It’s been announced that several major corporate brands of disavowed the alternative media outlet known as Info Wars. The outlet is best known as the flagship company of Alex Jones, a political commentator who holds libertarian beliefs, but it’s also known for other popular commentators such as Paul Joseph Watson. Now, in what seems to be a frightening collaboration, Youtube, Facebook, Spotify, and Apple have removed Alex Jones from their lineup – meaning anyone wanting to view, listen or purchase Alex Jones content can no longer do so. Legally, these companies have every right to pick and choose what kind of content they host, but this event brings with it a very real, very scary realization: the people shouldn’t be afraid of their governments- they should be afraid of the corporations.
America has reached a point where a hand full of corporations are responsible for distributing most of our daily information and interactions. For example, a lot of people get their music from iTunes or just subscribe to Spotify. YouTube nearly has a monopoly on general video streaming services and Facebook is still the reigning king of social media. If one wants to get noticed, one pretty much has to create a presence on at least some of these platforms. Again, under normal circumstances, this would the choice of a business. But here’s the frightening part. It’s clear that these companies worked together to censor Alex Jones for political reasons.
The bigger a major company gets, the more progressive they tend to lean. Google, as proven by the memo written by James Demore in 2017, is a great example. Facebook is still lead by Mark Zuckerberg whose words and actions have hinted at censoring influential conservatives under the guise of hate speech among other things. So, keeping that in mind, it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe the removal of Alex Jones from these platforms is a political move. Alex Jones was, and remains, a very popular and successful commentator. He is listened to my millions. Removing his product would be a net loss to these companies who mainly rely on regular viewers.
In America, we are protected from many tyrannical maneuvers by the government. We are granted freedom of speech, freedom of protest, and the right to bear arms amongst other freedoms. But as the left are very fond of pointing out, these laws only protect us from the government. And as corporations begin to gain more and more power over what we watch and how we watch it, they gain the power to shove any narrative they like down our throats. The banning of Alex Jones is now our first major public example.
What might happen if Google decided to ban conservative candidates from advertising their campaigns on their networks? What if they decided to push a false narrative to get what they want? What if they decided your words and opinions were too popular for their own good? They could simply flip the switch and ban you for life. No legal ramifications. No oversight. This isn’t the free market at work. This is an agenda driven monster ready to silence you for having the wrong opinion. And in this age of information, the ability to silence is far more dangerous than the ability to kill.
The government doesn’t need to control your speech when they can have the largest public platforms in the country do it for them. And they’ll get away with it by pulling tricks from the same books tyrants of been using for generations.
“For the people.”
“To ensure a safer environment.”
“To take a stand against hate.”
“For the greater good.”
“A moral obligation.”
Any of this starting to sound familiar? Didn’t Hitler operate under the belief that it was Germany’s moral obligation to slaughter entire groups of people?
This is how tyranny starts. The people with power tricking the powerless into surrendering their freedoms for some ambiguous brighter future. Major companies banning Alex Jones all at once under the present circumstances is not the free market. It’s not pure business. It’s not dispassionate or moral. And it’s definitely not okay…
Literature Devil 