Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones, Infowars, citing abuse
Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones, Infowars, citing
abuse
By BARBARA ORTUTAY September 5, 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 bias against
conservatives 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.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone praised
Twitter’s action in a tweet. “Glad Twitter is taking steps to put an end to the
abusive behavior from Alex Jones & Infowars,” the tweet stated. “Tweets
designed to threaten, belittle, demean and silence individuals have no place on
this platform.”
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.
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed
to this story from Washington; AP technology writer Ryan Nakashima contributed
from San Francisco.
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