Let's be clear here on why Alex Jones was deplatformed: He argued that the Sandy Hook school shooting was faked and that the victims and their families were "crisis actors". He argued that this was part of a deep state conspiracy to take away guns. He helped and continues to help publish details about the families of Sandy Hook school shooting survivors. He has encouraged his listeners to harass them to the point that they have to purchase private security and have hidden grave sites for their dead kids so they don't get harassed when trying to visit them.
Without Alex Jones pushing the Sandy Hook conspiracy, those families of dead kids would not be getting relentlessly harassed.
These are not ideas that grow and die in the "marketplace of ideas." Correct ideas do not prosper over time. Fast ideas that match our existing cognitive biases do. Longer debate does not make the correct idea float to the surface. Louder influence does however propagate ideas and cause listeners to stochastically start acting on those ideas. Maybe if you don't believe me you'll believe a conservative think tank's publication on the new era of propaganda:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
Quote:
Interestingly, several of these features [of propaganda] run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction. Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging.
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The experimental psychology literature suggests that, all other things being equal, messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive. Quantity does indeed have a quality all its own.
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Due to their lack of commitment to objective reality (discussed later), Russian propagandists do not need to wait to check facts or verify claims; they just disseminate an interpretation of emergent events that appears to best favor their themes and objectives. This allows them to be remarkably responsive and nimble, often broadcasting the first “news” of events (and, with similar frequency, the first news of nonevents, or things that have not actually happened).
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While Alex Jones is not explicitly Russian propaganda, he uses the same tactics and tools. This sort of propaganda is exactly what the "marketplace of ideas" is weak against, and the rand publication link provided above gives an excellent breakdown of
why the marketplace of ideas catastrophically fails to deal with his form of propaganda.
What recommendations do we have to counter it? The Rand publication doesn't provide much direct alternatives; it mostly just laments the failure of fact-based counter-reporting:
Quote:
The first step is to recognize that this is a nontrivial challenge. Indeed, the very factors that make the firehose of falsehood effective also make it quite difficult to counter: For example, the high volume and multitude of channels for Russian propaganda offer proportionately limited yield if one channel is taken off the air (or offline) or if a single misleading voice is discredited. The persuasive benefits that Russian propagandists gain from presenting the first version of events (which then must be dislodged by true accounts at much greater effort) could be removed if the true accounts were instead presented first. But while credible and professional journalists are still checking their facts, the Russian firehose of falsehood is already flowing: It takes less time to make up facts than it does to verify them.
We are not optimistic about the effectiveness of traditional counterpropaganda efforts. Certainly, some effort must be made to point out falsehoods and inconsistencies, but the same psychological evidence that shows how falsehood and inconsistency gain traction also tells us that retractions and refutations are seldom effective. Especially after a significant amount of time has passed, people will have trouble recalling which information they have received is the disinformation and which is the truth. Put simply, our first suggestion is don’t expect to counter the firehose of falsehood with the squirt gun of truth.
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Rather than just trying to counter disinformation with other information, it might be possible to thwart desired effects with other capabilities—or to simply apply information efforts to redirecting behaviors or attitudes without ever directly engaging with the propaganda. That leads to our third suggestion: Don’t direct your flow of information directly back at the firehose of falsehood; instead, point your stream at whatever the firehose is aimed at, and try to push that audience in more productive directions.
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Emphasis mine.
In summary, Alex Jones caused families of Sandy Hook kids that were murdered to get relentlessly harassed. Trying to outcompete his narrative in the marketplace of ideas will be completely ineffective and he will still have reach to radicalize people into harassing others as long as he has a platform. To uphold free speech absolution for private corporations, we either have to accept that relentless harassment is a side effect of maintaining private corporate free speech, or we have to find an alternative strategy to inhibit the effects of his speech.
So for anyone who doesn't support private corporations deplatforming Alex Jones, my questions to you are:
1. Do you accept that relentless, arbitrary harassment is a side effect of maintaining free speech in our country? If so, what risks do you think outweigh the costs of this harassment?
2. If you don't think harassment is acceptable but you also don't think that deplatforming is appropriate, what alternatives that may actually work do you suggest? Remember, "marketplace of ideas" isn't an option here.