Alex Jones says ludicrously false things, and he knows they are false. In a legal dispute, his lawyer suggested that he should be treated as a performance artist, playing a character. Translation: he's a filthy liar. He knows that what he says is bullshit, and he says it anyway because there are idiots who listen and believe him. And buy things. I hate liars. I don't want to say that lies "trigger" me, but they kind of do. Among the things that just set me off, lies are way up there. Craven liars just... I hate liars.
On the other hand, I'm about as close to a free speech absolutist as you are ever going to find, to the point that I get upset at private attempts to shut down speech. To be clear, the manner in which I have applied that has been the use of John Rawls. If, for example, a private employer (say, Google, as I wrote here) punishes an employee for right-leaning speech, are you OK with that? Would you be OK with an employer punishing an employee for left-leaning speech? The Constitution doesn't prohibit it, but lefties probably wouldn't be OK with it. A veil-of-ignorance-based argument requires setting a rule that applies equally to both types of speech. My rule is: let people speak. Yay for John Rawls. A Theory of Justice. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
Lies have always been the biggest problem for free speech advocates. They put two vital principles up against each other. In the law, there are very few places in which restrictions or sanctions can be made for lies. False advertising is an example, but the First Amendment places a high burden on any law that impedes speech, including false speech because in order to sanction any false speech, the legal system has to make a determination of truth.
And the court system is hardly infallible.
What just happened to Alex Jones, though, wasn't a lawsuit, or anything like that. Major internet platforms just stopped carrying his lies. So, for a hardcore free speech advocate, what does this mean? If Alex Jones had a job as a... frankly, I wouldn't care what, and he were fired for what he says on his wacky, hour-'o-lies, I would object. He is a despicable liar. Free speech, though. Free speech wins.
That's not what happened, though. Youtube, Apple and FaceBook stopped giving him a microphone. I, myself, have made the case that journalists should stop giving microphones to liars, like Trump and anyone in his administration. No more interviews for those people because every word out of their lying mouths will be lies. Don't pretend otherwise, and journalists have a responsibility to ensure that the information that they convey is accurate. They are the... intermediaries. "Media." Etymology. Think about words and their meanings. I like words.
The act of cutting off Alex Jones, for Youtube, Apple and FaceBook, looks very similar to a journalist not interviewing Kellyanne Conway and not covering Sarah Huckabee Sanders, if any journalist were ever to make those correct calls. I can dream, right? (Yes, Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders are exactly as dishonest as Alex Jones, and let's not pretend otherwise.) Jones is not prohibited from speaking, and he can hock his wares on a website of his own creation. That's easy to do.
The question for hardcore free speech people like me is whether Apple, Youtube and FaceBook have the responsibilities, and hence moral authority, that a journalist has. I gotta admit, as much as I detest Alex Jones, I am not exactly thrilled about taking his stuff down. I don't like silencing speech, and this reeks of silencing speech. There are processes by which journalists make decisions about the truthfulness of statements and individuals, and how confident are you about a company's willingness to behave in an ethical manner when deciding which material to leave up and which to take down?
Newspapers and television news aren't engaging in censorship in the legal sense when they choose not to interview or cover someone who is a craven liar and batshit crazy conspiracy-peddler. They are engaging in responsible editorial discretion, as they should. If the government shut down what they said, it would be unconstitutional censorship. When platforms stop carrying them, we are in a weird middle ground. They are engaging in a form of editorial discretion, but there is a silencing element to what they are doing, and are these the people you want acting as editors? Is Mark Zuckerberg the person you want acting as Editor in Chief of your news, actively intervening now? Tim Cook?
That's really the question here. Who should be Editor in Chief?
Alex Jones is a liar, and I hate liars, but yeah, this makes me uncomfortable. Think about the process here.