YouTube Becomes Latest Service To Ban Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones

The purge of Alex Jones and his right-wing InfoWars outlet from major tech platforms c. The conspiracy theorist was banned from YouTube late Monday morning after the Google-operated video site found his account was in violation of site rules.

YouTube had taken punitive action against Jones in the past, including a ban on livestreaming from his TheRealAlexJones channel, according to CNBC. His account was still up several hours after news broke that Facebook and Apple had effectively purged Jones from their platforms. However, by the afternoon, TheRealAlexJones was “terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.

YouTube confirmed the ban and explained in a statement that Jones had repeatedly violated the site’s policies, thus justifying the ban, per Charlie Warzel of Buzzfeed News.

Facebook and Apple made waves early Monday morning for kickstarting the purge. Apple struck first, removing five InfoWars podcasts from iTunes. Facebook then removed four pages operated by Jones for uploading much of the same content that got him banned from YouTube.

In a company blog post, Facebook justified the ban by Jones had used “dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants.” On Apple’s end, the official InfoWars app is still on the iOS App Store at the time of writing. Spotify also removed Alex Jones content from its streaming service after pressure from subscribers.

The last major holdout in the tech landscape appears to be Twitter, which still has an active and verified Alex Jones page. Jones spent much of the day using that account to bemoan his banning from several other platforms. In one tweet, he said America had been “sold out to communist censorship.”

A Twitter spokesperson told International Business Times that accounts associated with InfoWars do not currently violate Twitter's rules. They also noted that offending content that got Jones banned from other platforms does not always make its way to Twitter and that Twitter would take action in such cases. Furthermore, Twitter said that any false information peddled in tweets by Jones is usually immediately countered in a response.

Facebook, YouTube and the rest are private companies who can allow or disallow people from using their services for any reason. Jones and his followers may protest the bans, but if his various accounts were found in violation of site rules, there is little they can do about it.

Jones infamously uses his shows to spread conspiracy theories, including the claim that the Sandy Hook school shooting did not actually occur. Jones was recently sued for defamation by families of Sandy Hook victims.