Facebook is suspending conspiracy theorist and InfoWars founder Alex Jones for 30 days for violating the social network’s policy against bullying and hate speech.
“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],” a Facebook spokesperson told TheWrap.
“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 spokesperson added. “We reviewed the content against our Community Standards and determined that it violates. All four videos have been removed from Facebook.”
The suspension only impacts Jones’s personal account. Jones will not be able to make new posts for the month his account is suspended. The Facebook spokesperson added four videos from Jones were reported and removed from the platform — with three of the videos reported on Thursday. The company declined to share which videos were pulled down.
The move comes after the controversial commentator earned a strike and had four InfoWars videos removed from YouTube earlier this week. One showed a grown man pushing a young child to the ground and jokes about “liberalism.” Another warned that transgender individuals are Satanic. A third warned of Muslim migrants taking over Europe.
It was the second strike Jones received from YouTube.
When reached by phone on Thursday, Jones told TheWrap that YouTube’s actions were a threat to the First Amendment.
“The dying dinosaur of corporate media is frothing and champing at the bit to set a precedent to ban independent or alternative media,” said Jones. “Once one domino falls, they all begin to fall. The first amendment is under assault.”