The Twitter accounts of Alex Jones and his show Infowars have not been suspended because the conspiracy theorist hasn’t violated the rules of the social network service, company CEO has explained.
“We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules,” Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said.
However, Twitter will enforce a ban if Jones does violate the rules, the internet entrepreneur said, adding that the platform will “continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.”
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Alex Jones, the host of Infowars, who is often derided by US media as a conspiracy theorist, has recently been excommunicated from the social media platforms of big-tech companies like Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify. This followed a pressure campaign from the US left and CNN. The tech giants accused Jones of ‘hate speech,’ saying that his content and the content of his Infowars channels violated community standards.
Jones attracted controversy after repeatedly claiming that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax, and that the parents of the victims were actors. The 2012 shooting resulted in the deaths of 20 elementary school children and six adults. In April, the parents of two children killed in the massacre said they were suing the Infowars host for defamation.
Amid news of his near-total blacklisting, Jones' InfoWars mobile app surged in popularity, and is ranked third in the 'news' category on Apples app store at time of writing. This ranking places it ahead of apps from CNN, Fox News, and Reddit.
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