[dublin]

No matter how heinous you may find his speech, in America, under the First Amendment, Jones (or any nutball or even Nazi you may choose to pick) has a right to say it - even if he has a large Radio and Podcast megaphone.

The First Amendment is nearly absolute, and must protect unpopular and offensive speech even more than it protects popular speech.

(Don't start with the bogus "fire in a crowded theater exception" - that wording comes from Schenk v. United States (which was not even a 1A case, but involved the Espionage Act), and was nearly entirely overturned in 1969's Brandenburg v. Ohio. The clear falsity of the "Fire!" claim has repeatedly and wrongly used as a justification for suppressing speech for a century, to the detriment of us all.)

[jasonjayr]

I don't disagree with you.

As much as I'd personally enjoy never hearing from or about him again, I agree that 1A is an extremely important right that should be defended, even if you hate what the person is saying.

But free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences. Taking away infowars does not stop him from continuing to speak his nonsense.

[mindslight]

(nb this is not a defense of Alex Jones or the events of the article, please read my whole comment to understand my point)

> But free speech does NOT mean freedom from consequences

Freedom of speech most certainly means freedom from coercive consequences. Or do you think the first amendment merely prevents the government from engaging in physical prior restraint such as putting duct tape over your mouth, and post facto punishment is legal? Ultimately this "consequences" refrain is a broken talking point that was arrived at by people arguing for the attractive cryptofascism of big tech censorship [0].

The right answer is that there are "exceptions" [1] for freedom of speech based on other concepts. For example, forming a contract (especially a verbal one) is done entirely through speech but yet still commits parties to performing other actions in a legally enforceable way. Defamation and harassment are other concepts that get equitably weighed against the ideal of freedom of speech. And those last two are what Jones ran afoul of.

[0] It started off something like "... consequences from private parties" and then the last bit got dropped because the focus wasn't a good faith discussion of freedom but rather a cheering on of the consequences. See also the fake libertarians saying "edgy" things like those who can't afford food should die - their focus isn't really the freedom but rather it's the death.

[1] In actuality they are not exceptions but rather equitable balances. The axiomatic-foundation framing of rights is a dead end, as it intrinsically supports the cryptofascism of denying rights through an ever-increasing amount of preconditions.

[buttercraft]

Is he prohibited from speaking? Or just being held accountable for what he already said?

[samatman]

You may wish to look up the concept of 'jawboning' if you're under the misapprehension that this sort of workaround to the First Amendment is generally supported by historical jurisprudence.

You're going to be hearing that word a lot in the next four years. May as well get a head start on it.