Not that I believe in limiting free speech but I do find it difficult to get bent out of shape when Tommy Robinson is the poster child

If and I obviously do not follow him but If he incited hatred, there may be a case in the UK for it. Outside of that whilst I think he is race baiting twat I am not sure his platform should be removed

Call me skeptic, but I find it hard to draw broad conclusions from a single poll of 1,000 people. Furthermore, the poll seemingly contradicts itself when it says "The large majority of Americans, 85%, agree that the “Freedom of the press is essential for American democracy.” however 43% of Republicans think “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.”

''WHITE HOUSE SECRETLY MEETS BIG TECH... ''

What's wrong with the WH meeting with tech leaders?

What's left of conservatism now that you've all embraced The Donald?

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

    I think the response today is over Alex Jones, a guy I'd imagine lots of conservatives don't necessarily care for, but feel quietly allowing a ban will just lead to more of the same. One of the Drudge pieces is about libertarians.

Do the math again. Assume 40% of Americans are Democrats, 35% are Republicans, and the rest are neither.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Reasons to be skeptical are whether the sample was properly selected, whether the questions were properly drafted and not leading, etc.

But assuming proper selection, well drafted questions, etc., there's nothing about a sample size of 1000 in itself that is cause to question the results.

Conservatives or wackos? I would say the latter. No one is shutting down conservatives like Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro, George Will, John Podzoretz, ... Alex Jones and his ilk are about as true a conservative as Donald Trump, which is to say not kuch.

   I think the fear is more along the lines of "first they came for the Communists..." kind of thing. I read another piece recently that highlighted the fact checkers are now being used to yea or nay content on Facebook, no questions asked. It does seem we are seeing the brakes applied to the wild west of the internet, and with the reach and influence of social media, that's something we should all watch closely.

i agree that at a certain point somebody needs to make an arbitrary decision, on what is obscene; the difference between inciting a riot and freedom of association; and so forth. i saw an oped yesterday where the thesis was, don't use hate speech as the determiner of fitness for facebook, use whether something is libelous or slanderous as the determiner. i can see the point, but i still see a problem: you're deciding (if you're facebook) that something is slander before it's been proven in court to be slander.

so, i think we're back at this intersection of absolute freedom versus community responsibility. we're always going to be there, with speech. we're always going to be at that intersection when it comes to what color i'm allowed to paint my house in a neighborhood that has agreed to standards. the internet is one big neighborhood and unfortunately, moving to idaho isn't going to get you your alex jones back.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman