On Aug. 6, the New York Times reported that major tech companies took action against conspiracy theory radio show Infowars and its host Alex Jones, removing him from most prominent social media platforms. Companies like Google and Facebook cited Jones’ history of harassment and threatening behavior, particularly his targeting of the parents of children murdered in the Sandy Hook shooting. Opponents of this move claim that this sets a dangerous precedent for free speech on the internet, while advocates  hold that giving Jones a platform is a moral failure. Do you think that Jones should have been permitted to retain his social media presence, or were these companies right to remove him? 

R Matthews ‘19 

If Mark Zuckerberg decided today that he didn’t want you on Facebook anymore, he has the power to take you off. Whether that’s wrong or not doesn’t really matter because you made a conscious decision to agree to Facebook’s Terms and Conditions (that you probably didn’t read fully). The question I’d argue that we need to ask is who controls what gets posted and promoted on social media. Spoiler alert, it’s certainly not the user. There are algorithms that figure out what exactly is shown on our newsfeeds and when. So, should it be our decision to decide whether we want to see Alex Jones on our social media feeds? Well, in my opinion, yeah. But is that the case now? No. But behind every social media platform is as person with a motive and their own morals and beliefs. And that bias affects how the platform works and runs.

R Matthews ‘19 is a Brandeis Posse Scholar majoring in Computer Science and Afro-African American Studies. 

Alex Friedman ‘19 

Alex Jones violated the Terms of Service agreements he signed and the websites penalized him. What is broadly worrying here is that the forums in which much of our public speech currently happens are private. It is as if the proverbial town square were owned by Facebook. Free speech laws don’t apply here because the law hasn’t yet woken up to that reality. Someone could tell me to open a new website where I can say whatever I want, but making such a space, where the polity could see ideas they wouldn’t otherwise, is untenable and still requires that I be steadfast in not regulating it. Alex Jones’ situation makes us uncomfortable because it wakes us up to the reality that, on one extreme side, disgusting and violent people like him have a platform and, on another, we leave what can be loudly said up to corporations or governments.

Alex Friedman ’19 is a double major in Politics and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, with a minor in Business.

Roland Blanding ‘21

I think that corporations are not responsible for upholding freedom of speech in this country, or anywhere else in the world. They are only driven by profit incentives. Social media is not the only way for Mr. Jones to express himself, and whether it was morally right or wrong for these companies to remove him is irrelevant. If anything removing his accounts only gives him more notoriety, as I would not have known his name had this not happened. 

Valerie Janovic ’19 

While I believe the right to free speech, especially with regard to controversial statements, should be defended at all costs, the right does not apply to social media platforms like Facebook. As a private company, Facebook has the right to eliminate any material from its platform for any reason it deems fit. Therefore, Facebook had every right to silence dangerous hate-speech from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. However, the ability to selectively censor an information zone viewed by over 1 billion people sounds like the terrifying plot of a futuristic dystopian novel. 

If Facebook and Google were countries they would have the third and fourth largest populations, exceeded only by China and India. Social media companies have incredible unregulated power over which information is seen, and which voices are heard. Google can manipulate searches through prompting phrases in the search bar and programming biases into the order of results. In fact, Google currently manipulates your searches through the methods aforementioned. I do not believe that removing Alex Jones from his social media platforms constitutes a violation of free speech, but now that this censoring power has been unleashed, it cannot remain unchecked.

Valerie Janovic ’19 is double majoring in psychology and music. 

Michael Litke '19

The only types of speech I think should in any way ever be censored are libel, threats of violence and direct calls to violence, speech that is directly harmful in the vein of screaming fire in a crowded movie theater, and harassment. And all other speech, no matter how vile it is, should be protected; not just under the law but as a guiding principle for private organizations as well. I recognize that this is a fairly extreme position on the issue. Alex Jones has done most of these things by any reasonable measure. I certainly think the episodes/tweets/videos of his that engage in these types of speech should be taken down. My mainly comes from the fact that while I think that social media should essentially be regulated as a public utility, and thus that you should not be capable of being banned from it. Alex Jones is a repeat offender for the specific types of speech that I lined out, so his banning is not completely unjustified. However, as I said, I would ideally apply the principle of free speech,although not legally currently, to the admin of companies like Twitter and Facebook. And I also think that so much of our public discourse takes place on social media that it should be regulated as a public utility and thus actually be subject to free speech laws. So ultimately I think that Alex Jones should not have been banned, although I shed no tears for him. 

Michael Litke '19 is majoring in Physics.