Why we shouldn't cheer the banning of Alex Jones

in alex •  6 years ago  (edited)

alex-jones-shirtless.jpg

As you probably already know by now, Alex Jones has been banned from Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify. That means that the only real social media giant to have not banned Jones is Twitter. This ban will impact Jones and his news organization InfoWars greatly and may actually be the nail in the coffin for them as a company.
Since the ban I've noticed that people seem happy about this mass ban on Alex Jones but I feel like we really need to step back and look at this from a different angle. Would we be as happy if it were someone like Julian Assange? Would we be cheering then? I know I wouldn't but I'm not cheering now. I think all censorship is bad and on this scale, to me, it's alarming.
Now, I understand the hatred for Jones, he's easy to hate, but does that mean he deserves to be silenced? That his news organization as a result will be silenced? I don't think that he does and I think as a, like it or not, news organization it shouldn't happen. If you're independent you depend on those platforms to survive. I just think that it sets a frighting precedent.
I mean, who's next?
Or how about this... Alex isn't the first. Google and Youtube suppress content and ban channels and videos all of the time. Facebook even has a jail and an almighty algorithm that suppresses all sorts of unwanted speech on their platform.
I just don't like it. It feels like 1984 to me. Like book burning. I think we really need to be careful what we wish for especially when main stream media has become unreliable and independent journalists are all we really have left for any truth about the world around us. Where would we be without that?

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Congratulations @shawnyankey! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published your First Post
You got a First Vote
Award for the number of upvotes received

Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Do you like SteemitBoard's project? Then Vote for its witness and get one more award!

Your post has been up voted because of similarities to the #informationwar project (by @wakeupnd).

  • Our purpose is to encourage posts discussing Information War, Propaganda, Disinformation and other false narratives. We currently have over 7,500 Steem Power and 20+ people following the curation trail to support our mission.

  • Join our discord and chat with 250+ fellow Informationwar Activists.

  • Join our brand new reddit! and start sharing your Steemit posts directly to The_IW, via the share button on your Steemit post!!!

  • Connect with fellow Informationwar writers in our Roll Call! InformationWar - Leadership/Contributing Writers/Supporters: Roll Call

Ways you can help the @informationwar

  • Upvote this comment.
  • Delegate Steem Power. 25 SP 50 SP 100 SP
  • Join the curation trail here.
  • Tutorials on all ways to support us and useful resources here