meets the same protections as NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware because they don’t incite the lawless action and things like Pizzagate is more like Hess v. Indiana where the future illegal action is in some unspecified future and isn’t imminent.
On the other hand he waltzes freely across the lines of defamation all the time, but that is a civil matter between him and the aggrieved parties.
Impeachment could take a long time to complete, during which 45* could do (more) significant damage to America. If he is being impeached, why wouldn’t he try a scorched earth policy if he thought it would funnel more money into his (and his family’s) pocket?
I’m kind of expecting a combination of his two Mac a day habit, the stress of his position, and the increase in blood pressure from the continuing Mueller investigation to cause him to blow a gasket sometime.
I wonder if this picture is taken before or after he approved warrantless wiretaps, prosecuted whistleblowers, and turned the promised “most transparent administration” into a opaque box.
That said, it’d be nice to know what our president is talking about from sentence to sentence again.
That was Trump, Jones has been a bit more careful. As far as Trump I think there are three different things at play on those comments.
Most of the times he has explicitly encouraged violence are the times it hasn’t happened or the violence happened first. If your words didn’t cause the violence once spoken you can usually avoid incitement issues.
Extraordinary deference is granted to political speech. It is hard to imagine speech that is more starkly political than a campaign rally for President.
The cops like the idea of a fascist President roughing up the same people they do.
Banning jones from FB, YT or the apples podcast library/ App Store are not freedom of speech issues. He can do anything he wants with his own domain, but not on anyone else’s platform.
The first amendment protects individuals from being censored and prosecuted by the government. It is not possible to use it to force your opinion into publication despite what 45 thinks. As a matter of fact forcing people to publish something they don’t want to WOULD be a practical offense of the publishers freedom of speech. 45 is way off base with this one.
One should bear in mind that the Hollywood blacklist was not created independently of government action. The original Hollywood Ten became the inaugural members of the blacklist after being cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify before HUAC. In addition to being insufficiently cooperative with HUAC, one could also be added to the blacklist by having one’s name listed in Red Channels, a tract published by “former” FBI men.
I disagree with Taibbi’s fundamental premise - Jones has no fear of a legal process to remove him, and has only gained power as the legal framework is eroded. On top of that, he has a free speech blindspot:
Trump is almost certainly going to lose in a few weeks, and lose huge at that. People who believe in free speech as an absolute will see in his defeat a validation of their beliefs. The more we talked about Trump, and the more we let him run his mouth, the less appealing he became. He should be the classic example of bad speech defeated by better speech.
His strong suit is that he also sees the argument for the other side and acknowledge some it in both articles here - unlikely most people using jones as a jumping off point to talk freedom of speech issues.
