The proper response to Alex Jones is (and has been), take his ass to court. Doxing people, slander, libel, inciting direct violence. All that shit is illegal (although the last is a very high legal bar to clear). The response should NOT be — the gov’t coerces big tech to pull Alex Jones from their sites with no due process. That IS illegal — actually unconstitutional — and the Supreme Court already ruled on it decades ago (h/t Glenn Greenwald).

The government supporting certain huge players in industry to the detriment of freedom and democracy is one of the hallmarks of fascism. Whether you like it or not, the US has been going down that path for a while, and very strongly since the 1990s when the Ds joined the Rs in taking huge amounts of money from corporations. This has resulted in one party rule with two heads that pretend to fight each other on social issues while agreeing on more war, more corruption, fewer rights and more exploitation.

In 2022 it is not possible to do business without an internet presence (or in 2018 when I wrote the original post). Similar to in the 70s you couldn’t do business without a phone. The phone company was a monopoly, but they could not cut off your service because they didn’t like what you were saying to your customers. Similarly it is illegal (IMO) to have terms of service that basically block you from the public square of speech by banning you from an internet platform.

Alex Jones is a pretty odious character. Worse than the shit he said about Sandy Hook IMO are the “supplements” he sells which are at best fraud and at worst dangerous for people to take. But this isn’t about Alex Jones. Jones was the first of 10,000s of people and groups that have since been deplatformed. He was an easy precedent because of his shitty message.

This won’t end well.