Facebook has shut down and banned four pages run by Alex Jones for “repeated violations of Community Standards”, theFacebook said on Monday.
The page removed are – the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the InfoWars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page. This all comes after Facebook slapped a 30-day ban on Alex Jones personally “for his role in posting violating content to these Pages”.
Facebook has permanently BANNED Infowars.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 6, 2018
For unspecified “hate speech”. They didn’t even tell us what the offending posts were.
This sets a chilling precedent for free speech.
To all other conservative news outlets – you are next.
The great censorship purge has truly begun. pic.twitter.com/v7Yo9hI0q3
Confirmation that Facebook banned Infowars because of “language” used to describe “people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants.”
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 6, 2018
No specific examples were provided.
In other words, if some far-left hysteric in Silicon Valley doesn’t like the words you use, you’re gone. pic.twitter.com/gsk3rhaLKy
Following the Facebook suspension, a spokesperson from the company said, “more content from the same Pages has been reported to us — upon review, we have taken it down for 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.”
The Facebook spokesperson added that despite the focus on Alex Jones’ role in his theories around events such as the 9/11 attacks and Sandy Hook school shooting, “none of the violations that spurred today’s removals were related to this”.
Facebook’s action against Alex Jones came just within hours after Apple removed him from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was very unusual, with the company confirming the ban at
Jones, is the host of the daily Alex Jones Show podcast, and his platform Infowars produces another five podcasts.
All of those shows were abruptly removed from the Apple Podcasts except for one, Real News with David Knight, which at the time of this article is still on the platform.
As the Guardian notes: “Apple does not host podcasts, nor does it have any financial relationship with those it catalogs on its directory. Instead, Apple Podcasts is simply a list of links to podcasts hosted on independent servers around the world. But the service is still the most important single platform in the podcasting industry, driving a substantial amount of traffic to the podcasts it features on its homepage or in its charts.”
Publishing platforms have faced strong pressure from the left to take action against Alex Jones and Infowars over the past month. Apple was the first major company to ban Jones in its entirety, narrowly beating Zuckerberg’s Facebook to the punch. Other platforms, including YouTube and Spotify, have taken down certain pieces of content produced by Jones or Infowars that they say breached their terms of service, but have allowed him to stay active on their sites.
“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,” an Apple spokesperson said, “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.”
Spotify also took action against Jones on Monday, removing every episode of his podcast The Alex Jones Show from its platform. The music streaming service had previously removed specific episodes of the show, but left the bulk of the archive up, before tightening its enforcement. Spotify has left three other Infowars podcasts live on the service.
Whether you love or loathe Infowars, this now confirms that Big Tech is working with legacy media to silence independent media.
In places like Russia, the government shuts down the press, in America, CNN, Apple and Facebook fulfil that role.— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 6, 2018
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