Alex Jones heads Infowars, a site that claims that the Newton school massacre never happened. Facebook and other social media platforms removed him from their platforms. (I’m not sure I’m using the right term, but you know what I mean.)
I am a long time member of the American Civil Liberties Union, although I have had my differences with that organization. (I quit for a time after our local chapter defended the rights of prostitutes to walk around in our San Jose neighborhood, but that’s another story.) I really am a big defender of free speech and a free press.
I am also a believer that the owner of a media platform doesn’t have an obligation to accept whatever people would like to publish on his or her outlet. For example, I have written letters to the Allentown Morning Call and the Times News that weren’t printed. That is their prerogative. They own that particular form of media. A free press means you can start your own newspaper or distribute your own pamphlets, but it does not give you the right to dictate what somebody else’s newspaper or pamphlets must publish.
I know that Facebook or Twitter reach far more people than the Times News, but I think the comparison is valid. If Alex Jones wants to claim that the Newton massacre never happened, let him start his own network. Mark Zuckerman did. Otherwise, he can always get a copy machine and run off some pamphlets. It’s a free country.
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