Facebook bans Alex Jones, Milo Yiannpoulos and Louis Farrakhan.

Alex Jones(left) and Milo Yiannpoulos. NBC News/AP/Getty.

Facebook has purged several high profile users including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannpoulos and Louis Farrakhan. NBC News. Facebook had already banned four of Alex Jones' Facebook pages but had left his Facebook and Instagram accounts open, along with the page for his news service, Infowars. The reason cited in these cases was "hate speech". The actions could lead to anti-trust enforcement for the social media giant for online censorship.

My Comment:

Yet another utterly disgusting move by one of the tech super-giants. None of the people banned in this case should not have ever been banned under any circumstances. The only people that should ever be banned from social media are people that have done something illegal or have fake accounts. Everything else is a suppression of free speech. 

And it's also very clear why Louis Farrakhan has been included in this ban. Farrakhan, who is a radical Muslim, has said some very antisemitic things and has long been held up as an example of hypocrisy by the right. He wasn't included for what he said, clearly. Instead he was used as an effort to paint this banning as more "fair" to conservatives. Not that Farrakhan should have been banned either even if his beliefs are wrong and disgusting. 

I generally think that this is an attempt by Facebook and the big tech companies to interfere with the 2020 presidential elections. Jones, Yiannpoulos and Laura Loomer, who wasn't mentioned in the NBC article but was also banned, may have helped President Trump win in 2016, not so much for the support they gave him but because they were all effective in attacking the left. Facebook desperately wants the Democrats to win in 2020 so they are giving the ax to anyone they think they can get away with banning. 

I don't buy the argument that these people were engaged in hate speech, with the possible exception of Louis Farrakhan. In general, whatever their flaws, Jones, Yiannpoulos and Loomer had defensible arguments about Islam. People have the right to criticize a religion and Islam has many features that isn't compatible with many people's beliefs. Plus it's perfectly fine to criticize Christianity on Facebook as well. I don't believe the concept of "hate speech" should exist, all speech is acceptable except deliberate calls for violence. 

But I doubt that "hate speech" is why they were banned. All of these people were conservative in way, with Farrakhan being the obvious exception (as an aside it was hilarious to see the big news outlets lumping Farrakhan in as a conservative when he is anything but). They only reason they got banned is because Facebook disagrees with their political beliefs. It's very clear that you can do pretty much whatever you want on the platform as long as you are a far-left radical. But if you say anything that pisses off a liberal, you are gone. 

Something has to be done about tech censorship. Though I tend to think Jones, Yinnpoulos and Loomer are crazy, an opportunist and crazy respectively, they are the canaries in the coal mine. Their views are only slightly outside of the mainstream on the right and pretty soon it's going to be more typical right wing pundits and politicians that get the ax as well, let alone normal people like me. 

If things don't change it's only a matter of time before I get banned as well. I'm on the right and this blog often covers controversial issues. My biggest defense is that I am generally to small for people to notice, but that might not protect me forever. At any moment Facebook could delete my page and personal account, Twitter could ban my blog account and Google could delete this blog. And I don't think there is anything I could do to stop it. I've already had my account locked on twitter and had an ad rejected on Facebook. And considering that my blog is mostly center-right it means that anyone and anything could get banned.