It’s about f***ing time: Apple, Facebook, and Spotify have banned hatemonger Alex Jones and Infowars. This was a long time coming, especially after YouTube placed a limited ban on Jones’s channel. While many companies dithered over whether or not to suspend the hatemonger’s virulent content, Apple led the charge by removing five of Jones’s six podcasts from their listings. In a statement to Buzzfeed News, a rep from 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.”
Apple’s decisive banning is a huge blow against Jones, who is currently being sued by two Sandy Hook parents for falsely claiming that the tragic massacre was a “false flag” operation and the parents were “crisis actors.” Since then, the bereaved parents have been targeted by stalking and harassment from Jones’s deranged fanbase.
It turns out that Apple’s decision was the needed catalyst for other companies to follow. I mean, it’s shameful that it’s taken this long for these companies to take a stand against someone so hateful, (truly, what did they have to lose?) but better late than never, I guess. Almost immediately following Apple’s announcement, Facebook found its backbone and banned four of Jones’s pages. A Facebook spokesperson said, “Upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”
The removal of Jones’s pages is two-fold: first, there is the rampant hate speech and restricted content policy that Jones is violating. Secondly, this is also a response to Facebook’s efforts to step up their attack on fake news and combat the negative publicity and falling stock prices in the wake of rampant data theft and election interference.
Spotify has jumped on the bandwagon as well. After previously removing selected episodes of Jones’s podcast, it has now removed every episode of The Alex Jones Show. They are still hosting three separate Infowars podcasts.
(via The Guardian, image: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
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