Today was the day most of the big tech companies buckled to the pressure, and took conspiracy theorist Alex Jones off their platforms. It began with Apple, which quietly took down Jones’s podcasts from its Podcast and iTunes apps. Then Facebook followed suit, taking down entire Pages he ran. YouTube took banned Jones’s accounts too. Even Pinterest, it seems, has taken down Jones-affiliated pages. But you know who hasn’t yet? Twitter.
Twitter, despite the recent influx of pressure, still hasn’t taken down Alex Jones’s or InfoWar’s accounts. And the company doesn’t seem to have plans to do it anytime soon. According to CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, Twitter doesn’t believe his accounts and words are in violation of its rules:
Twitter spokesperson says that neither InfoWars nor any other associated accounts are currently in violation of Twitter/Periscope rules.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 6, 2018
All of the other tech companies are claiming that Jones’s penchant for promulgating terrifying and insane narratives–such as that the Sandy Hook massacre was faked (which its families are suing him over) and that top Democrats like the Clintons are part of an underground child sex ring–amount to hate speech. Facebook specifically pointed to the “dehumanizing language” Jones has used to “describe people who are transgender, Muslims, and immigrants.”
That isn’t enough for Twitter. For now, the social network is hanging on to its claim that Jones and his accounts are kosher under its terms of service. I wonder what kind of crazy claims he’ll have to make in order to get them to act.
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