Don't give Facebook and YouTube credit for shrinking Alex Jones' audience | Julia Carrie Wong

Internet platforms were making money by placing Infowars’ content in front of those who would not otherwise view it

It is an iron law of the internet that any attempt to censor or suppress information will inevitably result in the increased dissemination of that information. Just as the laws of thermodynamics undergird everything we know and can learn about the physical world, this rule – known as the Streisand Effect – sets the table for every debate around speech on the internet.

It was thus only to be expected that when Facebook, YouTube and other internet platforms decided to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s fake news broadcasts in early August, Infowars’ traffic and reach would only increase.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2oGExPm
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