Thread: Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones, Infowars citing abuse

Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones, Infowars citing abuse
Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer
Associated Press September 6, 2018

NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter permanently banned right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars show for abusive behavior — a day after CEO Jack Dorsey testified before Congress about alleged "conservative bias" on the platform.

The company said Jones won't be able to create new accounts on Twitter or take over any existing ones. In a tweet, it said it would continue to monitor reports about other accounts potentially associated with Jones or Infowars, and will "take action" if it finds any attempts to circumvent the ban.

Twitter said Jones posted a video on Wednesday that violates the company's policy against "abusive behavior." That video showed Jones berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes in between two congressional hearings on social media. Dorsey testified at both hearings, but did not appear to witness the confrontation.

Jones had about 900,000 followers on Twitter. Infowars had about 430,000. Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter had previously suspended Jones for a week. But until now it had resisted muzzling Jones further. Other tech companies have limited Jones by suspending him for longer periods, as Facebook did, and by taking down his pages and radio stations.

Jones heckled Darcy in a Capitol Hill hallway where reporters were waiting to enter the House committee room. He criticized the journalist's reporting and appearance, referencing his "skinny jeans" and repeatedly saying, "just look at this guy's eyes" and "look at that smile."

At one point, he said Darcy was "smiling like a possum that crawled out of the rear end of a dead cow. That's what you look like. You look like a possum that got caught doing some really nasty stuff — in my view. You're a public figure too."

Darcy has aggressively questioned social media companies about the forbearance they showed Jones, asking why they have allowed him to remain on their platforms for as long as they have.

Jones is currently active on Facebook; his personal suspension there recently expired.

Apple, YouTube and Spotify also permanently removed material Jones had published.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a message asking whether it would also ban Jones.

Dorsey originally defended his company's decision not to ban Jones, tweeting that Jones "hasn't violated our rules" but if he does "we'll enforce."

"We're going to hold Jones to the same standard we hold to every account, not taking one-off actions to make us feel good in the short term, and adding fuel to new conspiracy theories," Dorsey tweeted on Aug. 7 , after the other companies took action against Jones.

But a week later Twitter joined the other tech companies in muzzling Jones, even if it was only for a week. It was a significant move for a company one of its executives once called the "free speech wing of the free speech party."

But critics warn there is another side to high-profile cases such as this one.

"We should be extremely careful before rushing to embrace an internet that is moderated by private companies by default," said David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an email last month.

While high-profile cases of highly offensive content being taken down gets a lot of attention, he added, content moderation "continues to silence" the voices of people around the world struggling to be heard.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitt...c=bell-brknews

Apple Inc bans Alex Jones app for 'objectionable content'

By Dan Whitcomb
,Reuters•September 7, 2018

FILE PHOTO - Alex Jones of Infowars talks to the media while visiting the U.S. Senate's Dirksen Senate office building as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg More

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Friday that it had banned from its App Store the Infowars app belonging to popular U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after finding that it had violated the company's rules against "objectionable content".

The move makes Apple the latest tech company or social media platform to take action against Jones, a deeply controversial right-wing radio talk-show host who has suggested that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, among other sensational claims.

Apple said the guidelines Jones violated bar "defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or place a targeted individual or group in harm's way."

Representatives for Jones could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters on Friday evening.

On Thursday, Twitter Inc permanently banned Jones and his website from its platform and Periscope, saying in a tweet that the accounts had violated its behavior policies.

In a video posted on the Infowars website on Thursday, Jones said in response: "I was taken down not because we lied but because we tell the truth and because we were popular."
Last month, Twitter banned Jones and Infowars for seven days, citing tweets that it said violated the company's rules against abusive behavior, which state that a user may not engage in targeted harassment of someone or incite other people to do so.

Apple said at the time that the Infowars app remained in its store because it had not been found to be in violation of any content policies, although it had removed access to some podcasts by Jones.

The podcasts differ from the Infowars app by allowing access to an extensive list of previous episodes, subjecting all of those past episodes to Apple's content rules.

The Infowars app contains only rebroadcasts of the current day's episodes, subjecting a much smaller set of content to the rules. Apple said it regularly monitors all apps for content violations.

Google parent Alphabet Inc, Facebook Inc and Spotify Technology SA have also removed content produced by Jones.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/apple-inc...--finance.html

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