Yesterday, YouTube announced it was banning Alex Jones' Infowars channel from the social media platform. This comes on the heels of several privately owned media platforms banning his content for violations of their community standards.
In response, Jones tweeted frantically, claiming that he was being censored as part of a conspiracy of "big tech" to shut down conservative voices in advance of the 2018 elections.
In one particularly over the top tweet, Jones suggested we were on the path to tyranny and announced "We are all Alex Jones now."
This inspired many on Twitter to announce that they in fact were not Alex Jones.
At all.
Jones' program content contains a mixture conspiracy theories, right wing rhetoric and ads for the supplements and survivalist supplies Jones sells. That content came under fire again recently when the families of several of his targets, the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, filed a lawsuit against him.
The suffering of those families inspired a renewed push for online platforms to enforce their community guidelines and this time they responded.
YouTube, iTunes, Facebook and Spotify found Jones' content in violation and removed some or all of his content on their platforms.
And led anyone familiar with his program to applaud the decision to remove his incendiary rhetoric.
The false conspiracy theory that the mass shooting that killed 20 children and 6 adults never happened featured on Jones' show many times leading to family members and survivors of the killings being harassed by Jones' followers. In 2018, they brought suit against Jones in response to the years of harassment he caused.
It also led to the hashtag #IAmNotAlexJones after his plea for support.
Jones still maintains his own website, but his reach has been hampered by his banning due to community standards violations.
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