(2018-08-07) — To combat the threat of internet hate-speech from Alex Jones and others, Facebook, Apple, and YouTube, among other social media platforms, today announced a new “Don’t Click” button. The feature will offer “another option” to users who feel compelled to watch or listen to hate speech and other material that “violates community standards.”

The new option comes after many social media platforms this week announced the removal of Alex Jones’ InfoWars pages, videos and podcasts as a way to “pro-actively protect Americans from unpopular ideas.” Jones’ reckless violation of “community standards” spurred action by the democratically-elected Social Media Standards Councils in thousands of communities worldwide, which then rose as one to order the Joint Community Standards Enforcement Brigade to remove and ban Jones’ content.

The communities then realized the scope of the threat, since Alex Jones does not hold a monopoly on unpopular ideas.

The global consortium of standards councils formed a joint committee to investigate alternatives that would “protect users from seeing or hearing things with which they disagree, things that are wrong, or things that inspire bad feelings.”

“Then it hit us,” said a member of the committee. “All of the complaints came from people who didn’t like Alex Jones, disagreed with his opinions, and didn’t want to watch him. If people could simply click a ‘Don’t Click’ button, they’d have a way out. They wouldn’t have to watch things they don’t want to watch.”

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