So a radio station banning the Dixie Chicks is not censorship but YouTube banning Alex Jones is?
In both cases, a private business is choosing to ban content it doesn't want. In both cases, it was over political speech it disagreed with (albeit Jones was over violent speech, not political speech).
There's a huge difference I think you're overlooking.
The Dixie Chicks are not professional political commentators whose role is to disseminate their views. They're musicians who chose to mix politics in with their music, and it was the mixing of their product with politics -- making overt political statements in the middle of concerts -- that caused problems for them with consumers of music, and with businesses that were in the
music - not politics -- business. And here's the key point -- lots and lots of
other people -- including professional commentators, other activists, etc.., were able to get those same views at to the public without issue. The Chicks were able to do that as well -- just not in concerts to paying customers who boycotted them. In other words,
what happened to the Dixie Chicks was not part of an effort to prevent a particular viewpoint from being heard at all. They remained completely free to get their political message out in any number of ways unrelated to music. And that's exactly what they did.
But Jones is a professional political commentator, in the business of political commentary. Youtube -- and all those other platforms that seek to ban him -- are in the business of disseminating the views of their customers.
There's no disconnect between what Jones was doing, and the business of those companies. And again, here's the key difference -- the goal in knocking Jones off those platforms is to prevent him from being heard at all. Or to put it differently -- the Chicks are perfectly free to go to the forum of Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook, and disseminate their political views to anyone who cares to listen. Jones isn't. They are supposedly neutral providers who are trying to suppress political views from being heard at all. That's why they colluded in this action. To try to silence Jones period.
Do we believe the radio station, as a private business has the right to do that? If so, then why do we not believe YouTube as a private business, has the right to do that?
Yes. At least, I believe that both the radio stations and the social media companies were within their legal rights to do what they did, and the government shouldn't get involved (although elected Democrats pressuring them to silence views with which the Democrats do not agree may be a different matter). But just because they have the legal right to do that doesn't make it wrong for conservatives to point out the bias, and attempt boycotts and pressure of their own against those same media companies.
And I don't like Jones -- I think he's vermin. But it's not going to stop with Jones, and it is important for conservatives to
hammer those businesses at every turn to point out their political bias as a way to help counter it.
