On September 6th, Twitter permanently banned Alex Jones’ and Infowars’ accounts from their platform.
Twitter released a statement regarding the ban: “Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” the tech giant said. “We took this action based on new reports of tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ previous violations.”
Twitter also vowed to hunt any other “other accounts potentially associated” with Alex Jones to prevent attempts to circumvent the ban. “We will continue to evaluate reports we receive regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and will take action if content that violates our rules is reported or if other accounts are utilized in an attempt to circumvent their ban,” the statement said.
The company does not usually comment on individual accounts, but said it “wanted to be open about this action given the broad interest in this case”. The two accounts had about 1.3 million followers combined.
As reported by RT, the reasoning behind the ban is “abusive behavior,” after Alex Jones was filmed insulting Oliver Darcy a CNN journalist on the sidelines of a Senate social media hearing. He was also filmed by CNBC asking questions to a US. Senator Marco Rubio, at one point claiming that the Senator threatened to physically hurt him. This happened after Jones patted Rubio on the shoulder, which the Senator asked him not to do and that he could “handle himself.”
Alex Jones was banned from Twitter reportedly in response to posting video from this exchange from yesterday with a CNN reporter pic.twitter.com/aVpK6Q2Bm4
— Andrew Blake (@apblake) September 6, 2018
After the September 5th hearing, in which Facebook and Twitter participated, Jones clashed with Sen. Marco Rubio over alleged political censorship by the Silicon Valley giants. He later confronted CNN journalist Oliver Darcy in a Capitol Hill hallway and recorded himself aggressively insulting his ‘biased’ reporting and attacking his appearance.
'Don't touch me again, man': Sen. Marco Rubio faces off against InfoWars conspiracy monger Alex Jones in hallway heckle spat https://t.co/d7o4wlvD3w pic.twitter.com/Z9Rj3ufv0O
— CNBC (@CNBC) September 5, 2018
“I was taken down not because we lie but because we tell the truth and because we were popular, and because we dared to go to that committee hearing and stand up to Rubio, stand up to the lies of mainstream media and speak the truth,” Jones stated following his suspension, cited by RT.
“And then we ran into Oliver Darcy, who is the secret police captain, who admits he goes around and gets people like Infowars taken off other platforms because we confronted that monster that has abused us and lied about us,” Jones said about the encounter that reportedly got him banned.
Alex Jones had approximately 900,000 followers on Twitter, while InfoWars had around 430,00. He called the ban an act of “war” against conservative voices, he also urged his supports to resist “the full-on assault on this country.”
“This signifies that gloves are off, they are trying to destroy our basic birthright of the First Amendment,” Jones added. “The political establishment does not like Democrats or Republicans being challenged and they want to go out after the president… They are panicking, they are scared. They are making a move against all of us.”
Alex Jones is also currently being sued for defamation by the parents of two children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has repeatedly claimed the shoot was a “giant hoax.”
During the September 5th hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress and insisted that the platform was impartial and denied any political bias against conservatives. When he was asked whether Twitter censors conservative voices. Mr. Dorsey said his company did “not use political ideology to make any decisions,” but admitted the company’s algorithms had not always been “impartial.”
On August 5th, 2018, a wave of censorship, targeting alternative media and independent activists started. It all started with what appeared as a coordinated attack by Apple, Facebook and YouTube on broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars network. The companies summarily banned his and his websites content from their platforms. Twitter did not follow suit back then; however new developments appear to have “forced its hand.”
Alex Jones’ response to the August ban wave blamed mainstream corporate media and its dwindling audience for becoming engines of censorship and harassment against those that, according to him, follow the constitution and attempt to restore the US republic. He further said that they are attempting to shut down all of their competitions and calls mass media corporations terrorist organizations, most of them being on the communist Chinese payroll. He further elaborated that this is all a bid to meddle in the midterm elections, the tech giants are doing it to protect political interest.
