Alex Jones at a protest in 2014 | Photo: Wikimedia/Sean P. Anderson
Multiple tech platforms are cracking down on right-wing voice Alex Jones and his conspiracy theory-driven website InfoWars.
YouTube, Facebook, Apple, and Spotify have all banned Jones in certain ways from their platforms.
It all began Sunday (5 August) evening when Apple deleted five podcasts related to Jones from their iTunes platform.
‘Apple does not tolerate hate speech,’ the company said. ‘We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.’
The subsequent bans quickly followed today (6 August).
‘We believe in giving people a voice, but we also want everyone using Facebook to feel safe,’ a spokesperson for Facebook said.
They permanently removed four pages: the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page.
The statement continued: ‘It’s why we have community standards and remove anything that violates them, including hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others.’
Facebook also gave reasons for the removals, citing posts ‘glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies’.
YouTube and Spotify quickly followed. For the former, they said Jones repeatedly violated policies relating to hate speech and harassment.
Spotify began by taking down four episodes, and then they banned Jones completely.
So far, Twitter is the only major platform not to ban Jones in any capacity. A spokesperon said the InfoWars’ accounts ‘do not currently violate its rules’.
In a response on Twitter, Jones and InfoWars compared these actions to ‘Communist censorship’.
InfoWars tweet | Photo: Twitter @InfoWars
Peddling in hate
Through Jones’ radio show and the InfoWars site, Jones spreads messages of conspiracy theories and hate-filled rhetoric.
Previously, he said ‘liberal gay women’ want to eat other women’s brains. He also freaked out about drag queens reading to children, calling their clothes ‘demon outfits’.
In March, he was also accused of discrimination and sexual harassment.
He believes in and reinforces several harmful conspiracy theories, including the faking of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Further, he has accused the US government of being involved in 9/11 and filming fake moon landings.
H/t: NPR
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