Facebook, YouTube and iTunes Have Finally Banned the Hateful Work of Far-Right Loon Alex Jones
Alex Jones, the garbage person host of the far-right conspiracy theory show Infowars, has finally had a significant portion of his content banned from both Facebook, YouTube and Apple iTunes. Why was Infowars banned? For violating both platforms policies on hate speech. Apple iTunes removed all the episodes from five of Jones’ six podcasts, Facebook removed four of Jones’ pages and YouTube has banned Alex Jones’ channel as well.
Jones is homophobic garbage who claimed that former U.S. President Barack Obama has sex with 10 dudes a day. Jones also hires hateful douchebags to sell worthless health supplements on his show. Among his show’s many dangerous fabrications, he claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was faked — the parents of the kids killed in the tragedy are now suing him for defamation.
The music streaming app Spotify and the podcast service Stitcher have both also removed all of Jones’ content from their services.
In a statement about Jones being banned, Apple said, “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users. Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
In a statement on the same issue, Facebook said, “All four pages have been unpublished for repeated violations of Community Standards and accumulating too many strikes. Upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence … and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies While much of the discussion around Infowars has been related to false news, which is a serious issue that we are working to address by demoting links marked wrong by fact checkers and suggesting additional content, none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this.”
YouTube simply said, “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
We have to saw, we’re happy to see Infowars banned from these platforms as its a major source of disinformation passing itself off “news” and “entertainment.” It’s toxic.
Naturally, Infowars is claiming conspiratorial corporate censorship campaign of their work. In a statement, they wrote, “If free speech does not include controversial/unpopular/offensive speech, it doesn’t exist. A society in which free speech doesn’t exist is doomed to collapse into authoritarianism. The argument that Facebook and other social media giants are “private companies” and can do what they like is also a complete misnomer.
They continued, “Big Tech have formed a monopoly by swallowing up content and they are now working hand in hand with the establishment media and leftist politicians to silence independent voices. Whether you love or loathe Infowars, this now confirms that Big Tech is working with legacy media and lawmakers to silence independent media.”
