Alex Jones/Infowars sues Paypal, claiming bias against conservative views - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45719245

"Discrimination" Nah bro its because you're a fucking buffoon thats fanning the retard flames of this country and you don't deserve to have a soapbox to screech on. Find a grave and fall in it.

Nobody wants your fake fucking supplements frogman

Can we just fire this snake out of a cannon into the sun? World would be better off.

If there ever was a definitive palpatine-esque figure in the 21st century Alex Jones would lock down first place. This is a man who has gone so far to be such a corrupting influence to the majority of the people in the western world spouting bullshit he definitely doesn't believe himself. In truth a man such as him should be jailed; his actions and speech alone go far beyond free speech into trying to incite riots and directing his mob to target innocent people over fraudulent claims that hold no basis. I can definitely understand the idea of conspiracy theories. Man has a tendency to cooperate with others like him - namely economic in mind - to try to gain an upperhand; we're all opportunists at heart no matter where we are in life. But the far-gone bullshittery that he along with his website spout has nevertheless tainted the image of what a lot of people see. Worse yet is that such malignant influences tend to be either a smokescreen or misdirection. The people who follow Alex Jones clap their hands and praise him, all the while shouting how they're 'Gonna save America' while the corrupt senators, CEO's, and the like in Washington further marginalize the common man. Disgusting.

How about we don't support the idea that every payment processor, website, and everything should just be allowed to collectively decide to delete you from being able to exist on the internet. I don't get it. In the past everyone was content to sit and laugh at the complete moron. Now we have a lot of frankly stupid people demanding his blood at the cost of things that actually matter. Who gives a fuck about alex jones, don't be so shortsighted, what matters is that companies are testing out exercising their power on a public figure to normalize the abuse of that power. You shouldnt be able to just get collectively deleted by popular opinion or corporate opinion. Popular opinion is often wrong and can be shaped, and hey it wasn't that long ago when popular opinion said black people were lesser humans, what happens when we get the next shitty popular opinions, corporations deleting entire groups of protestors for doing something like occupy wall street? "Oops, you attended a protest we disagree with, we're deleting your bank account" Hopefully he wins for the sake of everyone else.

As much as I somewhat-agree with you, this is how social interaction works. You can't change human nature. The poor hunters without good bartering ability get isolated from the rest of the tribe until they starve. It's the call of the wild.

Alex Jones incites violence against others; he's not just some Glen Beck kind of nutjob you can laugh at because he's ridiculous; in between the ridiculousness there's an incredibly amount of hate which materializes in the actions of his lunatic fans who harass and threaten people whose children were slaughtered because it doesn't fit their pro-gun narrative. Alex Jones is a legitimately dangerous person, and if PayPal doesn't want to facilitate those actions, then PayPal is entirely justified in severing ties with him

We have legal mechanisms for actual threats and inciting of violence dude, maybe paypal and other corporations shouldnt be the judge and jury here?

Let's keep in mind: Alex Jones is a scam artist who supports terrorism. He sells numerous supplements and fake medicines, encouraging his cultists to use them instead of evidence based medicine and science based nutrition, this results in people suffering from or even dying of preventable or treatable disease and malnutrition (he's particularly fond of bone broth products known to cause digestive upset and tears in the stomach and intestinal walls). He ordered a man to shoot up a pizza joint and the only reason nobody was killed there is because the shooter was about as competent as the average mall ninja.

Considering money is now considered speech since CU, and the First Amendment doesn't stop private companies from removing certain speech, how does this work legally?

PayPal's terms of use have a "prohibited use" section which state you cannot use PayPal services for activities that: Violate any law, regulation, or ordinance the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime support pyramid or ponzi schemes, matrix programs, other "get rich quick" schemes or certain multi-level marketing programs involve the sales of products or services identified by government agencies to have a high likelihood of being fraudulent Among numerous other things, these are just the ones that Alex does.

PayPal has no legal or ethical obligation to serve someone who they personally disagree with, no more than a home depot has to sell wood to someone who is looking to build a cross to burn

So while I don't disagree and I don't think Alex Jones being removed from a number of platforms is a bad thing, I fear for the potential that someone with legitimate points could be banned from many companies collectively. Denying social media is inherently different than denying someone wood from Home Depot; social media is by and large becoming / has become synonymous with the public sphere for many and it is very monopolized - you can get wood from your backyard or another store, but you cannot reach that many people without social media. It's just a tad frightening to think large corporations have such control over the majority method of communication and what rules they choose to enforce upon people are vaguely following a combination of law and public opinion, which I feel makes for an unstable foundation. TL;DR It's completely within the rights of social media companies to deny access, but I don't know if that's how it necessarily should be. Nor am I aware of a "better" solution to issues like this.

I'd Erik Prince and/or Robert Mercer are the real players.

while I get your point, Jones has been through legal processes that outed him as insane. he lost custody of his kids, his lawyers basically confirmed that he riles up hate for money and that its an act, and he currently is being sued by sandy hook for that whole "fake kids" fiasco. I think paypal has the legal reasoning to dump jones here

Can we stop acting like the only thing people could have against Alex Jones are his opinions? He's a scam artist at best and outright insights violence at worst. He was banned from Twitter for quite reasonably being determined to have violated terms of service, but unlike the swathes of other people who have had the same happen to them, he gets a pass because he is right wing and fringe and so, in the interest of not appearing bias, they are bias in the other direction. I very much doubt Alex Jones will win this because I very much doubt Paypal are banning him for saying something they disagree with but rather for violating ToS, which apply to everyone.

Democracy gives you a right to free speech. It doesn't give you right to a free stage, a free loudspeaker, a free audience, and most importantly, a get out of jail free card.

Nah, I'll choose not to root for the raging scam-artist that has incited violence against innocent people and contributed to the widespread movement of self-proclaimed 'experts' and conspiracy theorists. But you keep on going on that soapbox of yours.

I like that Alex and his buddies uses the word "conspiracy" and "discrimination" like it's the magic word that makes you right fuck off

I disagree on principle. I think the internet should be treated, legally, in a more libertarian fashion. Facebook has the right to ban Alex Jones just as much as Facepunch does. I don't think Facebook should be treated differently just because they're big. Yes, the IDEA of facebook pushing even political moderates it disagrees with off of its platform is unsettling, but on principle I don't think you should be able to coerce them to allow whatever speech they dislike no more than you could be coerced into allowing it on your personal blog.