Facebook blocks InfoWars’s Alex Jones for 30 days over ‘hate speech’ and ‘encouraging physical harm’
- Founder of right-wing conspiracy site suspended after four videos violated rules
- The freeze only affects his personal page and not fellow InfoWars administrators
- Pages could soon disappear if they breach rules again, Dailymail.com has learnt
- Jones has previously called Sandy Hook a hoax and branded 9-11 an ‘inside job’
- Move comes days after bosses defended their decision to give Jones a platform
Alex Jones’s personal Facebook account was blocked by Facebook just two days after the social media giant defended allowing him on the platform. He is pictured at a pro-Donald Trump rally in Ohio on July 18, 2016
InfoWars’s Alex Jones has been blocked by Facebook for 30 days after the right-wing conspiracy theorist was accused of spreading hate speech and encouraging physical harm.
The freeze comes just two days after the social media giant defended its decision to allow Jones a platform to spread conspiracy theories including that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and 9-11 an ‘inside job’ by the government.
The ban only affects Jones personally, and simply stops him being able to post from his own account. It does not affect his fellow InfoWars admins, who will still be able to post on The Alex Jones Channel and the main InfoWars page, which remain live.
The decision to freeze Jones’s account came after Facebook removed four videos he posted for violating its rules. These videos were also removed from YouTube, which gave Jones a 90-day ban on broadcasting live on the platform.
‘Our Community Standards make it clear that we prohibit content that encourages physical harm [bullying], or attacks someone based on their religious affiliation or gender identity [hate speech],’ Facebook told Mashable.
‘We remove content that violates our standards as soon as we’re aware of it. In this case, we received reports related to four different videos on the Pages that InfoWars and Alex Jones maintain on Facebook,’ the spokesman added.
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