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Twitter admits Infowars tweets broke rules, but the account stays up
After a CNN inquiry found ten tweets from Alex Jones' accounts that it felt should've qualified as breaking Twitter's rules, the service admitted late Friday that it agreed on seven of them. The tweets have been deleted, and CNN reports that on his Infowars show, Jones directed his staff to remove them to "take the super high road." (Meanwhile, these greatest hits are all still live.) All of this comes days after Twitter declined to follow the actions taken by Apple Podcasts, Facebook, YouTube and others to ban the channel, claiming it hadn't violated their rules. Now, even though it admits that is not the case, Twitter said that it would've asked for the offending tweets to be deleted, and that has already happened. Apparently only two of them were recent enough to be considered for it to cite them in punitive action, while the other five occurred before the new rules implemented in December 2017. There are several theories about why Twitter continues to leave Jones' accounts up, but for now that's where they'll stay. In the meantime, the service decided to delete accounts for Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys group, and a spokesperson told Engadget that occurred because they violated its policy against violent extremist groups.
Anonymous deals with its QAnon branding problem
When you're a notorious hacking entity like Anonymous, and a pro-Trump conspiracy cult (QAnon) steals your branding (while claiming you're the impostor), the obvious thing to do is declare cyberwar. That's exactly what Anonymous did this past week in a press announcement, followed by a social media and press offensive. So far Anonymous has managed to take over QAnon's hashtags (while adding #OpQAnon and others) and dox a couple hundred members of Trump's pedophilia-obsessed, "deep state" doomsday cult. QAnon's mouthpieces responded exactly as we'd expect, with taunts and tweets saying: "These people are STUPID!! They have no brains and no skills. Typical 'empty threat' terrorists! But DO NOT click their links!! Virus city baby!!"
Twitter doesn’t have the spine to ban Alex Jones
It seems like every major tech company has had enough of Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and propagandist behind the controversial far-right site InfoWars. Well, almost everyone. The obvious holdout: Twitter. On Monday, Twitter said InfoWars and its associated accounts, including Jones', were not currently violating its rules. And last night its CEO and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, tried to explain the decision. He said Twitter is going to "hold Jones to the same standard we hold to every account," but that it isn't "taking one-off actions to make us feel good in the short term, and adding fuel to new conspiracy theories."
Twitter's CEO tries to explain not suspending Alex Jones
Over the last few days, platforms like Apple Podcasts, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify decided they'd had enough of Alex Jones and InfoWars and pulled his access. Twitter was not among them, saying that InfoWars is not "currently violating our policies." Tonight its CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted a thread trying to clarify things, as he occasionally has when explaining changes in its policy or stating once again why some bad actor will be allowed to remain on the platform. The Twitter Safety account also provided information on the company's policy, explaining that while "We prohibit targeted behavior that harasses, threatens, or uses fear to silence others and take action when they violate our policies...If individuals are not targeted (e.g. @ mention, tagged in a photo, etc.), we allow a wide range of content as long as it doesn't cross the line into threatening violence." This may explain why Jones' exhortations about parents of children killed in school shootings aren't enough to get him banned, simply because he did not @ mention them.
InfoWars fans flock to apps following recent bans
While a number of tech companies have purged their sites of Alex Jones podcasts and accounts over the last couple of days, not all InfoWars-related content has been taken down. And what's still available continues to attract interest. CNBC reports today that the InfoWars app, which is still available through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, is being downloaded quite a bit, taking the fourth spot in Apple's chart of top free news-related apps. As of writing, the app was number 12 in Google's chart of top free news and magazine apps.
The internet’s slow turn against Alex Jones and InfoWars
Tech companies are finally starting to take action on Alex Jones, the man who called the Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax and said the Democrats were planning a second civil war, for spreading his hateful conspiracy nonsense on the internet. It all began a couple of weeks ago when YouTube removed multiple videos from his channel for hate speech, a move that was followed by Facebook blocking him from posting on his personal page for 30 days. Since then, Spotify has taken down multiple episodes of Alex Jones' podcast, citing violations of its rules against hate speech, while Stitcher and Apple have gone as far as completely removing InfoWars shows. And now Facebook and YouTube have outright banned him and his InfoWars pages. Although things seem to have come to a head just recently, the battle between the InfoWars creator and tech firms has actually been brewing for months. Here's a timeline of the most important events leading up to today, when it seems that tech companies have decided that enough is enough.
Twitter: InfoWars isn't currently violating our policies
After YouTube pulled several of Alex Jones' videos two weeks ago for violating its hate speech policies, more and more services similarly removed content uploaded by him and his InfoWars network, culminating today in bans on Facebook and Apple's audio platforms. But amid the top media providers and social networks, one was notably silent: Twitter. As of today, the company's official position remains that Jones, InfoWars and associated accounts are not currently violating its rules, a Twitter spokesperson told Engadget.
YouTube removes Alex Jones’ official channel for violating guidelines
YouTube is the latest service to remove Alex Jones' content, which follows Facebook, Apple and Spotify yanking InfoWars pages and podcasts over the last day or so. Engadget has confirmed that YouTube has taken down the verified Alex Jones Channel (which had more than 2.4 million subscribers) for violating community guidelines, and has contacted YouTube for additional details.
Facebook bans Alex Jones and InfoWars pages
Facebook has removed four pages from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, saying that the channels "repeatedly" violated its hate speech and bullying policies. Last week, Facebook removed four videos from the channels and suspended the controversial radio personality for 30 days. However, today it wrote that since the earlier action didn't seem to deter Jones, it was taking stronger measures.
Apple removes InfoWars podcasts from its platforms
Apple is the latest company to crack down on Alex Jones' controversial news site InfoWars. On Sunday, the tech giant removed five of the six podcasts streamable on its iTunes and Podcast apps, revealing to Buzzfeed that it "does not tolerate hate speech" on its platform.
Stitcher removes Alex Jones’ podcast from its platform
While Facebook, YouTube and Spotify have taken down a handful of videos and podcast episodes from Alex Jones' pages, Stitcher has now gone a step further, removing his entire podcast from its platform. Last night on Twitter, the company said that it had reviewed Jones' podcasts and "found he has, on multiple occasions, harassed or allowed harassment of private individuals and organizations." Stitcher also noted that Jones' targeted harassment -- which has been directed towards parents of Sandy Hook victims and students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, among others -- has led his listeners "to engage in similar harassment and other damaging activity." Because of these actions, it said it would remove Jones' podcasts from the Stitcher platform.
Spotify has taken down multiple episodes of Alex Jones’ podcast
Spotify has taken down a number of episodes of Alex Jones' podcast for violating its hate speech policy. First noted by New York Times reporter Ben Sisario, the move follows similar actions taken by Facebook and YouTube. "We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community," a spokesperson told Engadget. "Spotify can confirm it has removed specific episodes of 'The Alex Jones Show' podcast for violating our hate content policy."
Facebook blocks Infowars’ Alex Jones from posting for 30 days
Days after YouTube took down multiple videos from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' video channel, Facebook has suspended his account on the platform for 30 days. The InfoWars founder had violated the social network's Community Standards, according to Mashable. If he or his fellow admins keep breaking the rules, Jones' personal page could be permanently banned.
YouTube removes multiple Alex Jones videos for hate speech
YouTube has taken down four videos from Alex Jones' channel, The Verge reports, and has issued the channel a strike. When a channel is found to be in violation of YouTube's community guidelines, the violating content is removed and the channel is given a strike. If a channel gets three strikes within three months, it's terminated by YouTube. The Verge's sources say that of the four videos removed by YouTube, two featured hate speech against Muslims, one included hate speech against transgender people and another titled "How to prevent liberalism" featured Jones mocking a child who had been pushed down by an adult man.
Facebook can’t decide when a page should be banned
Another day, another congressional hearing on how tech companies are conducting themselves. This time it was Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that testified before the House Judiciary Committee today, in a hearing titled "Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants." While much of the three-hour session was information we've heard before, like what they're all doing to fight fake news and propaganda-driven bots, there was an interesting discussion about Facebook's policies (or lack thereof). In particular, the company's president for global policy management, Monika Bickert, couldn't give members of the committee a firm answer on what exactly it takes to ban offensive pages from Facebook.
Facebook’s approach to fighting fake news is half-hearted
Earlier this week, Facebook hosted a group of reporters (myself included) at its NYC office for a Q&A session about its efforts to fight fake news. The event, led by Head of News Feed John Hegeman and News Feed product specialist Sara Su, began with Facebook showing us a short film called Facing Facts. It's a documentary that debuted last May, which tells the story of the company's uphill battle to rid its site of a misinformation plague that seems incurable. For months, Facebook has talked about how hard it is working to fix the issue (by hiring third-party fact-checkers, removing fake accounts and more), but on Wednesday it left us with more questions than answers. That's because Facebook believes reducing and flagging fake news stories is better than removing them altogether, and that doesn't seem like the best approach.
Defending InfoWars, Facebook declines to stop fake news
This week, we learned in concrete terms that Facebook, like the Trump administration, has no bottom when it comes to hypocrisy and catering to neo-fascist conservatives. The hole has since been dug so deep by the company that its usual tactic of trading access for a positive PR apology tour may not work as well as it used to.
YouTube mistakenly pulls video exposing Alex Jones' conspiracy theories
YouTube has been trying to reduce instances of mistaken video takedowns, but it's evident there's still some work to do. The company temporarily pulled a video from watchdog group Media Matters that exposed Alex Jones' conspiracy theories surrounding his (since-retracted) claims the Sandy Hook mass shooting was fake. While YouTube didn't outline what Media Matters had done wrong, the boilerplate message said the clip had been flagged for review and warned against using YouTube for "threats, harassment, bullying, or intimidation." The company also applied a first strike against Media Matters.
Pepe The Frog’s creator sues Infowars for copyright infringement
Despite artist Matt Furie's attempts to reclaim his Pepe The Frog character from neo-Nazis, his cartoon is still being used by the far-right. He created Pepe in the early 2000s and has described the character as a "peaceful frog-dude" whose true nature "celebrates peace, togetherness and fun." But in 2015, the far-right began to appropriate Pepe, using him as a representation of hate, white supremacy and anti-Semitism and the character became tied to racists and conspiracy theorists like Richard Spencer and Mike Cernovich. Furie has tried to reclaim Pepe through a #SavePepe campaign and by issuing cease-and-desist notices to those using its image and companies like Amazon, Google and Reddit whose sites hosted infringing content. He even tried to kill off the character last year. Now, he's going after Infowars.
Advertisers pull out of InfoWars' YouTube channels
Brands are once again beating a hasty retreat after learning that they were running ads on objectionable YouTube channels. Several big brands (including Acer, Alibaba, Fox, Nike and Paramount) have suspended ads from InfoWars' channels after CNN demonstrated that their commercials were streaming on the conspiracy-peddling network's videos. The companies said they were not only unaware of the placement, but in numerous cases had set up exclusion filters to avoid displaying ads against content like this. Some also said they explicitly blacklisted InfoWars channels, but didn't realize how many channels the company actually had.
