Apple Confirms Infowars App Won't Be Removed From App Store

[Irishman]

“If you cut off a mans tongue, you aren’t proving him a liar. You’re just proving you’re afraid of what he may say.”

For anyone celebrating platforms silencing someone over political speech, you will have no ground to stand on when invariably someone goes after your political speech.

To me, labeling something as “hate speech” is just a poor attempt at trying to stifle free speech. Granted these are private companies not the government, but their oligopoly on media distribution makes them picking and choosing who they’ll silence worrisome.

Can you provide evidence that Jones has, in fact, been silenced?
[doublepost=1533815160][/doublepost]

Yep that was Candace Owens a black conservative who posted that. Absolutely disgusting.
[doublepost=1533814600][/doublepost]
Never said it was.

Your criticism of the MSM in your reply to a post about Alex Jones tells us far more about how you feel about the media than it tells us how you feel about Jones.

Care to speak about Jones?
[doublepost=1533815457][/doublepost]

And people are protesting about China's censorship and all. LOL.
I have never even heard about infowars before, nor care about their contents, but this brouhaha can potentially create a streisand effect.

You should educate yourself on Jones.

Then you'll know.
[doublepost=1533815596][/doublepost]

Not to mention the tech giants are all bending over backwards to appease China, going so far as to develop censorship technology that will be used by the dictatorship to censor criticism of the government.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if China starts putting pressure on Facebook, Google, Apple to start censoring critiques of China within the United States (or globally).

Documentation for your claim?

 

[webbuzz]

This isn't a different "opinion:" he knows the things he says are false (he has admitted it under oath in court) and he does it to elicit a particular response. Saying that a factual event did not occur isn't an "opinion;" it's either a lie or a clinical delusion. He says that the Sandy Hook shooting was faked, and encouraged his insane fans to harass and embarrass parents whose children were murdered. These people literally go up to the parents and demand proof that their adolescent son or daughter was murdered. They call them liars. They go to their homes and follow them around.

Alex Jones is a money-grubbing, despicable fraud and is among the worst human beings on the planet. He traffics in conspiracy theories to sell vitamins to men with fragile egos and small penises. At least one of his loony stories resulted in a man shooting up a pizza parlor. The First Amendment has always had limits; this is obviously one of them. His speech is not protected. Please spare us all the feigned outrage.
[doublepost=1533775440][/doublepost]

I almost don't even want to say it because its so cliché, but by your ridiculous standard yelling fire in a crowded theater should be protected because "he didn't tell people to panic and trample each other!"

That’s good, because the cliché is wrong. No, I don’t like Alex Jones.

Some reading for you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...g-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/...hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/

http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com...-shout-"fire"-in-a-crowded-theater-19421.html

 

[826317]

Can you provide evidence that Jones has, in fact, been silenced?
[doublepost=1533815160][/doublepost]


Your criticism of the MSM in your reply to a post about Alex Jones tells us far more about how you feel about the media than it tells us how you feel about Jones.

Care to speak about Jones?
[doublepost=1533815457][/doublepost]


You should educate yourself on Jones.

Then you'll know.
[doublepost=1533815596][/doublepost]


Documentation for your claim?

So because I have a problem with MSM it somehow means that it is blue/red state issue? I've already spoken about him in many of my other comments. I cannot be bothered to do it again.

 

[Irishman]

You're right that the First Amendment doesn't apply here, but you're wrong about why. It doesn't apply because Apple is free to decide what content to carry (forcing Apple to carry InfoWars' podcasts would be a First Amendment violation), not because Alex Jones is loony. As loony as he is, Alex Jones still has a right to record and distribute his podcast (though Apple has no obligation to help him do so). The U.S. government cannot censor him; Apple can.

All that said, I know that Jones came up with some crackpot story that Sandy Hook didn't really happen, and that some of his more loony fans harassed parents of survivors. But did he actually incite them to do so, or was this just crazy people acting out on their own? What precisely did he do to incite them?

Watch his videos and learn. Nothing we say here is going to change your mind.
[doublepost=1533816683][/doublepost]

If you’re going to go there, then what do you think of Maxine Waters comments? There are things I disagree with all the time in across the world and I choose to ignore it and focus my time with things appeal to my values. To be honest I never even heard of this until yesterday, I’m just a big Apple fan and hate to see them getting into political issues like this. I just want new tech that makes my life easier.

As I have been saying to everyone who has had no experience with Jones's bile, there is no red state/blue state equivalency to him, so comments about what Republicans and Democrats have said about each other are not the same thing.

Watch him and learn.

 

[Jsameds]

There are no comparable left-leaning groups with a media presence anything like that of InfoWars.

He says, completely skipping over the whole point of my comment.

 

[Irishman]

I like some of the stories Jones’s covers but I don’t regularly read his website or listen to his shows. I realize he is provocative and makes news, just like every other news outlet. However I did make sure to download his app yesterday. I dislike him being censored far more than I dislike his lunacy.



I think that is horrible, just like I think it is horrible what the recent hire of the New York Times tweeted.

Which specific shows/episodes do you like and why?

 

[Ishayu]

There are no comparable left-leaning groups with a media presence anything like that of InfoWars.

The Young Turks. Just as conspiratorial and crazy, unfortunately far more popular, and just as full of incitement to violence. In fact the name itself is a reference to a group that committed the Armenian Genocide. Cenk also likes to go on quite hilarious rants where he sounds like a crazy person as well. If you can't see it right away, then check out the parodies by Steven Crowder. Then you can see it for sure.

The two hate each other as well, which is really amusing.

It's basically the same thing - a YouTube channel with a panel that talks about their perspective on everything, and not a lick of legitimate news in sight.

The only real difference is that YouTube's leadership falls to the left, and therefore they approve of The Young Turks, but disapprove of Infowars, and the result of this concentrated control combined with political bias in Silicon Valley is what you see before you in this story.

 

[Irishman]

I am often perceived as such although I don't intend to be. I like being direct and sometimes I'll throw in one of those types of responses because they just seem appropriate.

I could sit there for an hour dissecting the technicalities of what I said and what you responded with etc. but that would be wasted time. Instead retaining my focus on the core issues at hand. Those issues were that 1. both are sources of new information and 2. the credibility and integrity of both sources of information are questionable. You can easily make the case that Alex Jones is admittedly a less likely source of truthful information in comparison to CNN, but it really is irrelevant. CNN don't even need to lie in order to make you, the viewer feel a certain way about an issue, they produce the stories in such a way that will get their narrative through to you. Whether it's through the exclusion of facts, the inclusion of misleading facts or simply the inclusion of lies. They also love the occasional misleading imagery to sway their viewers.

It's all the same at the end of the day: You'll get indoctrinated watching both shows.
[doublepost=1533782505][/doublepost]
Yeah sorry. Just because you disagree with someone does not make them a troll.
[doublepost=1533782597][/doublepost]
Well evidently not. Alex Jones couldn't give 2 shizzles about whether you believe his lies or not. CNN on the other hand do.

This post is full of sooooo much false equivalency that the head hurts.
[doublepost=1533817774][/doublepost]

‘Real news’ websites work opinion into their stories. They also choose what to report and what to ignore as a result of their bias. Most news is just repeating what someone else said. I don’t think that much of ‘real news’. I’d pick Jones over many others just because he is actually sometimes entertaining. I mean Dan Rather and Brian Williams were super boring when they were doing their ‘real news’ lying.

Sure Jones is acting, just like all the newscaster who use the same newscasting voice and style we all recognize.

So because I have a problem with MSM it somehow means that it is blue/red state issue? I've already spoken about him in many of my other comments. I cannot be bothered to do it again.

Nope, it's because you have a problem with the MSM that you see Jones as a red state/blue state issue.

 

[826317]

This post is full of sooooo much false equivalency that the head hurts.

You guys sure love bringing out the logical fallacies when it suits you ey? Anyways, give me just one example of where I used a false equivalence* ?
[doublepost=1533817836][/doublepost]

Nope, it's because you have a problem with the MSM that you see Jones as a red state/blue state issue.

How does that even logically follow suit?

 

[RichardMZhlubb]

The Young Turks. Just as conspiratorial and crazy, unfortunately far more popular, and just as full of incitement to violence. In fact the name itself is a reference to a group that committed the Armenian Genocide. Cenk also likes to go on quite hilarious rants where he sounds like a crazy person as well. If you can't see it right away, then check out the parodies by Steven Crowder. Then you can see it for sure.

The two hate each other as well, which is really amusing.

It's basically the same thing - a YouTube channel with a panel that talks about their perspective on everything, and not a lick of legitimate news in sight.

The only real difference is that YouTube's leadership falls to the left, and therefore they approve of The Young Turks, but disapprove of Infowars, and the result of this concentrated control combined with political bias in Silicon Valley is what you see before you in this story.

I don’t agree with a lot of what the Young Turks say, but equating then to Alex Jones is absurd. Get back to me when they do anything as vile as Jones’ treatment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims.

 

[Ishayu]

Documentation for your claim?

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45041671
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/08/google-censorship-china-blacklist/
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/3/17647716/google-return-to-china-censorship
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/02/google-working-on-censored-search-engine-for-china

I had one from TIME as well but I got redirected to their GDPR page and I could not find myself agreeing to their terms. Oh well.

Google is actually being manipulated and censored in the west as well. We could argue all day about whether those reasons are legitimate or not, but I'm not going to engage in that debate. Instead I'm simply going to state the fact that they are doing it.

Try searching YouTube for Tommy Robinson. You'd think he would show up first with his personal 230k subscriber channel - but no. The results have been manipulated.

Instead, biased hitpieces from the mainstream media with less than 50k views and a 5-20% like-to-dislike ratio take up the entire front spot before he shows up. If those metrics showed up on any other channel, they'd be on page 45 or something. The only one of those videos is the one from Fox News, which is not a hitpiece, and therefore rose over the others. In other words, the YouTube search is manipulated to show mainstream media before alternative media.

Then there's of course the censorship mandated by law, such as child porn filters and the "fake news" filters mandated by the EU, and the nazism censorship mandated in Germany, and many others like that.

Again, I'm not going to go into the merit of these censorships, but any attempt to deny that Google isn't censored and otherwise tampered with - to claim that it is just running off its PageRank algorithm as it was originally designed to do - is categorically false.

 

[Number-Six]

The Young Turks. Just as conspiratorial and crazy, unfortunately far more popular, and just as full of incitement to violence. In fact the name itself is a reference to a group that committed the Armenian Genocide. Cenk also likes to go on quite hilarious rants where he sounds like a crazy person as well. If you can't see it right away, then check out the parodies by Steven Crowder. Then you can see it for sure.

The two hate each other as well, which is really amusing.

It's basically the same thing - a YouTube channel with a panel that talks about their perspective on everything, and not a lick of legitimate news in sight.

The only real difference is that YouTube's leadership falls to the left, and therefore they approve of The Young Turks, but disapprove of Infowars, and the result of this concentrated control combined with political bias in Silicon Valley is what you see before you in this story.

I would have no problem with Apple, Google or whoever else blocking The Young Turks if they felt their content was inapropriate. I wouldn't even have a problem with the big tech companies blocking any of the news apps if they felt it violated their rules.

In this day and age, anyone can start their own websites and host their own contents. If your content is so objectionable that no one else wants to host/share it, that's really just your problem. But you still have your own soapbox to do with as you please.

 

[Jsameds]

I don’t agree with a lot of what the Young Turks say, but equating then to Alex Jones is absurd. Get back to me when they do anything as vile as Jones’ treatment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims.

He wasn't banned for his views on Sandy Hook.

 

[Ishayu]

I don’t agree with a lot of what the Young Turks say, but equating then to Alex Jones is absurd. Get back to me when they do anything as vile as Jones’ treatment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims.

Denying the Armenian Genocide would be a pretty good example. 1.5 million deaths - denies it ever happened. The only difference is there's nobody in the Armenian Genocide to sue them cause it happened so long ago.

 

[mudslag]

A poll on a hypothetical nobody has actually suggested. Great link. /s



Lol

Well duh it's a hypothetical, that doesn't mean the sentiment to the question isn't still valid to ask.

 

[Ishayu]

I would have no problem with Apple, Google or whoever else blocking The Young Turks if they felt their content was inapropriate. I wouldn't even have a problem with the big tech companies blocking any of the news apps if they felt it violated their rules.

In this day and age, anyone can start their own websites and host their own contents. If your content is so objectionable that no one else wants to host/share it, that's really just your problem. But you still have your own soapbox to do with as you please.

This feels like a valid argument until you find out that people are now going after DNS providers and payment processors as well.

Is it illegal to engage in a grand conspiracy to completely deplatform someone because you and your cabal find their content objectionable? Not really. Is it a case for an antitrust case if you've got so much influence and power that you can completely silence them by doing so? Definitely.

It's not the act itself that's illegal here - it's the sheer danger to democracy created by the size and scope of this conspiracy. Yes, I am using the word conspiracy correctly - this was very much a secret, coordinated effort to take him out, and the danger here is they can do it to anybody. The sheer size of it makes it a direct threat freedom of speech.

And yes, the irony of the fact that Alex Jones has been taken out by a real conspiracy is not lost on me - and unfortunately it's not going to be lost on his viewers either, which is precisely why this action is so incredibly dangerous and stupid.

 

[mudslag]

I love this, AJ is a nut but that is besides the point. The Liberal Gestapo is getting the lights on them.

No guns because they kill, but killing innocent children in the womb is good. No terrorism, but Soros sponsored antifa-terrorism is good. Freedom of speech, but only for the liberals. Promote LBGT all over society, now including pedophilia.

People are waking up, we see you "liberals", for what you are. You are self worshiping brainless proselytes of the globalist agenda for enslaving humanity.

LOL holy loony post Batman. This seems like something you'ed find on infowars.

 

[AsherN]

I don’t understand how the content of the app doesn’t violate the App store’s policy. I guess any Joe Schmoe out there can create an app that live streams hate speech and it’s ok?!?!?

It's a legalistic answer. The podcast actually contains the hate speech and violates the ToS. The App, while used to disseminate such speech, by itself meets the criteria set by Apple for an App. Until Apple amends the ToS for accepting an App to include "can't broadcast hete speech", the App is fine.

 

[Kabeyun]

Do you remember the PewDiePie scandal that the WSJ caused? or the new hire at the NY Times that's a blatant racist? Can't wait to see what kind of objective articles she's going to produce! hahahahaha

Caused? PewDiePie had nothing to do with it? Maybe we should feel sorry for poor PewDiePie whose intentions were misunderstood by those meanies at the WSJ who reported on his paying someone to hold up a Die Jews sign and other stuff. Either he’s an antiSemite racist, in which case he should face the consequences, or he’s playing in that space just to elicit likes and clicks and views, in which case he should... face the consequences; if he can’t stand the heat he should stay out of the kitchen. Same with Jones and Yiannopolis and, and, and. You can’t portray an authentic alt-right d-bag and then act all wounded and indignant and claim it’s just a “character” (the common transparently b.s. defense) when you piss off everyone.

As to Sarah Jeong, yeh her provocative retrotrolling was over the top (and four years before she was hired by the Times). Have you looked into why she tweeted those things? I doubt it. Not that two wrongs make a right, and I don’t defend it. But it didn’t come out of nowhere, and you won’t be able to find any racist writings of hers at the Times or anywhere else besides those reactive tweets. Nor should we toss the Times or call it the same as The Daily Stormer because you may have found one old milkshake duck.

If you’re not aligned with 4chan and QAnon etc, you’re doing a good job of emulating trying to “redpill normies.”

 

[Mansu944]

Obviously that's factually wrong, as a liberal I don't want censorship and to claim all other liberals want it too just makes you look ignorant. Also pointing out that link does not equate mocking.

You are right. A true liberal wouldn’t want censorship. I should have used the term progressive. But the larger point is that too many people want to block opposing views instead of battling ideas.

 

[826317]

Caused? PewDiePie has nothing to do with it? Maybe we should feel sorry for poor PewDiePie whose intentions were misunderstood by those meanies at the WSJ who reported on his paying someone to hold up a Die Jews sign and other stuff. Either he’s an antiSemite racist, in which case he should face the consequences, or he’s playing in that space just to elicit likes and clicks and views, in which case he should... face the consequences; if he can’t stand the heat he should stay out of the kitchen. Same with Jones and Yiannopolis and, and, and. You can’t portray an authentic alt-right d-bag and then act all wounded and indignant and claim it’s just a “character” (the common transparently b.s. defense) when you piss off everyone.

As to Sarah Jeong, yeh her provocative retrotrolling was over the top (and four years before she was hired by the Times). Have you looked into why she tweeted those things? I doubt it. Not that two wrongs make a right, and I don’t defend it. But it didn’t come out of nowhere, and you won’t be able to find any racist writings of hers at the Times or anywhere else besides those reactive tweets. Nor should we toss the Times or call it the same as The Daily Stormer because you may have found one old milkshake duck.

If you’re not aligned with 4chan and QAnon etc, you’re doing a good job of emulating trying to redpill normies.

Or.....you know......maaaaaaaaaaybe it was just a joke? You know, the type of thing that makes people with a sense of humour laugh? Or are you the type of person to drop their jaw in disgust when someone makes an off-colour joke, to let everyone in the room know how virtuous you are? "Look at me friends! I am disgusted that you would make such a joke about Jews, I am not anti-Semitic, so I condemn these jokes!" is what you sound like.

The WSJ didn't simply report on it as you seem to think. They wrote a hit piece. Not only that, they actively chose to contact PewDiePie's sponsors/advertisers to shove them into a corner forcing them to sever ties with the man. I mean, how long can one go to sabotage a man's source of income for a joke that they did not like?

Oh yeah, fun fact, the author of that particular WSJ article was actually caught posting his own anti-simetic and racist jokes on his own personal twitter account! LOL!

 

[AsherN]

Or.....you know......maaaaaaaaaaybe it was just a joke? You know, the type of thing that makes people with a sense of humour laugh?

Somethings are not, and will never be funny. Holding up a sign that says "die Jews" is one of those things. My wife and I lost out entire families in the Shoah. Gathering the ENTIRE family for a meal involves less than 20 people. That sign wasn't funny, it was downright chilling.

 

[jimothyGator]

Watch his videos and learn. Nothing we say here is going to change your mind.

Evidence absolutely would change my mind. I'm not terribly familiar with Alex Jones, and frankly he's not particularly interesting to me. But with "hate speech!" cried like "wolf!", I'm skeptical of these claims. You may be right, and if so, it would be easy to convince me. Provided, that is, that he actually did incite violence or other negative behavior.

 

[Irishman]

Evidence absolutely would change my mind. I'm not terribly familiar with Alex Jones, and frankly he's not particularly interesting to me. But with "hate speech!" cried like "wolf!", I'm skeptical of these claims. You may be right, and if so, it would be easy to convince me. Provided, that is, that he actually did incite violence or other negative behavior.

Here is some video evidence.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...itunes-directory.2131173/page-5#post-26322818

 

[widgeteer]

If they want to ban AJ then they should also ban Antifa.
If they want to ban Fox then they should also ban CNN.
If they want to ban racism against blacks, then they should also ban racism against whites.

What...are you banning Antifa from? Do they have podcasts?
Who wants to ban Fox?

The stretches people are making to wrap Alex Jones in some giant patriotic blanket is one of the dumbest "movements" I've seen in a long time, and I'm currently living under a Donald Trump presidency. He's a racist lunatic that admitted he's playing a character, and has created real world danger for people just so he can hawk vitamin supplements. He's welcome to post this schtick wherever someone will take him, but it's not any company's responsibility to ensure he's part of their network.

You folks don't believe in free speech. What you believe in is entitlement of consequence-free speech.