Facebook Bans Paul Joseph Watson, Pledges to Ban Anyone Who Links to Infowars w/o Condemning Them

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
May. 03, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg banned Paul Joseph Watson and many others who helped President Trump win the 2016 election from both Facebook and Instagram on Thursday.


From the AP:
After years of pressure to crack down on hate and bigotry, Facebook has banned Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and other extremists, saying they violated its ban on "dangerous individuals."

The company also removed right-wing personalities Paul Nehlen, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer, along with Jones' site, Infowars, which often posts conspiracy theories. The latest bans apply to both Facebook's main service and to Instagram and extend to fan pages and other related accounts.
Every last one of those people helped Trump win in 2016, including Louis Farrakhan.





The most disturbing and Orwellian part of the ban is they said they'll ban anyone who shares Infowars content unless they're "explicitly condemning" it (make sure to write you're "explicitly condemning" their content when you share in the future and encourage other people to share it far and wide to "condemn" it as well!):


From The Atlantic (as highlighted by Breitbart):
Infowars is subject to the strictest ban. Facebook and Instagram will remove any content containing Infowars videos, radio segments, or articles (unless the post is explicitly condemning the content), and Facebook will also remove any groups set up to share Infowars content and events promoting any of the banned extremist figures, according to a company spokesperson. (Twitter, YouTube, and Apple have also banned Jones and Infowars.)
Rep Thomas Massie was the only politician I saw criticize the banning:


President Trump was silent, choosing instead to tweet about his approval rating, the Holocaust and the Mueller report.

Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale similarly said nothing, though he did retweet Katrina Pierson sharing two old interviews he did talking about tech censorship.



Incidentally, today is "World Press Freedom Day" and most of the media is busy cheering these media figures being banned.


Paul Joseph Watson made a video slamming the move:


Many people have correctly said this is just the beginning:




Carpe Donktum, who makes meme videos Trump loves to reupload on his own page, begged Trump to get off his ass and do something about it:


Everyone needs to tell Trump and Parscale they will not be voting for him if he won't even lift a finger to secure our free speech rights online.

Demanding everyone have their free speech rights upheld in the digital public square needs to be the number one issue going forward.

UPDATE: On Friday morning, Trump retweeted a screenshot of a Breitbart report on the banning which was shared by Maria Bartiromo.


That's a little something but it's meaningless if he doesn't actually take any concrete action.

UPDATE II:


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