Twitter bans Alex Jones and infowars

[bubbag85]

@Jophiel

I previously posted this in the “Obvious things about creative works” thread in CS:

@UltraVires

No. But in some ways yes. We hear all of the time, correctly, that the First Amendment applies only to government action against its citizens. However, the idea of free speech is one imbued in the people as an important freedom so that we can all exchange ideas.

Facebook, Twitter, and the SDMB, for example, can legally ban all views that are supportive of X. But are they doing society, or even themselves, a good service by doing so? I think that broadly speaking, they are not.

If some guy wants to come on here and say that Hitler was right or that blacks are inferior, then I think that type of thought when it still exists should be brought into the light and condemned for the dangerous idea that it is and not kept in his mother’s basement where it might foster into action one day.

I think that is indeed part of our duty as a free people to discuss, condemn, and correct.

Whoever said the first amendent only limits government actions? If that were true, it would be undermining the actual idea of of the first amendent. It applies to liberty, and rights of the people. It grants and ensures liberties…it does not restrict governments. The government has no power, the power belongs to the people. Not the other way around.