If you can't persuade his base, then I guess you're not the person whose job it is to persuade his base. Be patient. One will come.

No, it is not that simple.

Your argumentation rests on the assumption that people are convinced only through reason. There are several professions and industries that work just by considering that to be naive.

Prejudices, herd mentality, fear, anger and a lot more biological drives are the main drivers of most people beliefs. "Reason" is just a make up and varnish they apply to make it less ugly.

Wait patiently for the "chosen one" to come, while he continues to grow his fanbase, spread misinformation, participates in fear mongering, and is praised by the president of the United States? Yes, sure, great plan.

We can also have a grand old time debunking each and every single one of the crackpot theories that come out of the show, which surprisingly nobody has ever tried before!

No, you're right, inhibit freedom of expression.

There's no way that can go wrong after a while.

Forcing YouTube, Facebook, or the side of your house to host Alex Jones' content is inhibiting freedom of speech. People and companies have a right to not say things. If they don't, then please let me know when Alex Jones will be setting aside some of his website and paying for the hosting for my views. I have a lot to say. It would be great to piggy back on his 10 million visitors a month and get a free audience.

When you become large enough that you are effectively replacing the town square, you have an extraordinary responsibility to let everyone have their soap box, because otherwise, you are dictating public opinion.

For better or for worse, the ideas that grasp the most people have prevailed historically.

Letting one small group of people, regardless of how they're chosen, or how self-righteous they feel, decide what's okay and not okay to say, will never end well.

Who will enforce that responsibility? Who decides what's large enough?

> Letting one small group of people

What one small group of people? There are literally thousands of social media sites, and people are completely free to join or quit any one of them. If there were no competition in this space, I might be concerned. But just a few short years ago Facebook was unheard of and MySpace was the "monopoly".

Let customers choose. The customers are not one small group of people.

> There's no way that can go wrong after a while.

Well, giving him whatever platform he wants has already gone wrong right now. So if deplatforming him goes wrong in the future, and puts us back into the same situation we found ourselves in before today, at least we'll have between now and then to enjoy things, and come up with a plan C.

How has it gone wrong?

What consequences have there been?

Death threats to people whose children were murdered, so bad that they had to leave their home? Men with guns showing up at pizza parlors where people were trying to eat dinner? Does any of this ring a bell?

Reminds me of when GOP congressmen were attacked by a sniper, spokespersons harrassed with their families at a restaurant, etc.

egged on by some congresslady in California and MSNBC.

So ya. Pretty simmetrical.

There's no way letting him have access to millions of people via these giant platforms can go wrong either.

Gotta preserve that freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas.

This is just the paradox of tolerance.

@diego_moita I never actually said reason was the only tool in your kit. Rhetoric is broader than that.