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One of Jones’ last widespread platforms, Twitter takes action at last.
It certainly took them long enough, but it Twitter finally caved on its tolerance of Alex Jones’ ongoing attacks and violent rhetoric, specifically where key politicians, victims and survivors of horrific tragedies, and basic common sense are concerned.
As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and executives from other social media platforms took to the halls of Congress to testify about key concerns legislators have about the websites, Alex Jones brought his personal carnival sideshow along for the ride.
Twitter has until now been one of Jones’ last widespread platforms, as Apple, Spotify, Facebook, YouTube, and others have all taken action against his content.
Twitter made the announcement via a thread of official tweets.
What pushed Twitter to finally make a stand?
Sadly, it wasn’t for his years of birther tirades or his insistence that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn’t have a basement. Jones wasn’t banned for the six years of inciting hatred and death threats against the parents of the young children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming the shooting never happened and the parents are lying on behalf of a government that wants to take away Americans’ guns.
No, Twitter’s decision followed a ten-minute live Periscope feed that Jones sent forth from Washington, DC, in which he harassed key individuals. One of those was Senator Marco Rubio, who uttered a veiled threat towards Jones when the InfoWar mouthpiece reached out and put a hand on Rubio’s shoulder.
Also in Jones’ busy day was an attack on a CNN reporter with whom he’s taken issue in the past, one that Jones recorded by forcing his cellphone into the reporter’s face.
Is there more to the story?
While Twitter’s official statement is that Jones violated company policies today with his targeted content–despite apparently not violating those policies in the past–users had a few other theories.
Recently, it came to light that Dorsey had overruled some of his employees who had decided to ban Jones and InfoWars, claiming Jones had done nothing wrong.
Others felt like Dorsey’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in which he promised to make Twitter a more open, friendly, and positive environment had more to do with getting rid of Jones than anything else.
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