Twitter slammed for keeping Alex Jones and InfoWars accounts online

Twitter says that its platform is an automatic antidote to fake news because other accounts often respond with fact checking - AP
Twitter says that its platform is an automatic antidote to fake news because other accounts often respond with fact checking - AP

Twitter has come under fire for keeping controversial talk-show host Alex Jones and InfoWars accounts on its platform because they do not violate its policy.

Its refusal comes as a campaign under the hashtag #banalexjonesnow gathers steam on its own website.

High profile names including former Reddit boss Ellen K. Pao have put pressure on founder Jack Dorsey to remove Jones's blue tick and “be a leader with integrity like Tim Cook”. The Apple boss removed Jones from iTunes over the weekend. 

Twitter said that Jones and his associated accounts were not currently in violation of its rules but that it would be reviewing his account.

The nature of Twitter, it claims, is largely self-policing when it comes to fake news because a number of accounts reply to InfoWars' tweets with counter-narrative.

Twitter is the last of the social media heavyweights to continue to grant Jones a soapbox, along with Amazon, which continues to sell his conspiracy theory films, produced by the InfoWars studio on its marketplace along with Jones-related merchandise such as a colouring book. Amazon declined to comment on whether Jones had violated its policies. 

YouTube decided to delete and ban his channel on Monday, following similar removals from Apple iTunes, Spotify and Facebook.  After YouTube removed Jones he responded by publishing a Twitter video claiming that America "has been sold out to communist censorship".

American radio and TV host Jones has been producing his conspiracy theory-laden show InfoWars since 1996, and amassed a phenomenal global audience even here in the UK. Although focused on American topics, Jones regularly refers to articles in the Sun during his shows.  

He has repeated conspiracy theories including how the September 11 bombings were faked (and that Donald Trump is the man to expose the truth), how the Democrat party has been plotting a civil war (which was due to kick off by July 4 2018) and that the Sandy Hook school shootings were a hoax orchestrated by anti-gun lobbyists.  But it is a recent tirade against Muslims and transgender people that caused Google, Apple and Facebook to act. 

Infowars takedown: | Who banned Alex Jones, and when

Twitter's policy does not allow threats of violence but it has turned a blind eye on some occasions, including in January when Donald Trump threatened Iran with nuclear war and “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKE OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE”.  At the time, Twitter explained that removing Trump “would hide important information people should be able to see and debate”.