Media Jew: “Social Media Racists Must Be Silenced”

The author of this openly pro-censorship screed is “Lord” Daniel Finklestein, a Jew, Conservative Party figure, and an editor at Britain’s Times newspaper. The Jews’ arrogance knows no bounds and will be their undoing again, as it often has been in the past.

TWITTER AND YOUTUBE aren’t doing enough to stop the dangerous lies of Holocaust deniers and White supremacists.

I’ve come up with a brilliant business idea. It’s an electronic meeting place for racists. I’ll gather the bigots of the world together and sell advertising. They can exchange ideas about how the ovens at Auschwitz weren’t big enough to put all those Jews in and how White men should rule the world, and I can reach out to yoghurt manufacturers and stuff.

I suspect you’ve spotted the flaw. Sure, it’s not very moral. But, you know, money’s money and you can’t be too picky. No, the problem is not that we would be making money out of racism. It is that we wouldn’t make enough. Because there is too much competition from other people who are doing this already.

Excuse my rather heavy-handed sarcasm. I suppose it’s because I’m a convert and we’re the worst.

Once upon a time I was a free-speech purist. I have always been a vigorous advocate of the freedom to say just about anything you want. I have argued repeatedly that the law must support this freedom, that legal authorities must protect it and that public institutions, in particular universities, must respect and defend free argument.

I retain that belief. But I used to extend my pure doctrine, almost without thinking, to social media. And on that I have changed my mind. I underestimated the dangers of my position and I made mistakes of reasoning too. I see that now.

Have you ever heard of the holohoax? I hadn’t either, until someone on Twitter acquainted me. It’s the suggestion that the Holocaust is, essentially, an invention. The Zionists made up the idea that the Nazis murdered six million Jews. Responding to this produced a flood of further tweets from other users of the site: “The holocaust is a lie #Hitlerwasright”; “The holocaust is a complete fake”; “What holocaust”, “Hollow cost”; “Finkelstein, what a wonderful traditional English name”.

On YouTube there are countless videos spreading this idea, including a documentary that lasts more than an hour and has been viewed almost half a million times. It is grotesque propaganda, full of distortions and falsehoods that you require a reasonable amount of expertise to see through. And “holohoax” has its own Facebook page too. In fact it has many Facebook pages.

If only it stopped at Holocaust denial. On these sites can be found every kind of bigotry and prejudice, every form of racism, every sort of segregationist propaganda. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the common room of the fascists, the water cooler of the racial supremacist, the cocktail party organiser of the Nazis.

As a result, the companies that own these sites are making the world a worse place: uglier, nastier more dangerous. They are spreading lies and educating people in hate. They are linking up fascists and making it easier for them to organise. I don’t think it’s possible to ignore the impact of this any longer. These sites are big and powerful and the impact of this hatred is obvious and worrying. They are building the audiences and power of dangerous groups and threatening people.

Until recently I resisted the obvious conclusion of all this. I resisted the idea that these liberal, well-meaning corporations should stop making money out of bigotry and prejudice and should declare that these ideas and these people will not, in future, be welcome on their sites. To let people mouth off is just allowing free speech, isn’t it? And Twitter and YouTube can’t start censoring people, can they? I mean where would it stop?

I am resisting no longer. I think the hate and the lies are undermining free discourse and don’t deserve the protection of these companies. These private institutions are not public bodies and don’t have a constitutional obligation to let anyone say anything. And I think they already exercise quite a bit of discretion, so the problem of where to stop is already with them.

Recently, Twitter made new rules making it easier to report direct abuse. I’ve noticed the difference and I appreciate their action. When, earlier this week, “Stormer” started tweeting Jewish journalists with anti-Semitic messages (mine was “@dannythefink Stop controlling the UK media, filthy jew rat”) the account was suspended within a few hours. Several other users of the site were unhappy about this action. They complained that Stormer’s free speech was being interfered with, my cleanliness and similarity to rodents being matters of opinion, I suppose. If I didn’t like it, I could always block it.

I was unhappy, too, but for a different reason. I think if Stormer had simply said that the UK media was controlled by filthy Jewish rats, rather than getting so personal, it would have been deemed acceptable. Say that Daniel Finkelstein is a filthy Jew rat and out you go, generously extend that to his family and friends and all the members of Pinner and Northwood synagogue and that’s fine, you can stay.

Last week Twitter let the American White supremacist Richard Spencer begin tweeting again once he’d sorted out a technical difficulty. Having multiple accounts is a problem, apparently, but not organising a racist movement. Spencer celebrated by tweeting a picture of himself giving what is obviously a Hitler salute.

I think Twitter is already making messy and difficult judgments about what is acceptable and what is not, but it is stopping in the wrong place.

So are other, similar sites. I don’t doubt that these corporations have recycling bins, and charity mufti days, and long waffly statements on their intranet about their corporate vision and peace on earth. And then everyone sets to work helping TruthWillOut reach new audiences with his #Belsenwasalie campaign.

I don’t want them to stop these postings and videos and pages only when they break the law or are abusive to individuals, or breach a technical rule that can conveniently be conjured up. I want them to be stopped because they are horrible and wrong and uncivilised and demeaning. I’ve come to realise that this is enough to justify action.

Twitter is not a public body. Removing something from YouTube is not denying free speech. I used to think it was but I have come to see that was faulty reasoning. YouTube has no responsibility to carry anything. It can do what it likes. To suggest that it must carry Holocaust denial is actually, ironically enough, to deny YouTube its own freedom.

And yes, it will be hard. Yes, there will be moments when they will be making difficult judgments about right and wrong, judgments they would rather not make. But they will have a lot of wrong they can throw out before it gets to that point.

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Source: They Can’t