The deplatforming of Alex Jones by social media sites should disturb you whether you are a fan or not. I’ve never been a fan of Jones or his Infowars site. I’ve never gotten past the time Jones led an angry mob against Michelle Malkin in 2008. Still, if this can be done to him it can be done to anyone.
Twitter was the last holdout of the Jones purge, but announced their decision yesterday.
Eli Blumenthal writes at USA Today:
Twitter bans conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Infowars from social network for violating ‘abusive behavior’ policyAlex Jones has been kicked off of Twitter.The controversial founder of conspiracy website Infowars was banned from the social network Thursday afternoon. Both Jones’ personal account and that of his website were removed by Twitter.”Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” Twitter’s official Safety account tweeted. “We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations.”
Oliver Darcy of CNN has been leading a one-man crusade to get Jones deplatformed, and Jones confronted him about it outside of a congressional hearing where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was testifying.
ABC News reports:
Twitter said Jones posted a video on Wednesday that violates the company’s policy against “abusive behavior.” That video showed Jones berating CNN journalist Oliver Darcy for some 10 minutes in between two congressional hearings on social media. Dorsey testified at both hearings, but did not appear to witness the confrontation.Jones heckled Darcy in a Capitol Hill hallway where reporters were waiting to enter the House committee room. He criticized the journalist’s reporting and appearance, referencing his “skinny jeans” and repeatedly saying, “just look at this guy’s eyes” and “look at that smile.”At one point, he said Darcy was “smiling like a possum that crawled out of the rear end of a dead cow. That’s what you look like. You look like a possum that got caught doing some really nasty stuff — in my view. You’re a public figure too.”Darcy has aggressively questioned social media companies about the forbearance they showed Jones, asking why they have allowed him to remain on their platforms for as long as they have.
You can see part of the confrontation below:
You may think Jones is just a conspiracy theorist so it doesn’t matter but where does this end, and who decides who gets to speak? Rosie O’Donnell is a 9/11 truther, as are many other celebrities. So is former Obama White House ‘green jobs czar’ Van Jones who now works for… CNN.
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