Who knew in 2018 we would be lead by unelected tech giants?

[therealposieparker]

Banned from twitter. Not sure why, I suspect it was telling the truth. I will not stop.

It will probably save time laughing at profile pictures of pretty laydeeees.

Shows how much they want to silence gcfeminists and gctransexuals you, miranda etc

Honestly, this is exactly the point of Niemoller's piece.

Censorship is a beast that will consume everything its path once it is unleashed.

And it serves the purposes of totalitarianism, all with the consent of the deeply compassionate 'liberal' types.

Alex Jones is beyond fucking nuts, but unless he is calling for criminal behaviour, shutting him down makes him a hero for some and enables people like Posie to be censored, and It. Will. Not. Stop. There.

Campaign all you like to show the errors, biases and lies in the words of those around you. But shut them down forcibly, and it will rebound on the things you think need to be heard.

Freedom is precious - and if it doesn't include people you despise, you have no reason to expect to remain a part of it yourself.

Keep on Posie.

And before anyone says it, criminal behaviour like incitement to violence is rightly not free speech.

I completely agree about free speech. And the Alex Jones song is one of the best things on twitter this week.... aside from the giant penises.

Alex Jones is a nut job but he has a right to say whatever he likes.

And before anyone says it, criminal behaviour like incitement to violence is rightly not free speech.

Agree. But I think that needs to be defined, by experts, quite narrowly. No "epistemic violence" or suchlike.

Ereshkigal, most definitely.

Posie - funnily enough I just checked out the latest on the terfisaslur site (following the link from another thread on here, by a poster who said the threats of extreme violence seemed, if anything, to have got even worse of late). Full of threats of rape, beatings and death... and most of them screen grabs from twitter.

Tell someone to "suck your cock" for disagreeing with them, fine apparently. Point out the absolutely bleedin' obvious fact that women do not have penises - instant ban.

And as you point out in the thread title, the power these social media platforms exert is immense.

Sorry Posie. Seems being a woman and having an opinion is a revolutionary act these days.

Agree on Alex. The man is a tool but he has a right to peaceful speech.

I'm really shocked that so many on the left cannot see the dangers of restricting speech. They have lead this charge and ultimately when the right rise up they will suffer the most.

Less led by, more increasingly controlled by.

So just to be clear here.

There's posters here who think Alex Jones shouldn't have been banned for "hate speech", he's just a nut job exercising peaceful free speech.

After he was banned for calling for drag queens to be burnt alive.

And hounding the families of those slaughtered at school mass shootings causing them further untold misery and driving them into hiding.

Is Alex Jones a hill you're willing to die on?

Nope, I'm calling him a freaking nutcase, who should be roundly mocked and his lies openly debunked, and when he incites violence against people, prosecuted for it to the fullest extent of the law.

He's been peddling his shite for years with no action whatsoever. And, suddenly, he's tripped the ban switch on four separate platforms?

It's incredibly selective, inconsistent and yes, Alex Jones like Milo before him is an easy win for the censorship crowd. He's not a man I like or defend, and his views are gross. But unless he has broken the law, I have no right to do more than ignore him or debunk his lies if I feel strongly enough.

I know you lot find it really hard to understand allowing everyone to have a public opinion, but it's actually a really important part of a free secular society.

Is Alex Jones a hill you're willing to die on?

Yes

Or we all go down.

The name of the hill is called "your words and ideas disgust me, I don't think people should be allowed to hear them"

Like it or lump it, we're on the same hill as him. You might think you are not the same sort of creature as AJ, but the people pointing ban hammers at both people like him and us, they absolutely do.

So you think that a man who has called for people to be burnt alive is entitled to and has the right to demand space on any privately-owned platform to continue to share his views?

And where exactly do you draw the line?

Are you going to put your money where your mouth is and publicly petition @MNHQ to host Alex Jones? Do you think that's going to go well?

Do you think his "right" to demand space on privately owned social media platforms should end should he start calling for Muslims to be burnt alive?

Or perhaps you draw the line at the call for Jews to killed en masse?

Or is it all a bit theoretical, but you'd be up in arms and demanding a complete media blackout of Alex Jones if he started demanding that Mumsnet posters to this board should be burnt alive because he doesn't agree with what you're saying?

See, that's the problem with going with going to bat for the bad guys and hate speech. Suddenly you find yourself having to defend the indefensible.

But please, by all means, provide an argument that says that a man who says a segment of the population should be murdered, burnt alive in fact, has an absolute right to be hosted on Mumsnet, whether they want him hosted on their site or not. That should be fun.

Did he incite violence? As that is a crime. Inciting violence falls fowl of freedom of speech.

Are you really that hard of thinking? Calling for people to be burned alive is illegal. It should be prosecuted and Alex Jones put in prison.
That is not what is happening. A lot of people are very gleeful because someone 'on the right', whatever the hell that means, has been removed from some platforms (though not all, so, you know, it's clearly not that beyond the pale to say terrible things even among the woke).

If you were all campaigning for him to be prosecuted for breaking the law, I'd be right with you. But you're not, you're just posing as moral superiors while giving him the kudos of the martyr. It's almost like certain people learned absolutely nothing about how people react when they think elite snobs are pulling rank and Brexit and Trump happened.

and fowl instead of foul is beyond stupid.

The mind frankley boggles on the ends of two stalks.

Inciting violence is exactly that.

I don't recall Posie doing that. I know she feels strongly about teens in hijabs. Me too I'm ashamed to say. It doesn't feel right and Boris . .it's literally the first time I've agreed with him. If it looks like a post bo.... shut up. Shut up. Can we coexist? Women in postbox uniforms and girls in tshirts showing their nipples (different thread). Just saying literally how can we? By not being sensitive I would say . When I went to India i didn't wear a bikini and I wore a head cover in temples. Why wouldn't I. ? I don't know if really don't know

Like literally if I went and settled in India or even Pakistan and wore a bikini and some male mp was shamed about mentioning it as an issue? Wraf. Why wouldn't they. It's called sensitivity to cultural norms. In 1689 in Britain a bikini wouldn't have gone down too well. Why should we be more sensitive to more conservative than to more liberal standards of dress?

I've gone way overboard I know. But no inciting to violence here. I would feel personally uneasy if say at a cafeteria there was one woman to the left in a bikini one woman to the right in a burka I wouldn't incite violence tho.

The answer to your title question is, everyone who has been paying attention.

I agree that he should have been removed and prosecuted a long time ago for his crimes.
The harassment of the Sandy Hook victims parents violated a number of laws.
He should have been frog marched out of the studio years ago.

See, that's the problem with going with going to bat for the bad guys and hate speech. Suddenly you find yourself having to defend the indefensible.

No I don't.

In the sense I don't have to defend what they say.

But I will defend their right to say it.

I don't agree with hate speech being a crime. Hate speech, as we have discovered, is a very movable line. It might start with something I personally am comfortable with defining as hateful. But it quickly becomes an established tool to suppress anything the mob and TPTB don't want said. (Example "people can't change sex")

I am on board with the old limits on speech, so no to incitement of violence, yelling fire in a crowded theatre and targeted harassment.

If Aj said any of those thing then he should be reported to the police and prosecuted. But I am not prepared to cuddle up to the idea that Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google and their various mobs have become our new judge and jury.

I spent years watching my words so very carefully and speaking in code for fear of falling foul of Lèse-majesté. I'm not going back to that kind of state and social control of speech without a fight.

And where exactly do you draw the line?

No. Where exactly do you draw the line? You're the one wanting to restrict certain speech. Where do you draw the line?

Posie Parker has been targeted and mass TRA-Twttter reported for a long time. She isn't the only person.

Twitter (& other social media platofrms) have been 'weaponised' by some, with the intention of 'no debate' and silencing dissenting voices.
Woman's PLace UK recent statement:
womansplaceuk.org/social-media-attacks-on-wpuk/

There are many threads and discussions about this:

WPUK:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3312138-Womans-Place-UK-Facebook-Twitter-attack-request-to-share-statement-on-social-media

Lisa Muggeridge:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3284251-Lisa-Muggeridge-Suspended-by-Twitter-and-Quoting-her-breaches-MN-Guidelines

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3260432-The-Shame-of-Twitter

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3256163-Anyone-else-having-trouble-with-Twitter

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3262686-BBC-Report-Twitter-bans-women-against-trans-ideology-say-feminists

Venice Allen
[[www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3259395-best-of-twitter
Miranda Yardley]]
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3258983-Miranda-Yardley-permanently-banned-from-Twitter
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3258453-Permanent-Ban-from-Twitter-for-Hate-Speech

Hope Lye
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3279656-Hope-Lye-suspended-from-Twitter

Mass Terf Blocks
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3200394-Calling-lawyers-and-data-protection-gurus

Attempted bullying of MN
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3241575-Mumsnet-Grass-Account

shadowbanning is now also being used to hush women up... Rose of Dawn has recently discovered she is shadow banned.