This is great for Alex Jones, he gets global notoriety, free publicity and gets to be the martyr.
Given Alex Jones weakness for theatrics he is going to play up this 'conspiracy' against him to prove every other conspiracy theory he nurtures for the next 10 years.
The 'co-ordination' however is blatant and raises questions about whether they are trying to silence him or martyr him.
Is this really necessary, why is it co-ordinated and so heavy handed?
The only logical explanation for it being so brazen is they are doing this against him as cover to silence more 'problematic' figures which would raise more serious concerns about dissent and free speech. But that's a conspiracy theory.
Damn they really are doing a number on him. A conspiracy to silence Alex Jones and deplatform him completely.. I never really saw him as a serious guy to over the top screaming etc.. but this is pretty insane.
Plant a loud, incoherent, emotionally charged agent posing as a supporter for something you don't like in order to discredit their unwitting supporters.
Not asserting Alex Jones is doing this, rather that this type of tactic is not uncommonly used.
Love him or hate him, Alex Jones is basically a walking brand. They can ruin him financially, maybe even auction off his domain names. His brand will remain attached to his person.
Whether it is justly or unjustly done, it will only further cement his position as a martyr for his followers. Meanwhile the mainstream media isn't doing well in the credibility department either.
The schadenfreude in this thread seems a bit over-eager, perhaps even premature. The ruination of Alex Jones may remain a fantasy for some time to come. This certainly isn't the climax...
Don't get me wrong: Alex Jones is the snake-oil-selling, kayfabing carnival barker of the internet. My concern is what appears to be a coordinated take-down of his channels on the dominant social media/communications platforms with very few precise details explaining why. My biggest concern is that this crackdown on a crackpot will set off one of his high-functioning, mentally ill fans to pull a Timothy McVeigh type of vigilante response on one of the companies who have canned him in the last 24 hours. Is my concern unwarranted?
EDIT: I presume the down-votes on this comment are because I referred to some of Alex Jones' fans as mentally ill. I don't say this lightly: I know a handful of people who are legitimately mentally ill who think Alex Jones is the lone truth-teller in the media. You should be very scared of what these people might do if they think their hero is being martyred.
Alex Jones actually is a very serious performance artist who never breaks kayfabe, like that one old magician that Christian Bale's character in the Prestige respected for perpetually keeping up his act while in public. There is a lot of overlap with what Jones is doing and something like professional wrestling.
I don't much care for his style, but I think one day, maybe long after his death, people will give Jones the respect he deserves as an artist. A well-flowing rant is not an easy thing to improvise, and he is just a machine for generating them. To paraphrase a quote about jazz, you don't just wake up one morning, pick up a microphone and start raving about the new world order.
There is a real art to conspiracy theorizing. You can't just make things up. You have to take random true things and stitch them together into sort of framework that's wild and entertaining enough for your audience while still seeming plausible. You have to shade them in with sinister undertones. It's a sort of dark impressionism.
It's Alex Jones. He'll say no because then we'll be able to confirm he's a loon. Long before Piers Morgan and the Illuminati, Alex Jones was reporting on religion being a form of mind control, Christians as the NWO and ritual child sacrifices. I actually remember reading something on his site circa 2001, where he made claim that the 2nd amendment was created for advancement of a new world order...today? Opposite story.
None of the loons that follow him like to hear about how divergent he is from what they hold true today.
Godlike Productions is about as close to fact as Alex Jones. Just a bunch of nuts beaking off fear-based nonsense. None of these references are based on reporting. :(
There is a pretty good conspiracy that Alex Jones is actually Bill Hicks after the CIA gave him a make-over and use him as a controlled opposition source.
Unlike Colbert, there's some controversy surrounding the status of Alex Jones as a performance artist. In a recent custody hearing, his lawyer argued that he was indeed playing a character. But in a broadcast on his podcast, he was quoted as saying "“We’re the most bona fide, hardcore, real McCoy thing there is, and everybody knows it and we’re delivering the goods... I’m the opposite of some scripted person.”
I think there's overwhelming evidence to support Alex Jones as a true conspiracy theorist. Whether he truly holds all the ludicrous beliefs that he consistently espouses, that's harder to tell.
Treating Alex Jones as a serious media outlet is honestly the worst offense here. This guy has stated on multiple occasions in great detail that he believes that the Newtown shooting was faked and everyone was hired actors, that there is some great deep state conspiracy and other fear mongering shit about how the various politicians are the devil and will destroy the world.
This sounds like a job for Alex Jones! But, seriously though, we know about this because they published a research paper. It's not like this is leaked, classified information.
A lot of the conspiracy stuff is based on cult psychology intended to make a buck or simply get the demagogues rocks off with clapping followers. Alex Jones makes his money off being a sensationalist, and mixing truth in with all his subjective proclamations and fear mongering. It's the same tactics politicians and religious zealots use to enhance their "careers".The only difference is Mr Jones does it with a different constituency and outside formal politics to make his living. Someone like John Perkins I look at as to-the-point and about sharing his first-hand story, Alex Jones on the other hand is more about making everyone "feel" like the grand illuminati new world order lizard people are about inject their children with epoxy laced vaccines.
Does anyone know where Alex Jones gets his ideas? Part of me thinks his team just makes shit up, but sometimes he seems to be part of a coordinated effort.
I think the poster you are replying to is saying that shutting down people for spreading false conspiracies will be a net negative, because all of net harm from spreading false conspiracies is a tiny little drop against the vast hurricane of actual governmental conspiracies and the harm that can come from them, and that anything that might make it harder to hear about those conspiracies is far more harmful to the world than letting people say things that are untrue. (as evinced, here, by the poster pointing out that there was an actual governmental conspiracy in living memory, whereby hundreds of thousands or millions of (innocent) people died, in part because people were shut down as conspiracies theorists [or in some cases, even branded enemies of the state] and removed from discourse.)
I find it hard, as the poster seems to, to imagine a scenario in which even 100k clones of Alex Jones could cause the same level of harm. And while Alex himself may never uncover any real conspiracies (and really, how could you personally guarantee that?), that doesn't mean the same tactics used on him won't be turned on someone who has uncovered genuine malfeasance. (keep in mind, I've never been a fan, and I think he is a personally odious, obnoxious, and ill-intentioned individual who no one should listen to. Still, he shouldn't be silenced.)
Given Alex Jones weakness for theatrics he is going to play up this 'conspiracy' against him to prove every other conspiracy theory he nurtures for the next 10 years.
The 'co-ordination' however is blatant and raises questions about whether they are trying to silence him or martyr him. Is this really necessary, why is it co-ordinated and so heavy handed?
The only logical explanation for it being so brazen is they are doing this against him as cover to silence more 'problematic' figures which would raise more serious concerns about dissent and free speech. But that's a conspiracy theory.
reply