Alex Jones’ InfoWars media brand has been banned from several social media and digital platforms this week over terms-of-service violations. But a look at InfoWars shows that the conspiracy focused website has many of the same regulations.
Deep within the site’s lengthy terms of service, InfoWars spells out its policies very clearly to potential contributors.
“We may review and delete any content you post on the Website or elsewhere utilizing our Services or System if we determine, in our sole discretion, that the content violates the rights of others, is not appropriate for the Website,” it reads.
“If you violate these rules, your posts and/or user name will be deleted. Remember: you are a guest here. It is not censorship if you violate the rules and your post is deleted. All civilizations have rules and if you violate them you can expect to be ostracized from the tribe.”
You can read it all right here.
On Monday, Apple, Facebook, Spotify, YouTube and Pinterest all moved to effectively ban Jones and InfoWars. Mailchimp and YouPorn joined the club on Tuesday. Platforms cited “terms of service” violations to remove Jones and InfoWars.
“We have taken [Jones] down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies,” said Facebook in a statement.
YouTube said Monday, in part: “All users agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines when they sign up to use YouTube. When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.”
Jones still has a toehold in the Apple App store and on Twitter, and Twitter has so far declined to take any action against him. InfoWars’ No. 2, Paul Joseph Watson, also largely escaped the purge. He still has millions of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter followers as of this writing.
In a YouTube video simply called “Purge,” Watson accused social media companies of “political censorship.”
“Apple, Facebook, Spotify and YouTube all completely banned InfoWars within 12 hours of each other, clearly suggesting big-tech collusion and proving that terms of service are all bulls–” he said. “This is political censorship. This is the purge.”