Alex Jones And Infowars Permanently Banned From Twitter

The social media giant said he violated its behaviour policy.
US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been banned from Twitter
US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been banned from Twitter
Jim Bourg / Reuters

Alex Jones and his Infowars website have been permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope.

On Thursday, just weeks after Twitter defended its decision not to remove the US conspiracy theorist, the social media giant said his accounts had violated its behaviour policy.

“As we continue to increase transparency around our rules and enforcement actions, we wanted to be open about this action, given the broad interest in this case,” the company tweeted.

“We do not typically comment on enforcement actions we take against individual accounts for their privacy.”

In a video posted on the Infowars website on Thursday, Jones said: “I was taken down not because we lied, but because we tell the truth and because we were popular.”

The ban came weeks after Apple, Google, YouTube, and Facebook took down podcasts and channels from Jones, citing community standards.

Twitter had been the last platform to give Jones unfettered access and comes after the its boss, Jack Dorsey, last month defended his decision not to follow the lead of the other companies

Dorsey earlier said Jones “hasn’t violated our rules” and explained that Twitter did not want to “react to outside pressure”.

But the company did ban Jones and Infowars for seven days, citing tweets that it said violated the company’s rules against abusive behaviour.

Jones, whose conspiracy theories include the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre being a hoax, hosts the syndicated radio program ‘The Alex Jones Show’.

Last month, he lost a bid to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against him by the parents of a boy who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.

On Wednesday, Jones attended a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on ways to counteract foreign efforts to influence US elections and political discourse. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, testified at the hearing.

Twitter said on Thursday that it would also evaluate any reports regarding other accounts potentially associated with Jones and Infowars.

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