Being Alex Jones surely has been more fun than it must have been for the notorious Infowars.com host in recent days.
Booted from Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and now even Pinterest the question is where next for the conspiracy theorist.
Being Steemians we take great pride in the freedom of speech embraced on the blockchain, a not censored immutable blockchain.
With platforms such as @dlive, @dtube, @dsound already built on top of the Steem blockchain, the question is now whether a platform like Steem is big enough already for such a “celebrity”.
The next question, obviously, being whether a celebrity who just lost a vast amount of his online hosted and on his site embedded videos in recent days, is willing to put his faith in how dtube handles video storage.
The Infowars Boot Avalanche
For many months users, and also mainstream media outlets (MSM), have debated whether social platforms lie Facebook and YouTube should host the content created by people like Alex Jones. Recently both giants have regularly banned people from their platform, often for what also seems to have been disapproval with content created by those users.
In recent days, Alex Jones first saw 4 Infowars Facebook pages taken down, after Apple had removed five out of six Infowars podcast. Little later YouTube kicked Alex Jones’ channel, leaving 2.4 million subscribers in the cold and also making many embeds on the infowars.com website dysfunctional.
Yet, as if that wasn’t sufficient, in a remarkable almost Silicon Valley mob effort, even Pinterest and Spotify booted Alex Jones.
Most platforms made the decision based on community standards violations, these usually revolving around hate speech, incitement of physical violence, and even child endangerment.
Until recently, much like was the case before most of those companies had fiduciaries duties, all platforms tolerated Jones and his Infowars under the banner of Free Speech. While many among us, especially those in the blockchain world, may have come to dislike most social media and even Silicon Valley behemoths, there is no denying that for a really long time the Zuckerbergs, Brins and Pages have defended our right to free speech and stood tall.
Yet, it seems the tide is turning and that not only for Free Speech but also towards China, which seems the next Garden of $$$ for many of those corporations.
Is Blockchain the Inevitable Solution for Alex Jones, Infowars and Free Speech
While I don’t doubt that there will be more “recent day tinfoil hats” who will proclaim that Steem isn’t free of censorship, for post I am not interested in challenging their knowledge of the term censorship.
My question is whether blockchain, a decentralized world hosted by tens, hundreds of witnesses, is the inevitable outcome for everybody who believes in free speech and their right to express themselves without needing to fear offending those in power.
More even, has the day come that the blockchain is the destination for those content creators and are platforms like Steem(it) known enough already to be considered by the teams of platforms like Infowars.com.
How About You, Are You Ready?
If a host, and celebrity, like Alex Jones and his Infowars were to join Steem, we may be looking ahead at some interesting days for the valuation of the token, as well as possible tests on the code of the blockchain.
At the same time, I think many a Steemian may worry about “that type” of celebrities joining the platform, complete with their following who often are very loyal.
Are you ready to welcome Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, and Breitbart and their fans on Steem? How does that thought make you feel?
Are you ready for the Steemosphere to be battle-tested in every of its pores? In code, in token valuation, in personal sentiment, and in accommodation of more people, people who may not necessarily stand for what you stand but will achieve an instant high degree of visibility.
I know I’m ready to see this platform be battle-tested and come out of it stronger. How do you feel about such possibility though?
Photo sources: Infowars.com, PRI.org, and The Odyssey Online.
It would be interesting if he came here. I don't know much about him but from what I have seen, he is a moneygrabber playing on people's limited capacity for objective thought but, that is me.
That aside, it would test the censorship and, based on his followers, the chance for an increase in trolling will definitely test the way people operate here. I would suggest that a lot of his followers on twitter have eggs for faces. I am unsure if it would be good for Steem or would make Steem seem like a place for toxicity but, these are the tests that are required.
If the alt-right followers on Twitter had downvote possibilities Twitter’s board would have shut shop.
Jones, like many other conspiracy theorists, know very well how to play the sentimental element of populism. That’s also why I threw Breitbart and Bannon in this post btw.
It’s a rabbit hole on those sites and it’s all too easy to get dragged in to their content because of how sentiments are played.
Yet, I would love to see how libertarianism and crypto-wallets would act in response on exchanges. Censorship and free speech defending vs what would normally be a drop in value.
To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:
Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.
I would hate HATE to have all of their hated filled rambles disamate Steamit ... but that freedom of speech applies to them them as well. It's not like I have to actually consume anything posted.
I couldn’t agree more.
I would welcome them for their right to express themselves. Freedom of speech and religion are two things I would die for, yet I’m atheist and I don’t like the views of that particular audience.
But they also have rights and those should be defended. I have no obligation to listen to them either tho.
Great post Batman...Glad I got your in depth perspective via Helpie...
good to meet you and I agree freedom of speech is important...almost as important as PBnJ....now make me a samich :)
Thanks for your kind words.
As for that PBJ... Alfred you should ask the Tin Man. Assuming he’s not drunk once again... Tin Man that is, not Alfred.
bag of rocks bro. haha
It would be interesting, no speech should be censored imo. It may bring several attacks to the blockchain, but the test could prove the robustness of this platform.
To be entirely honest following two things interest me most:
Whether Jones and IW come is rather irrelevant. If not him someone else will rather sooner than later. But the battle test interests me.
For the importance and defense of free speech.
I don't watch his stuff, but it might stir things up if he came to steemit. Steem Inc can censor what appears on the Steemit site and they have to react to take down notices, but the content would still be on the blockchain. Jones could create his own front end. Or he could just build his own site and platform.
I doubt the community is mature enough for that audience right now already or that Steem is big enough already to tempt such orgs who do rely on advertising revenue.
But I’m happy to know that @ned is against censorship (DMCA covers only rights holders).
The own interface is an interesting option as well. Especially because I’m pretty sure there would soon be a “counter interface” without flags shown and with “report post” option to manually hide content beyond tags filtering.
Inevitably, blockchain is the destination. When is the question, not if.
I doubt he would be blogging here, just maybe sharing short summaries of Infowars posts, with link to the main story. But would be fun to see him join this blockchain wagon.
DLive and dtube could be hosting his videos tho. Both being immutable as well (definitely dtube - not sure if DLive already makes use of ipfs).
I don't know. His videos are very long. Hope DTube wouldn't have buffering issues despite the fact it uses IPFS.
Yet another potential challenger entering the fray possibly... I feel like we are continuously being tested already, but you are right that their entry would take things to a whole other level. And whoever it was that was saying that the big guns that could really test things have yet to jump in. Interesting times....
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I don't think it's suppressing free speech. He was plenty of other outlets to publish his content and the businesses that banned them have the right to do so in the course of doing business and protecting their shareholder's interests. The ones he was banned from were the "premium" outlets though so of course he's upset about it. Oh well. Maybe he can learn from the experience, like Howard Stern did.
Do I think he will come to Steem? Well I've seen pariah people come to Steem thinking it's a haven and subsequently their content was buried in downvotes (Trevon James, for instance). So I don't think that will happen.
There will be a small group of people that will get behind the free speech regardless of content and try to rally, as you said, but they won't be able to offset the swarm of people that just can't get over that Alex Jones harrassed parents of dead children. Just my opinion!
PS - There is one Alex Jones interview I liked, and that was the Dave Mustaine video. It was probably the best interview of Mustaine actually.
That’s a very valid re-not suppression of speech and any company having the right to have and maintain their own terms.
Only thing weird here would be the avalanche effect which happened. That “stinks”.
The reality for him, and also the Guardian, is that at this point the revenue generated from AdWords and also YouTube video is something no other platform can offer.
I’m convinced his social media team knows about DPove and I’m just as convinced they did the math and it didn’t work out for them.
Most likely same reason why an otherwise always among the first adopters, the Guardian hasn’t even trialed Steem with its opinion writers yet. They don’t want to see $TU80 only for a post which reveives normally +1k comments on their site.
I sure do hope that he comes here. He would have the support and platform he so desires.
Me too.