The Alex Jones radio show continually spreads deliberate falsehoods which have caused real-life consequences leading social media companies to remove the controversial host from its platforms which is wrong because Jones is expressing freedom of speech. He should be allowed to spread whatever garbage he wants and if people want to believe it, let them.
Jones is a conspiracy theorist who makes outlandish claims that leads to the public believing them. Jones once created a conspiracy later known as PizzaGate claiming Washington pizzeria Comet Ping Pong was connected to a child-sex ring led by Hillary Clinton. One of his fans felt strongly enough about the matter to fire a military-style assault rifle inside the popular pizzaria to supposedly “save the children.”
This past August, major social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube along with Apple Music and Spotify deleted Jones’ pages and content from its sites for violating the terms of use. Facebook justified its gatekeeping decision by claiming to protect its users from Jones’ offensive content.
These platforms’ reasoning behind the censorship of Jones’ shows nothing but hypocrisy. Facebook’s content has gotten worse over the years. I’ve seen actually pornography, deaths and other graphic content posted onto Facebook by its users without penalty.
Facebook cannot claim to care about the welfare of its users while allowing others to post filth without consequence. The same can be said about Youtube and Twitter as well. Youtube contains videos of dangerous challenges that could be easily be imitated by young viewers such as the 2014 fire challenge. Videos of adults lathering their bodies with flammable oils and then lighting themselves on fire were all over YouTube. These videos led to children imitating the challenge, and posting their own videos onto social media platforms.
Spotify does not censor its creator’s content at all. Some content is very explicit and may be harmful to certain listeners. In 1994, two 17-year-old youths fatally shot a police officer. One claimed to have gotten inspired by the rapper Tupac Shakur. It’s obvious Tupac was not at fault for the officer’s death in 1994 because he cannot control the way people react to his music. The same can be said about. Alex Jones and his content.
My point is that if these platforms want to protect the public, they should remove all harmful content instead of just targeting Jones because of his fan base. It is biased to silence Jones without silencing all other offenders on a platform
There are just some people in society who take literature, music and the internet too seriously, and no one can control that. Yes, PizzaGate shooter Edgar Maddison Welch was driven to be a “good guy with a gun” by Jones’ conspiracy theory. However, there have been similar cases. In 1980, Mark David Chapman fatally shot singer John Lennon outside his Manhattan hotel because he was inspired by J.D Salinger’s novel “Catcher in the Rye.” Any piece of media can affect people in different ways, and sometimes it’s to the extent of murder.
I’m not a fan of the “Alex Jones Show” or consider myself an Infowars enthusiast, but the hypocrisy by these major platforms is far too great to be ignored.
