So we have increased tension between the government's reluctance to meddle in
what could reasonably construed as tech company monopolies and the
political/cultural reluctance to set a firm line beyond which the consequences
of exercising free speech are such that said speech should be restricted. I'm
not sure which option tech companies prefer least - government oversight for
policing content, or market interference to allow for multiple venues for
online broadcast.
Maybe a few years ago I would have supported using some framework comparable to
the slander and libel laws (US, not UK) by which much of what Jones and other
conspiracy theorists could say might be actionable. Maybe it could still work
for things like doxxing or swatting. But given how postmodern we are about
truth right now, it seems unlikely that appeals to the truth would do anything
to address these challenges.
David
On Thursday, August 9, 2018, 12:33:57 AM EDT, Kevin M.
<drunkbastar...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 8:47 PM Steve Timko <steveti...@gmail.com> wrote:
Free speech pretty much requires an audience.
Perhaps. But there is no legal guarantee which forces a company to provide such
an audience
It’s not really free speech if the only place you can say it is, say, in front
of the Jehovah’s Witness Hall. So Alex Jones can proselytize as much as he
wants from his website, but as Adam noted, “to a certain generation, access to
YouTube or Facebook is tantamount to how we communicate in 2018.” Video is
probably Alex Jones’ most effective way to communicate. I followed him daily
for about three or four months about eight years ago and while he has crazy
stuff written on his website, his absolutely most batcrap crazy stuff comes
from his videos. YouTube has close to a monopoly on delivery of video, except
for what Vimeo and the porn sites. So getting kicked off YouTube and trying to
deliver a video message is almost like requiring someone build their own
sidewalk to talk to the public.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
