The New York Attorney General has sent a cease-and-desist letter to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for making false claims about the coronavirus and products on his online store, including a false claim about his toothpaste brand.
According to the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alex-jones-toothpaste-coronavirus_n_5e694142c5b6bd8156f0ce82">Huffington Post</a>, Jones made a claim about the “nanosilver” inside of his toothpaste brand, which he has claimed kills viruses in the coronavirus and SARS family.
“The patented nanosilver we have, the Pentagon has come out and documented and Homeland Security has said this stuff kills the whole SARS-corona family at point-blank range,” Jones said on-air Tuesday. “They’re still discounted despite all the hell breaking loose.”
In a statement to The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/nyregion/alex-jones-coronavirus-cure.html">New York Times</a>, Attorney General Letitia James said that the cease-and-desist notice was designed to halt people from profiting off of lies during the health crisis.
“As the coronavirus continues to pose serious risks to public health, Alex Jones has spewed outright lies and has profited off of New Yorkers’ anxieties,” said James.
Jonathan W. Emord, a lawyer for Jones’ radio program, said the products were not intended “to be used in the treatment of any disease, including the novel coronavirus,” and the attorney general’s office had made a “false” allegation against him, reports the news agency.
According to <a href="https://fox4kc.com/tracking-coronavirus/fda-warning-7-companies-selling-products-that-falsely-claim-to-treat-coronavirus/">Fox News</a>, the FDA recently sent notices to seven companies for promoting anti-coronavirus products, including other companies that were making false claims about the capacity for silver products to stop the coronavirus. 
The FDA states that there is no coronavirus vaccine, and that no products have been approved to prevent or treat the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the coronavirus was now at pandemic levels, reports <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says">NPR</a>. The organization last declared a pandemic in 2009, during the swine flu outbreak. 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist on the White House coronavirus task force, has been informing the American public that the spread of the virus will continue, and that the country should prepare for circumstances to become worse before they improve. 
“It’s certainly going to get worse before it gets better … there’s no doubt we have not peaked yet,” said Fauci, as The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-to-declare-national-emergency">Daily Wire</a> reported Friday. 
Fauci stated that it is currently unclear whether the United States will enact a complete shut-down strategy in the vein of Italy: “I’m not sure we’re going to get to that. I think that would be really rather dramatic, but I can tell you that all things are on the table. We just have to respond as things evolve over the days and the weeks.”
President Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-unleashes-full-power-of-u-s-government-to-fight-coronavirus">announced</a> Friday that the administration was declaring a national emergency, which would “open up access to up to $50 billion of very important and a large amount of money for states and territories and localities in our shared fight against this disease.”
“In furtherance of the order, I’m urging every state to set up emergency operations centers effective immediately,” said Trump. “I’m also asking every hospital in this country to activate its emergency preparedness plan so they can meet the needs of Americans everywhere.”

Alex Jones

New York Warns Alex Jones Against Selling Bogus Anti-Coronavirus Toothpaste

Coronavirus

New York

On Monday, <a href="https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Lawyers-Alex-Jones-sent-child-porn-to-Sandy-Hook-14005437.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Desktop)&amp;utm_source=t.co&amp;utm_medium=referral">reports</a> that Infowars founder Alex Jones sent child pornography to lawyers representing victims from Sandy Hook Elementary School <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/17/infowars-alex-jones-sent-child-porn-sandy-hook-lawyers-docs-say/1481412001/">flooded</a> left-wing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html">websites</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=alex%20jones%20porn&amp;src=typd">social media</a>.
But such a claim is wildly misleading, according to Jones&#8217; lawyer.
It appears, according to a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-offers-dollar1m-reward-after-alleged-malware-attack-that-he-says-planted-child-porn-on-his-servers">report</a> from The Daily Beast, that Jones was ordered to hand over a trove of data to lawyers involved in the Sandy Hook defamation suit against the controversial media personality. In about a dozen threatening emails sent to Infowars &#8220;by one or more anonymous people,&#8221; Sandy Hook lawyers found images of child pornography, which, according to Jones attorney Norman Pattis, were never opened. Sandy Hook legal representation sent over the material to the FBI in late May, when they received the messages, sparking an investigation.
&#8220;I spoke to federal prosecutors last week. They report that there is no indication anyone at InfoWars knowingly possessed child pornography,&#8221; said Pattis, according to the outlet. &#8220;The items were embedded in emails sent to folks at InfoWars without ever having been opened.&#8221;
&#8220;There were 9.6 million emails that were searched; we turned over about 57,000 of them. In 12 of them, there were embedded images of child pornography,&#8221; Pattis <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-offers-dollar1m-reward-after-alleged-malware-attack-that-he-says-planted-child-porn-on-his-servers?ref=scroll">elaborated</a>, appearing on Infowars alongside Jones. &#8220;As it turns out, those emails were never opened, the images were never opened. There&#8217;s no evidence that anybody here, or anybody affiliated with you, or you, ever searched them. So clearly they were placed in there as malware.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve spoken to federal prosecutors, they regard you as a victim. They do not regard you in any way as a suspect,&#8221; he added.
The FBI has not yet confirmed any investigation nor has the agency commented on the matter publicly.
Sandy Hook attorneys claimed in a court filing that &#8220;minimal due diligence&#8221; from Jones would have alerted him to the illegal material.
&#8220;It is worth noting that if the Jones defendants had engaged in even minimal due diligence and actually reviewed the materials before production, they would have found the images themselves,&#8221; the filing said, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/lawyers-for-sandy-hook-families-say-alex-jones-sent-them-child-pornography-11560809877">according</a> to The Wall Street Journal. &#8220;Because the Jones defendants did not do that, they transmitted images to the plaintiffs that if they were knowingly possessed is a serious federal crime.&#8221;
Speaking about the matter on Infowars (in a video which has now been removed from YouTube), Jones <a href="https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Lawyers-Alex-Jones-sent-child-porn-to-Sandy-Hook-14005437.php?mod=article_inline">claimed</a> the FBI told him his media company was the &#8220;victim&#8221; in the child porn scandal. &#8220;I&#8217;m not saying the Sandy Hook lawyers did this,&#8221; he noted.
Days prior, Jones suggested that the illicit material was planted on his server and issued a $1 million reward for information uncovering the apparent set-up.
&#8220;You&#8217;re trying to set me up with child porn, I&#8217;m going to get your a**,&#8221; he said on video, according to The Daily Beast. &#8220;One million dollars, one million dollars you little gang member. One million dollars to put your head on a pike. One million dollars, b****. You&#8217;re not going to ever defeat Texas, you sacks of s***.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t have a lot of money, but I&#8217;ll sell my house,&#8221; he continued.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not into kids like your Democratic party, you c**ks**kers,&#8221; Jones added. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like having sex with children, I would never have sex with children.&#8221;

Alex Jones’ Lawyer: Claim Jones Sent Child Porn To Sandy Hook Lawyers Wildly Misleading

Children

Crime

Last Thursday, Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram permanently banned some individuals and organizations the company deemed &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; Among the permanently deplatformed are Infowars&#8217; Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, notorious anti-Semite and racist Louis Farrakhan, and right-wing activist Laura Loomer.
In an interview with Jones on Wednesday, Loomer broke down in tears discussing how the bans from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have eliminated &#8220;90%&#8221; of her income and &#8220;ruined&#8221; her life.
The interview follows a post by Watson expressing concern about Loomer&#8217;s state of mind following the Facebook, Inc. bans. &#8220;Laura Loomer is now basically making thinly veiled suicide threats because of the way she has been treated. And many on here will laugh. Yet we&#8217;re the &#8216;hateful&#8217; ones. OK,&#8221; Watson tweeted on Thursday following Facebook&#8217;s actions. &#8220;I hope Laura is going to be fine; her friends should check on her.&#8221;
On Wednesday, Loomer appeared on Jones&#8217; much-maligned Infowars show to discuss the targeting of voices on the right by social media platforms and the lack of substantive action by Republicans and President Trump, but Loomer soon became overwhelmed with emotion.
&#8220;Like I said, I confronted Congress when Jack Dorsey was testifying in September, and I begged President Trump &#8212; I begged him to do something before it was too late,&#8221; said Loomer (video below via <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/05/heartbreaking-laura-loomer-breaks-down-in-tears-in-live-interview-my-life-is-ruined-due-to-social-media-targeting-and-banning-video/">GP</a>). &#8220;And that was when I still had access to my Twitter account, but I was mocked &#8230; They mocked me and called me crazy.&#8221;
She then erupted in emotion, exclaiming: &#8220;But what are they doing?! I wanna know what people are actually going to do! My life is ruined! Does anybody understand how ruined my life is?!&#8221; she said, beginning to cry. &#8220;I&#8217;m sick of it &#8212; I don&#8217;t want to listen to people tell me that I&#8217;m a conspiracy theorist! They don&#8217;t know what it&#8217;s like to be me! And I&#8217;m sick of it!&#8221;
In response to Jones pointing out that Trump is at least tweeting about it, she responded: &#8220;I know that he&#8217;s tweeting about it but that&#8217;s not going to stop the fact that I lost 90% of my income. That&#8217;s not going to stop the fact that I literally can&#8217;t make a living anymore &#8212; even though I have a degree! I was valedictorian in college, I graduated top in my class in my journalism program!&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m fighting harder than anybody &#8212; and I&#8217;m being destroyed, and they mock me!&#8221; she said. &#8220;These people don&#8217;t understand like my life is unlivable at this point in time. Like what is the point?&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_RPaBODC9HU" width="853"></iframe></div>
In a statement to The New York Times last Thursday, Facebook downplayed its decision to permanently ban individuals and organizations they deemed, without clear explanation, to be &#8220;dangerous.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology,&#8221; a Facebook representative told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/technology/facebook-alex-jones-louis-farrakhan-ban.html">Times</a>. &#8220;The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today.&#8221;
Related: 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34101/facebook-youtube-and-apple-ban-alex-jones-heres-ben-shapiro">SHAPIRO: Facebook, YouTube, And Apple Ban Alex Jones. Here&#8217;s Why They&#8217;re Dead Wrong.</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38651/watch-laura-loomer-banned-twitter-criticizing-rep-amanda-prestigiacomo">WATCH: Laura Loomer Banned From Twitter For Criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar, Islam. Here&#8217;s Her Response.</a>

WATCH: Laura Loomer Breaks Down In Tears Over Social Media Bans

Facebook

Instagram

Laura Loomer

Twitter

&#8220;I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.&#8221;
These words, written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall to describe the philosophy of Voltaire, should be written on Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s forehead in indelible ink.
Zuckerberg&#8217;s Facebook &#8212; and Instagram as well &#8212; have permanently banned several people they deem &#8220;dangerous&#8221; from their sites. Among the deplatformed are Infowars&#8217; Alex Jones, Nation of Islam&#8217;s Louis Farrakhan and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.
Jones is a lunatic conspiracy theorist, Farrakhan is a hate-filled anti-Semite and Yiannopoulos has pushed anti-liberal trolling to the point of fascism. It would be too little to say I disagree with their points of view. I despise their points of view.
But it is not only wrong for Facebook and Instagram to silence them, they have no right to do it and they should be forced to allow them back on their sites.
Facebook and Instagram are platforms not publishers. Unlike publishers, who can curate their content and are thus responsible for their content, platforms cannot be sued if slanderous material appears on them. In return for that immunity, they should be forced to allow all voices to speak. They should no more be able to censor people than the phone company should be allowed to stop Milo and Farrakhan from having a phone chat about whom they hate the most.
Facebook&#8217;s blatant and, to my mind, illegal act of censorship has nothing to do with keeping people safe. It has to do with silencing conservatives. Farrakhan &#8212; who has swanned around with Barack Obama, Eric Holder and most of the black congressional caucus &#8212; is the spoonful of leftist sugar meant to make the poisoning of the right go down. All the other targets are on the right.
Donald Trump has been so successful in taking over the phrase &#8220;fake news,&#8221; it&#8217;s easy to forget it originated on the left as part of a plan to shut down conservative speech. That plan is now in full operation.
Sharyl Attkisson, the investigative reporter who was forced out of CBS News when CBS refused to run stories that exposed the corruption of the Obama administration, has traced the origin of the &#8220;fake news&#8221; concept to a company called First Draft. First Draft got much of its funding from Google, whose parent company is run by one of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s biggest supporters. After First Draft started beating the &#8220;fake news&#8221; drum during the 2016 campaign, the cry was taken up by Hillary and Obama and, most urgently, by left-wing activist David Brock, who ran the George Soros-funded Media Matters, and other pro-left attack sites.
But the anti-conservative &#8220;fake news&#8221; campaign really took off in December of 2016 after a man fired off some bullets in Comet Ping Pong, the D.C. pizza parlor associated with Pizzagate. Pizzagate, you&#8217;ll recall, was the lunatic right-wing conspiracy theory that involved Hillary and others running a child sex ring out of Comet.
But did the conspiracy theory really originate on the right? Comet, after all, was run by one of Brock&#8217;s former boyfriends.
In any case, Brock had promised he was going to get Facebook and other major platforms to curate their content with the help of left-leaning organizations like Southern Poverty Law Center and Factcheck.Org. And after the shooting, he succeeded. Since the &#8220;fake news&#8221; push, right-wingers, almost exclusively, have become targets of censorship on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
It&#8217;s got to stop, and the government&#8217;s got to stop it. If Facebook is a publisher who can silence Jones and the rest, then we ought to be able to sue Facebook for every slanderous comment that appears on the site.
If they are not a publisher, but a platform, then they must let every voice be heard.
No one wants to stand up for clowns like Jones and Farrakhan. But while their rhetoric may indeed be ugly, it is nowhere near as dangerous as censorship of Americans by huge, powerful, monopolistic corporations like Facebook.

KLAVAN: Facebook Censorship Should be Stopped

Free Speech

Louis Farrakhan

Without giving a warning or any specific reason, Facebook purged a number of &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/instagram-and-facebook-ban-far-right-extremists/588607/">far-right extremists</a>&#8221; from its platform this week. Paul Joseph Watson, Milo Yiannopolous, Alex Jones, and Laura Loomer were all summarily banished. Louis Farrakhan was also given the boot &#8212; though he is not, despite media claims, in any way &#8220;far-right.&#8221;
This ban reaches farther than anything we&#8217;ve yet seen. Facebook and Instagram will neither allow links to their content nor mentions of any events they attend. According to the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/instagram-and-facebook-ban-far-right-extremists/588607/">The Atlantic</a>, the only Infowars content permitted on either platform is that which expressly condemns Infowars:
<blockquote>
Infowars is subject to the strictest ban. Facebook and Instagram will remove any content containing Infowars videos, radio segments, or articles (unless the post is explicitly condemning the content), and Facebook will also remove any groups set up to share Infowars content and events promoting any of the banned extremist figures, according to a company spokesperson. (Twitter, YouTube, and Apple have also banned Jones and Infowars.)
</blockquote>
The social media conglomerate offered only vague justifications for this move. It claimed that the targeted people are guilty of &#8220;hate&#8221; and &#8220;violence,&#8221; and are therefore &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; As for evidence of this dangerous hate and violence, it gave only a few rather bizarre examples. From the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48142098">BBC</a>:
<blockquote>
It said Alex Jones had hosted on his programme Gavin McInnes, leader of the Proud Boys, whose members are known for racist, anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Mr McInnes has been designated a &#8220;hate figure&#8221; by Facebook.
Facebook said this year Milo Yiannopoulos had publicly praised both Mr McInnes and English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, both banned from the network.
Laura Loomer also appeared with Mr McInnes, and Facebook said she also praised another banned figure, Faith Goldy, a Canadian.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was banned for making several anti-Semitic remarks earlier this year.
</blockquote>
Apparently it is a violation of Facebook&#8217;s policies to speak positively anywhere in public about people Facebook doesn&#8217;t like. Yiannopolous has been banned not for promoting Gavin McInnes on Facebook, but for expressing positive opinions about him in public. Can I then be banned for writing this article questioning the decision to ban these newly dubbed &#8220;hate figures?&#8221; I suppose I&#8217;ll find out soon enough.
Indeed, it is impossible to know ahead of time whether you are operating according to the rules or in defiance of them, because the rules are intentionally obscure. What counts as &#8220;hate&#8221;&#8221; What is &#8220;extreme?&#8221; Which ideas are &#8220;dangerous?&#8221; Well, we can only try and narrow it down by the process of elimination.
Hamas and Hezbollah must not be considered &#8220;hateful&#8221; because they still have <a href="https://twitter.com/thealexvanness/status/1124337082594463745">Facebook pages</a>. This <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1124116485109100545">burlesque performer</a> posted a picture of herself half-naked with a young girl stuffing dollar bills into her underwear while the girl&#8217;s parents watched and cheered. She still has a page, so I guess the exploitation and abuse of children is not &#8220;dangerous,&#8221; according to Facebook. Speaking of which, this <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DesmondisAmazing/">11-year-old drag queen</a> has a page, though dressing a child in drag seems both dangerous and &#8220;extreme&#8221; by any objective standard. PETA is extreme. The Animal Liberation Front is extreme. The National Abortions Rights Action League is extreme. Michael Moore is extreme. Sarah Silverman is extreme. Al Sharpton is extreme. Bill Maher is extreme. Everybody at the Daily Kos and Think Progress is extreme. All of these people and organizations, and the hundreds similar to them, are not only extreme but often quite hateful, yet their Facebook presence has not been interrupted by either bans or suspensions.
It seems that Facebook is operating with the same definition of &#8220;extremism&#8221; and &#8220;hatred&#8221; as the above-cited left-wing extremists themselves. If they were really interested in enforcing some objective and fair set of rules, they wouldn&#8217;t have waited to issue all of these bans at the same time, as part of one big P.R. spectacle. If Alex Jones were going to be banned for spreading the insane and evil Sandy Hook conspiracy theory, Facebook would have made that move five years ago. If Yiannopolous or Watson or Loomer really did something that violates the terms of service (and, in Watson&#8217;s case especially, I have no clue what that could possibly be), then they would have been kicked off the platform in response to that specific violation. Instead, Facebook handled it this way because the real &#8220;violation&#8221; is political. Whether these individuals can rightly be described as &#8220;extremist&#8221; or not, their only sin, in Facebook&#8217;s eyes, is that their alleged extremism falls on the right end of the political spectrum. The extremists and hateful bigots on the Left &#8212; of which there are many &#8212; have been granted full immunity.
Two questions now arise: (1) Is Facebook correct to censor people based on politics?; and (2) Does Facebook have the moral right to censor people based on politics?
The answer to the first question is obviously no. A social media giant with over a billion users suppressing speech is far more dangerous than a right-winger expressing his views in a blog post or a YouTube video. Facebook&#8217;s underhanded, dishonest, and absurdly biased actions should be condemned by anyone who cares about the free and open expression of ideas (an increasingly small group, perhaps).
The answer to the second question is more complicated. One thing I can say for sure is that Facebook does not have the right to smear and libel anyone. If they are going to publicly label someone like Paul Joseph Watson &#8220;dangerous,&#8221; &#8220;hateful,&#8221; and &#8220;violent,&#8221; they must provide evidence for that description. Otherwise they are baselessly defaming him, and that defamation, coming as it does from one of the most powerful companies in the world, will certainly have a negative impact on his life and professional career.
Leaving aside the libelous aspect of the matter, the question of whether or not Facebook has the moral or legal right to censor as it sees fit really comes down to category. What is Facebook? Is it a public utility, like a phone company? Is it just a &#8220;platform?&#8221; If so, what is a platform and how exactly can it be distinguished from a utility? Could a phone company claim that it is just a platform for phone calls? And if a platform makes editorial decisions about the content it publishes &#8212; such as allowing only negative references to Infowars &#8212; then hasn&#8217;t it actually become more of a publisher than a platform? And if it&#8217;s a publisher, then isn&#8217;t it responsible for everything posted to the site &#8212; such as that picture of the young girl and the burlesque dancer?
I don&#8217;t know the answers to all of these questions. But I do know that Facebook can&#8217;t weave around the cones forever, never defining itself or explaining what it is and how it operates. Facebook has to be one thing or the other or the other. It can&#8217;t be all three. And whatever it decides to be, ultimately, it must accept the responsibilties that come with that.

WALSH: Why Facebook’s War On ‘Hate’ Is Just A Thin Excuse To Censor Conservatives

Censorship

Media

Milo Yiannopoulos

Technology

On Thursday, Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook, Inc.) permanently banned &#8220;dangerous individuals and organizations&#8221; from their platforms. Infowars founder Alex Jones, self-described investigative journalist Laura Loomer, Infowars&#8217; Paul Joseph Watson, provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan were among those included in the de-platforming.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology,&#8221; a statement from a Facebook representative said, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/technology/facebook-alex-jones-louis-farrakhan-ban.html">according</a> to The New York Times. &#8220;The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/media-outlets-label-louis-farrakhan-a-far-right-leader">highlighted</a> by The Washington Examiner, the mainstream media went out of their way to label Farrakhan as a &#8220;far-right leader&#8221; when reporting the censorship:
<blockquote>
The New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, and the Atlantic were among news organizations that used this description of Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and a virulent anti-Semite who has long been associated with left-wing politics. After receiving almost immediate criticism for the &#8220;right-wing&#8221; characterization on social media, outlets scrambled their articles.
</blockquote>
Watson, one of the only purged personalities who still maintains a Twitter account, reacted to the act of censorship in a series of tweets. &#8220;Reports are true. I have been banned by Facebook. Was given no reason. I broke none of their rules,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;In an authoritarian society controlled by a handful of Silicon Valley giants, all dissent must be purged.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Reports are true.
I have been banned by Facebook.
Was given no reason. I broke none of their rules.
In an authoritarian society controlled by a handful of Silicon Valley giants, all dissent must be purged.
Please visit <a href="https://t.co/4psjfSdF96">https://t.co/4psjfSdF96</a> while it still exists.
&#8212; Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1124020603688820740?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Watson suggested Loomer was contemplating suicide over the de-platforming. &#8220;Laura Loomer is now basically making thinly veiled suicide threats because of the way she has been treated. And many on here will laugh. Yet we&#8217;re the &#8216;hateful&#8217; ones. OK,&#8221; Watson wrote. &#8220;I hope Laura is going to be fine; her friends should check on her.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Laura Loomer is now basically making thinly veiled suicide threats because of the way she has been treated. And many on here will laugh. Yet we&#8217;re the &#8220;hateful&#8221; ones. OK.
I hope Laura is going to be fine, her friends should check on her.
&#8212; Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) <a href="https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1124064021672603649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Jones had his Twitter account permanently banned in September after he confronted a CNN reporter about his de-platforming from other tech companies, CNBC <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/35563/twitter-permanently-bans-alex-jones-infowars-day-ryan-saavedra">reported</a> at the time: &#8220;The ban appears to be related to a heated exchange between Jones and a CNN reporter Wednesday, which Jones live streamed on the Twitter-owned video service Periscope. Jones ranted at the reporter, as well as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, following back-to-back congressional hearings where Dorsey addressed online election meddling, as well as accusations of political bias and conservative censorship on the platform.&#8221;
Twitter said in a statement that they &#8220;took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos &#8230; that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts&#8217; past violations.&#8221;
As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34101/facebook-youtube-and-apple-ban-alex-jones-heres-ben-shapiro">noted</a> in August, soon after Apple, Facebook, and YouTube decided to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/06/apple-pulls-alex-jones-infowars-podcasts-for-hate-speech.html">remove content from Infowars</a> in an apparently coordinated effort, the censorship &#8220;is a problem.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s a problem because these policies are extraordinarily vague,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;These policies aren&#8217;t merely designed to crack down on speech openly advocating or threatening violence, or containing obscenity. These policies are deliberately unclear as well as political.&#8221;
Shapiro underscored how so-called &#8220;hate speech&#8221; is completely subjective:
<blockquote>
What, for example, constitutes &#8220;hate speech&#8221;? Much of what Jones and his employees say is absolutely rotten pig excrement, but there&#8217;s no definition of hate speech that has a limiting principle. Is it &#8220;using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender&#8221; to state that transgender people suffer from a mental disorder? Or that they are not in fact members of the gender to which they claim membership? What constitutes &#8220;hate speech&#8221; when discussing the relationship between radical Islam and terrorism? None of this has been made clear.
</blockquote>
&#8220;How exactly are we supposed to trust in free and open debate when those setting the limits are openly setting them up with embedded double-standards?&#8221; Shapiro asked. &#8220;The answer is, we don&#8217;t. Trust in social media is declining nearly as fast as trust in media overall. There&#8217;s a reason for that. And it&#8217;s not because social media tolerates voices like Jones. It&#8217;s because they don&#8217;t tolerate voices like Jones while tolerating voices who are just as bad on the political Left &#8211; and they show no signs of limiting their censorship to Alex Jones.&#8221;

Facebook, Instagram Ban ‘Dangerous’ Figures: Alex Jones, Laura Loomer, Paul Joseph Watson

According to multiple reports, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to hand down another indictment, and once again it doesn&#8217;t have much to do with Donald Trump. But it does relate to everyone&#8217;s favorite social media-banned, red-faced, shirtless conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, Alex Jones.
Harvard-educated bestselling author and former Infowars Washington bureau chief Jerome Corsi says he&#8217;s been having a lot of discussions with Mueller&#8217;s team over the last two months, and he fully expects to be indicted anytime now. The whole experience, he told <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-witness-expects-charged-mueller-probe/story?id=59148352">ABC News</a>, has been &#8220;a horror show,&#8221; a true &#8220;nightmare.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re going to charge me with,&#8221; Corsi told ABC in an interview Monday. &#8220;I think my only crime was that I support Donald Trump. That&#8217;s my crime, and now I&#8217;m going to go to prison for the rest of my life for cooperating with them.&#8221;
ABC notes that Corsi is one of more than a dozen individuals connected to Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump who Mueller&#8217;s team has been investigating concerning their role in the 2016 election, particularly in connection to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Reports indicate that Mueller suspects that Stone was in communications with Assange and gained prior knowledge about his release of the leaked Clinton campaign emails that helped undermine her ultimately failed run in the last few weeks leading up to the election.
&#8220;The witnesses, many of whom have appeared before the grand jury impaneled by Mueller&#8217;s team, have told ABC News they were asked about Stone&#8217;s dealings during the 2016 election and what if any contact he may have had with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange through an intermediary, which Stone denies,&#8221; ABC reports.
Corsi said that after 40 hours of talking with Mueller&#8217;s team, it had &#8220;<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/12/roger-stone-ally-indictment-mueller-984950">all blown up</a>,&#8221; leaving him expecting an indictment soon. The charges, he said, would be the result of a &#8220;perjury trap&#8221; set by Mueller.
The special counsel&#8217;s handling of the case, he underscored, was out of control, &#8220;an inquisition worthy of the KGB or the Gestapo.&#8221;
&#8220;I feel like I&#8217;ve been through an interrogation session in North Korea in the Korean war,&#8221; said Corsi.
Corsi began working for Infowars in 2017 as their Washington bureau chief, but has since left. Prior to his time with Jones and co., he worked for WolrdNetDaily and Human Events. After earning his PhD in political science from Harvard in 1972, Corsi eventually became a bestselling author for his books &#8220;Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry&#8221; (2004) and &#8220;The Obama Nation&#8221; (2008).

New Mueller Indictment Expected Soon: Former Infowars D.C. Bureau Chief

Infowars

Robert Mueller

Roger Stone

Twitter permanently banned the accounts of Alex Jones and Infowars from the platform on Thursday after Jones aggressively confronted a CNN reporter yesterday who led the push for social media companies to ban Jones from their platforms.
&#8220;The ban appears to be related to a heated exchange between Jones and a CNN reporter Wednesday, which Jones live streamed on the Twitter-owned video service Periscope,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/twitter-permanently-bans-alex-jones-and-infowars-accounts.html">CNBC</a> reported. &#8220;Jones ranted at the reporter, as well as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, following back-to-back congressional hearings where Dorsey addressed online election meddling, as well as accusations of political bias and conservative censorship on the platform.&#8221;
&#8220;We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts&#8217; past violations,&#8221; Twitter said in a statement.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
As we continue to increase transparency around our rules and enforcement actions, we wanted to be open about this action given the broad interest in this case. We do not typically comment on enforcement actions we take against individual accounts, for their privacy.
&#8212; Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804428877680640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
The ban comes after Jones went after CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, accusing him of leading the way in trying to get companies to ban Infowars from using their platforms.
Jones specifically accused Darcy of &#8220;lobbying to get media taken down,&#8221; &#8220;lobbying to shut people down,&#8221; and &#8220;asking people why they aren&#8217;t shut down.&#8221;
Darcy claimed that none of those statements by Jones were true.
However, a review of previous statements made by Darcy shows that Darcy is the one who is not being truthful. Here are just a few of Darcy&#8217;s tweets:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Facebook invited me to an event today where the company aimed to tout its commitment to fighting fake news and misinformation.
I asked them why InfoWars is still allowed on the platform.
I didn&#8217;t get a good answer.<a href="https://t.co/WwLgqa6vQ4">https://t.co/WwLgqa6vQ4</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1017242469308788741?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Important to note that tech platforms did not enforce their own rules and take action against Alex Jones / InfoWars on their own accord.
It took media outlets to point out for weeks that InfoWars was skirting the rules on these tech platforms for them to enforce own standards.
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1026480169769418752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
New: After our review of the Alex Jones and InfoWars accounts, Twitter now concedes rules were violated multiple times. But it says InfoWars and Jones will remain on the platform for now. <a href="https://t.co/qAGHod4QB3">https://t.co/qAGHod4QB3</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1028085977263296512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
FWIW, you initially said that you were allowing InfoWars/Alex Jones on Twitter because they hadn&#8217;t violated any rules. That was false. Twitter has since conceded multiple rule violations, one as recently as this week. Now only action Twitter has taken is giving Jones a &#8220;timeout.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/qq08OtNNPd">https://t.co/qq08OtNNPd</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1029789693448085504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Joined <a href="https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@anacabrera</a> to talk about Twitter &amp; InfoWars. Twitter now admits InfoWars violated its rules, but it&#8217;s still allowing InfoWars &amp; Alex Jones to remain on its platform &#8212; a move that is leaving some wondering why no meaningful action has been taken <a href="https://t.co/kagazmzK9G">https://t.co/kagazmzK9G</a> <a href="https://t.co/x849YVX4P7">pic.twitter.com/x849YVX4P7</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1028369351383035905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
&#8212;<a href="https://twitter.com/jack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jack</a> suggests to NBC News that putting Alex Jones in a Twitter &#8220;timeout&#8221; has the potential to change his behavior and get him to follow the rules. Uhhh <a href="https://t.co/qFJlHD927k">pic.twitter.com/qFJlHD927k</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1029783806549676032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
ICYMI, Twitter conceded on Friday night that InfoWars has, in fact, broken its rules (contrary to what <a href="https://twitter.com/jack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jack</a> declared earlier in the week). But Twitter says, despite the violations, Alex Jones &amp; InfoWars will be permitted to stay on the platform. <a href="https://t.co/Fs79qeUuWd">https://t.co/Fs79qeUuWd</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1028268190718193670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en">
Facebook has pledged to do more to stop the spread of misinformation and false news on its platform. So why hasn&#8217;t it banned InfoWars, one of the leading purveyors of bad info online? <a href="https://twitter.com/brianstelter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@brianstelter</a> and I discuss on <a href="https://twitter.com/ReliableSources?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ReliableSources</a> <a href="https://t.co/iAw3nRABpZ">https://t.co/iAw3nRABpZ</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1018591255574409217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
do the Facebook people know what infowars is? <a href="https://t.co/My9AKgWXyo">https://t.co/My9AKgWXyo</a>
&#8212; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1017533199445000193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

Twitter Permanently Bans Alex Jones, Infowars Day After Congressional Testimony

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is urging the media to ignore rabble-rousing radio host Alex Jones, who on Wednesday confronted the Florida Republican outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill.
&#8220;I know you&#8217;ve got to cover them, but you give these guys way too much attention,&#8221; Rubio said of Jones, according to Twitter post by a CNN reporter. &#8220;We&#8217;re making crazy people superstars. So, we [are] going to get crazier people.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Rubio, to reporters, on the Alex Jones interaction, via <a href="https://twitter.com/tedbarrettcnn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@tedbarrettcnn</a>: &#8220;I know you&#8217;ve got to cover them, but you give these guys way too much attention. We&#8217;re making crazy people superstars. So, we going to get crazier people.&#8221;
&#8212; Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) <a href="https://twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly/status/1037396049973915654?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Jones &#8212; the founder of Infowars who has said the September 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job and that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax &#8212; confronted Rubio as he was taking questions from the press on Wednesday. Jones, who was deplatformed by Apple, Facebook and YouTube in an apparently coordinated action by big tech, got in Rubio&#8217;s face.
&#8220;What about the Democrats purging conservatives? He&#8217;s not answering,&#8221; Jones said to Rubio. &#8220;Republicans are acting like this isn&#8217;t happening. Thank God Trump is.&#8221;
Rubio turned his attention to reporters and cautioned that oppressive regimes like that of China can and have used censorship to censor &#8220;the truth.&#8221;
&#8220;The Democrats are doing what you say China does,&#8221; interjected Jones.
&#8220;Is that a heckler? I just don&#8217;t know who you are, man,&#8221; Rubio told Jones. &#8220;I don&#8217;t really go on your website.&#8221;
&#8220;He plays dumb. Inforwars.com, you know what it is, full well. That&#8217;s why you didn&#8217;t get elected. You&#8217;re a snake,&#8221; Jones responded. &#8220;Marco Rubio the snake. A little frat boy, here.&#8221;
As Jones protested that Rubio knew who he was, he briefly placed his hand on the senator&#8217;s shoulder.
&#8220;Don&#8217;t touch me again, man,&#8221; said Rubio. &#8220;I&#8217;m asking you not to touch me again.&#8221;
&#8220;I just patted you nicely,&#8221; responded Jones, adding &#8220;I don&#8217;t wanna get arrested.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;re not gonna get arrested, man. I&#8217;ll take care of it myself,&#8221; Rubio answered.
&#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re gonna beat me up?&#8221; Jones asked. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t say that,&#8221; Rubio replied.
&#8220;You really are a little gangster thug,&#8221; continued Jones. &#8220;Rubio just threatened to physically take care of me.&#8221;
Rubio laughed off Jones and took a question from a reporter about potentially regulating social media networks as a utility, which the senator said he would prefer not to do.
&#8220;But that&#8217;s already going on, here,&#8221; Jones interjected again. &#8220;The Democrats are raping the Republicans. The Democrats are raping Infowars.&#8221;
Rubio ended the spectacle and told reporters as he left, &#8220;You guys can talk to this clown.&#8221;
&#8220;Look at this little frat boy, so cool. Go back to your bath house!&#8221; yelled Jones. &#8220;There goes Rubio. Little punk.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet"></div>

‘We’re Making Crazy People Superstars’: Marco Rubio Urges Media To Stop Giving Alex Jones ‘Attention’

Marco Rubio

In today&#8217;s episode of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/35489/ep-212-anti-social-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Michael Knowles Show</a>,&#8221; Michael explains how he thinks Marco Rubio should have handled his run-in with Alex Jones.
&#8220;You can&#8217;t win an altercation with Alex Jones. That&#8217;s not gonna happen. Alex Jones creates spectacle. There is no way to win that,&#8221; Knowles said. &#8220;There&#8217;s no way to look cool doing that. Denying that you know who he is, trying to laugh at him, trying to get in his face, trying to threaten him, whatever.&#8221;
Rubio should have instead walked away sooner, Knowles suggested.
&#8220;So, I think he should have just walked away sooner. If you get down into a fight with Alex Jones, you can&#8217;t leave it looking good. You can&#8217;t,&#8221; Knowles said. &#8220;This is true of a lot of people in politics, but you can&#8217;t leave it looking good.&#8221;
Video and transcript below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QxZAMf1mlJo?start=1179" width="560"></iframe></div>
(Plays clip of Rubio and Jones)
So, there&#8217;s so much here. If you couldn&#8217;t hear that, that would be Mr. Marco Rubio &#8211; and Alex Jones comes into this little press gaggle and just starts getting right in Rubio&#8217;s face. There&#8217;s a big debate happening right now over how Rubio handled this.
I got to say I think he could have handled it better. I don&#8217;t think this was the best way. If Alex Jones gets up in your face, starts screaming at you &#8211; you&#8217;re at a hearing about big tech censorship of people &#8211; and Alex Jones is one of the big faces of tech censoring people on the Right. I use the term &#8216;the Right&#8217; broadly, because Alex Jones probably wouldn&#8217;t be considered a conservative or call himself a conservative. He&#8217;s a little more out there than that, but certainly he does fall broadly within the Right. There is no way that Marco Rubio doesn&#8217;t know who he is. Of course Marco Rubio knows who he is! Everybody knows who he is. He&#8217;s on TV all the time, because, Alex Jones, as you saw in that clip is very good at making a spectacle. So of course, he does.
I just felt like this is the kind of classic politician response. Say: &#8220;Oh, I haven&#8217;t seen that!&#8221; Whenever there&#8217;s a damaging video or somebody does a hit piece or does a damaging advertisement or something they say: &#8220;Oh, I haven&#8217;t seen it! I&#8217;ve heard about it, but I haven&#8217;t seen it.&#8221; And they deny and they deny, but that&#8217;s not credible here.
And then Marco Rubio says: &#8220;I swear to God, I don&#8217;t know who you are.&#8221; Which is, I think, for a lot of listeners a little jarring because we all know that Marco Rubio knows who Alex Jones is. So, you say: &#8220;I swear to God.&#8221; What are you doing here? What is the game that you&#8217;re playing? And also Alex Jones isn&#8217;t gonna take that for an answer. And I&#8217;ll show you how this ends up.
(Plays second clip)
I pity Marco Rubio here, because, you know, what was he going to do in this situation?
But I think that what he did was just leave at the end, right, he said: &#8220;Okay I&#8217;m leaving my little press gaggle and you guys can talk to Alex Jones. I&#8217;m getting out of here,&#8221; because it was so awkward.
It was not making good video. It didn&#8217;t look good. He should have done that the second he saw Alex Jones from down the hallway, said like nope. Not. See ya.
You can&#8217;t win an altercation with Alex Jones. That&#8217;s not gonna happen.
Alex Jones creates spectacle. There is no way to win that. There&#8217;s no way to look cool doing that. Denying that you know who he is, trying to laugh at him, trying to get in his face, trying to threaten him, whatever.
It doesn&#8217;t work. The guy is immune to it, because they&#8217;re turning the frogs gay, you know.
So, I think he should have just walked away sooner. If you get down into a fight with Alex Jones, you can&#8217;t leave it looking good. You can&#8217;t. This is true of a lot of people in politics, but you can&#8217;t leave it looking good.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch more of The Michael Knowles Show here</a>.

You Can’t Win An Altercation With Alex Jones

Michael Knowles

After his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/35467/watch-alex-jones-meets-marco-rubio-washington-amanda-prestigiacomo">run-in with Alex Jones</a>, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told reporters that they&#8217;re the reason people like the InfoWars host have such a following.
&#8220;I know you&#8217;ve got to cover it, but you give these guys way too much attention,&#8221; Rubio said. &#8220;We&#8217;re making crazy people superstars, so you&#8217;re going to get crazier people.&#8221;
Rubio&#8217;s claim doesn&#8217;t just apply to Jones. White Nationalist Richard Spencer wasn&#8217;t widely known to the general public until media outlets like CNN, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast began giving him wall-to-wall coverage in an effort to make then-candidate Donald Trump look like he was emboldening racists. It was the media that amplified those voices.
Evidence of this comes from the recent &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally that was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/12/637955059/d-c-prepares-for-white-supremacist-rally-and-counterprotests">attended by few</a> in D.C. Spencer wasn&#8217;t there, and the person who hosted the rally hadn&#8217;t been covered extensively by the media.
Not everyone needs or deserves coverage, and the media&#8217;s selective coverage in order to craft a narrative gives &#8220;crazy people,&#8221; as Rubio called them, more attention than they deserve.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Rubio to reporters just now: &#8220;I know you&#8217;ve got to cover it, but you give these guys way too much attention. We&#8217;re making crazy people superstars, so you&#8217;re going to get crazier people.&#8221;
&#8212; Olivia PC (@olivia_pc) <a href="https://twitter.com/olivia_pc/status/1037393249160376321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

Rubio Tells Reporters: You’re ‘Making Crazy People Superstars’

Donald Trump

On Wednesday, Inforwars founder Alex Jones and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) clashed in Washington, D.C. outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on internet censorship.
As Rubio was taking questions from the press, Jones inserted himself into the mix to ask the senator about social media censorship within the United States. Early last month, Jones was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34101/facebook-youtube-and-apple-ban-alex-jones-heres-ben-shapiro">deplatformed</a> by Apple, Facebook, and YouTube, an apparently coordinated action by big tech.
Jones continually inquired about the purging of conservatives from big tech. &#8220;What about the Democrats purging conservatives? He&#8217;s not answering,&#8221; said Jones to Rubio. &#8220;Republicans are acting like this isn&#8217;t happening. Thank God Trump is.&#8221;
Rubio turned his attention to reporters and cautioned that oppressive regimes like that of China can and have used censorship to censor &#8220;the truth.&#8221;
&#8220;The Democrats are doing what you say China does,&#8221; interjected Jones.
&#8220;Is that a heckler? I just don&#8217;t know who you are, man,&#8221; Rubio told Jones. &#8220;I don&#8217;t really go on your website.&#8221;
&#8220;He plays dumb. Inforwars.com, you know what it is, full well. That&#8217;s why you didn&#8217;t get elected. You&#8217;re a snake,&#8221; Jones responded. &#8220;Marco Rubio the snake. A little frat boy, here.&#8221;
As Jones protested that Rubio knew who he was, he briefly placed his hand on the senator&#8217;s shoulder.
&#8220;Don&#8217;t touch me again, man,&#8221; said Rubio. &#8220;I&#8217;m asking you not to touch me again.&#8221;
&#8220;I just patted you nicely,&#8221; responded Jones, adding &#8220;I don&#8217;t wanna get arrested.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;re not gonna get arrested, man. I&#8217;ll take care of it myself,&#8221; Rubio answered.
&#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re gonna beat me up?&#8221; Jones asked. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t say that,&#8221; Rubio replied.
&#8220;You really are a little gangster thug,&#8221; continued Jones. &#8220;Rubio just threatened to physically take care of me.&#8221;
Rubio laughed off Jones and took a question from a reporter about potentially regulating social media networks as a utility, which the senator said he would prefer not to do.
&#8220;But that&#8217;s already going on, here,&#8221; Jones interjected again. &#8220;The Democrats are raping the Republicans. The Democrats are raping Infowars.&#8221;
Rubio ended the spectacle and told reporters as he left, &#8220;You guys can talk to this clown.&#8221;
&#8220;Look at this little frat boy, so cool. Go back to your bath house!&#8221; yelled Jones. &#8220;There goes Rubio. Little punk.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://t.co/otzwqu5wlA">https://t.co/otzwqu5wlA</a>
&#8212; Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) <a href="https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1037351378572730370?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet"></div>

WATCH: Alex Jones Meets Marco Rubio In Washington And Things Get Hot: ‘Don’t Touch Me Again’

A well-qualified high school graduate was allegedly rejected by a prestigious college for merely following Infowars founder Alex Jones on Twitter, says attorney Bradley Shear.
Shear says his 17-year-old client was fiercely questioned by the college&#8217;s admissions director, not about his stellar grades and extracurriculars, but about his &#8220;transgression&#8221; of following the controversial host on social media. &#8220;My client had never &#8216;liked&#8217; or re-tweeted any of Mr. Jones&#8217; content,&#8221; said the attorney. &#8220;His alleged &#8216;transgression&#8217; was that he followed Mr. Jones on Twitter. That was it.&#8221;
According to a College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/college-rejects-applicant-for-following-alex-jones-on-twitter-lawyer-says/">report</a>, the college agreed to a settlement with the student to bypass any negative press. Shear has declined to name the school or his client.
Highlighting the alleged bias, Shear <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/08/30/attorney-claims-college-applicant-was-rejected-by-university-for-following-alex-jones-on-twitter?utm_content=buffer4d02b&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=theblaze">noted</a> that the admissions director was a fan of Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and followed other far-left groups on social media.
&#8220;While I am not a listener or supporter of Mr. Jones, his audience has every right to watch his videos and listen to him and connect with him online since we live in a free country,&#8221; wrote Shear in a blog post. &#8220;Unfortunately, some college admissions officials believe that applicants who connect with him online regardless of whether they believe Mr. Jones&#8217; theories should not be provided an opportunity to attend the country&#8217;s most prestigious higher education institutions.&#8221;
A search and weaponization of prospective students&#8217; personal social media accounts is commonplace, warns Shear. Another client of his, for example, was allegedly deprived of a $250,000 scholarship offer by a top school over a Facebook emoji and &#8220;like&#8221; concerning the 2016 presidential election.
&#8220;This isn&#8217;t a Republican or Democratic issue; but an issue regarding the future of our country,&#8221; he told the Fix.
Shear is currently advocating for laws which would prevent such social media tracking by colleges and universities.

Attorney: Student Rejected By Prestigious College For Following Alex Jones On Twitter

In the aftermath of the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, InfoWars&#8217; Alex Jones has made numerous contentious allegations, including that the government &#8220;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/15/alex-jones-on-boston-blasts-us-govt-is-prime-su/193635">staged</a>&#8221; the incident and that &#8220;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/06/13/here-exactly-what-alex-jones-has-said-about-sandy-hook-massacre/216889">actors</a>&#8221; were used in the process.
While family members and journalists have been pushing back against the conspiracy theories promulgated by Jones for more than five years, in April, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, the parents of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner, filed a defamation lawsuit.
The lawsuit <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4439149-Pozner-Original-Petition-File-Stamped.html&#8203;">states in part</a>:
<blockquote>
This conspiracy theory, which has been pushed by InfoWars and Mr. Jones since the day of the shooting, alleges that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen, or that it was staged by the government and concealed using actors, and that the parents of the victims are participants in a horrifying cover-up.
</blockquote>
The text of the suit goes on to quote Jones, who has claimed that Veronique De La Rosa&#8217;s interview with CNN&#8217;s Anderson Cooper was staged in front of a blue-screen, that footage of the children exiting the school was a &#8220;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2016/11/29/51292/gcn-alexjones-20141228-sandyhook">photo-op</a>,&#8221; and that the entire shooting was a &#8220;giant hoax,&#8221; among other disturbing assertions.
Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner have allegedly had to change addresses as many as seven times due to &#8220;death threats and online harassment,&#8221; according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/alex-jones-defamation-suit-sandy-hook.html">The New York Times</a>.
The lawsuit claims that the statements made by Jones and InfoWars are defamatory, and demands &#8220;relief in excess of $1,000,000,&#8221; as well as a trial by jury:
<blockquote>
[The] broadcasts, while defamatory in their own right, are also continuations and elaborations of an underlying defamatory assertion which Defendants have advanced since 2013, namely that the Plaintiffs have lied to the American people about the death of their son and have participated in a horrifying criminal cover-up&#8230;
Plaintiffs have suffered general and special damages, including a severe degree of mental stress and anguish which have disrupted their daily routine and caused a high degree of psychological pain. Plaintiffs have also suffered damage to their reputation and image, both up to the present and into the future&#8230;
Pursuant to Rule 47 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiffs are seeking relief in excess of $1,000,000. Plaintiff demands a jury trial and tenders the appropriate fee with this petition.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lawsuit-alexjones/conspiracy-theorist-jones-seeks-halt-of-sandy-hook-defamation-suit-idUSKBN1KM4GI">Reuters</a> reports that on August 1, attorneys for Alex Jones argued that the defamation lawsuit should be thrown out. Attorney Mark Enoch defended his client, stating in part: &#8220;Maybe it&#8217;s fringe speech. Maybe it&#8217;s dangerous speech, but it is not defamation.&#8221;
According to The New York Times, Jones was attempting to use the Texas Citizens Participation Act &#8220;which protects citizens&#8217; right to free speech against plaintiffs who aim to silence them through costly litigation&#8221; to invalidate the defamation lawsuit.
On Thursday, however, Judge Scott Jenkins ruled against Jones, meaning that the lawsuit can move forward.
<a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/30/media/alex-jones-pozner-defamation-suit/index.html">CNN Money</a> reports that the court filing stated: &#8220;After considering the arguments of counsel and the record, including plaintiffs&#8217; declarations filed on August 2, the court orders that defendants&#8217; motion is in all respects denied.&#8221;
As of publication, Jones has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/us/politics/alex-jones-infowars-sandy-hook-lawsuit.html">two other lawsuits</a> hanging over his head related to Sandy Hook.

Judge Denies Alex Jones’ Dismissal Request, Rules That Defamation Lawsuit Against Him Can Move Forward

Shooting

Earlier in the week, screenshots of Infowars&#8217; Alex Jones&#8217; phone surfaced online, allegedly showing a tab open on his browser to a transgender pornographic video. &#8220;Naughty tbabe Marissa Minx relieved of c*** hunger by stud,&#8221; one of the tabs allegedly said, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/alex-jones-confronted-by-caller-asking-about-the-porn-spotted-on-his-phone/">Mediaite</a> reports. The video apparently stars Australian transgender porn star Marissa Minx.
Jones had ignored the reports on the matter until a caller asked him about it matter-of-factly on Wednesday, live on air. &#8220;And, also, what about the trans porn on your phone, Alex? Are you ever going to talk about that?&#8221; asked the female caller.
&#8220;Say that again?&#8221; Jones hesitated.
&#8220;Trans porn on your phone! That&#8217;s all they keep talking about,&#8221; said the caller.
&#8220;You know, I saw a couple of news articles about that, it&#8217;s ridiculous,&#8221; started Jones. &#8220;I was like looking up some reporter we&#8217;re trying to hire today and punched in some number and it popped up porn on my phone. Everybody has had porn pop-up on their phone, hundreds of times. So I&#8217;m sitting there with a phone on air, showing it to everybody, cause I couldn&#8217;t get a URL up in the studio, and then like something pops up and oh my God.&#8221;
&#8220;The news blurred it out because it was nothing there,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;They blurred it to then say something was there, and then you went to it and it was some porn menu.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve probably had porn menus pop up 500 times on my phone, so I appreciate your call. It&#8217;s insane ladies and gentlemen,&#8221; he said.
Jones concluded, &#8220;There&#8217;s two types of people: People who look at porn and people who lie about it. But I wasn&#8217;t looking at porn on my phone. I don&#8217;t take phones on air that I look at porn on.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Alex Jones denies watching trans porn <a href="https://t.co/asYuiiAIoc">pic.twitter.com/asYuiiAIoc</a>
&#8212; Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) <a href="https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1034797660253896704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

WATCH: Alex Jones Asked About Transgender Porn Allegedly Spotted On Phone

Transgender

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has come to the defense of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, calling his collective ban from social media &#8220;worrisome.&#8221;
Several weeks ago, Big Tech giants colluded with each other to ban Alex Jones and his site Infowars from several platforms for vague reasons like &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; Conservative commentators pointed out that such a loosely-defined term could result in other outlets being banned for speaking on topics that some would find offensive.
Ben Wizner, director of ACLU&#8217;s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said the ban on Alex Jones could set a dangerous precedent. Though he agrees that Big Tech giants are private companies and can ban whomever they wish, he believes it could be &#8220;misused and abused.&#8221;
&#8220;If [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions, for example, were deciding what&#8217;s hate speech, he would be less likely to think KKK and more likely to think [Black Lives Matter],&#8221; Wizner told <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aclu-alex-jones-social-media-ban_us_5b7afce7e4b0a5b1febdc797">HuffPo</a> on Monday. &#8220;It turns out to be an extremely subjective term.&#8221;
&#8220;I have some of the same concerns about platforms making those decisions,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Governments at least purport to be acting solely in the public interest, but platforms are making these decisions based on what&#8217;s in their financial interest. So their interest might be in avoiding controversy, but do we want the most important speech platforms in the world to avoid controversy?&#8221;
Wizner said that an outright ban on someone for something like hate speech is &#8220;worrisome.&#8221; He would prefer platforms remove individual posts that violate their terms of service or deprioritize them as opposed to banning the person.
&#8220;From a free expression standpoint, you would say if these platforms want to minimize the impact of the offending speech, it&#8217;s preferable to do so in a way that falls short of complete censorship,&#8221; Wizner said.
Twitter has refrained from banning Alex Jones, with CEO Jack Dorsey fearing that by banning Jones they would become &#8220;<a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="9" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:14;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm_lmWWKDug" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">arbiters of truth</a>.&#8221; Wizner expressed support for that course of action.
&#8220;Who should decide what&#8217;s fake? &#8230; It&#8217;s not so easy to do in a way that is objective,&#8221; said Wizner. &#8220;If these platforms get in the business of trying to be the arbiters of truth or falsity, pretty soon everyone is going to have something to complain about.&#8221;
&#8220;Do we really want corporations that are answerable to their shareholders and their bottom lines being the ones who decide which political speech Americans should see or not see?&#8221; he added. &#8220;Because that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re asking for here.&#8221;
Wizner&#8217;s words were <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/technology/technology/402450-bill-maher-on-social-media-bans-alex-jones-gets-to-speak">echoed by leftist comedian Bill Maher</a> over the weekend on his HBO show &#8220;Real Time.&#8221; Even though his panel of leftists cheered the Jones ban, Maher believed that Jones should be allowed to speak. &#8220;That&#8217;s what free speech means. We&#8217;re losing the thread of the concepts that are important to this country,&#8221; Maher stated.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FEsx6eoJdYM" width="560"></iframe></div>

ACLU Warns Against ‘Worrisome’ Alex Jones Ban

ACLU

Bill Maher

Huffington Post

This article has been updated since it&#8217;s original publication.
The walls just keep closing in on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as more and more platforms keep dropping him. Following Twitter&#8217;s recent one week &#8220;restriction&#8221; on the pundit, the pirate radio station in Texas that served as home to his flagship show has now been dropped amid a fight with the FCC.
According to <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/08/alex-jones-flagship-pirate-radio-station-goes-dark-battle-fcc-1202446398/">Deadline</a>, &#8220;The Department of Justice filed suit against Walter and Rae Olenick, accusing them of operating an unlicensed radio station out of their Austin apartment complex since at least 2013.&#8221;
The <a data-tag="liberty-radio" href="https://deadline.com/tag/liberty-radio/">Texas Liberty Radio</a> station included &#8220;The Alex Jones Show&#8221; and &#8220;The Vaccine Myth with Shawn Siegel&#8221; among its lineup. In recent weeks, the FCC sent multiple requests that they &#8220;cease immediately&#8221; for operating without a license, warning that fines, seizure of equipment and criminal sanctions could result if they did not cooperate.
The Olenicks did not comply, arguing that the agency lacked jurisdiction and to &#8220;kindly never bother us with your harassment &#8230; again.&#8221; Now, the Texas Liberty Radio website states that &#8220;due to circumstances beyond our control,&#8221; the broadcast is no longer available. People can listen to the shows can use streaming apps like TuneIn, WinAmp or Shoutcast.
&#8220;The FCC imposed a $15,000 fine on the Olenicks in 2014 for their willful and repeated violations, which they refused to pay,&#8221; reports Deadline. &#8220;The U.S. Attorney filed suit (<a href="https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/01-olenick-wm.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">read it here</a>) Friday in U.S. District Court in Austin, seeking to force the couple to pay the penalty. The Austin-American Statesman reported that religious programming was airing on 90.1 FM on Wednesday, in place of Liberty Radio.&#8221;
Though Alex Jones has been banned from major platforms like Facebook and Youtube, his number of subscribers has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34303/alex-jones-claims-56-million-new-subscribers-paul-bois">jumped by 5.6 million</a>.
UPDATE: In a statement released on <a href="https://www.infowars.com/ap-launches-media-hoax-claiming-alex-jones-radio-station-shut-down/">Infowars</a>, Alex Jones called media reports on the pirate radio story a &#8220;hoax&#8221;:
Alex Jones released the following statement:
<blockquote>
We do not operate any radio or TV stations anywhere in the country.
Claims that we are running an illegal radio station in Austin, Texas, are a complete and total hoax by mainstream, corporate media to imply to the world that our broadcast is somehow illegal.
We legally and lawfully transmit our broadcast like every other TV and radio show in the world to affiliates that have licenses on cable TV, broadcast TV and AM/FM radio.
Media reports to the contrary are implying that our broadcast is illegal by preying on the public&#8217;s ignorance on how broadcasting works.
We do not have a radio station. This is a giant hoax. There are thousands of &#8220;micro&#8221; radio stations across the country that we have nothing to do with, including the recently shut down station.
These stations run anywhere from a tenth of a watt up to a couple of watts with a range of about two miles.
The claim that &#8220;our station&#8221; &#8211; which is not our station at all &#8211; has been taken down for not having FCC authorization is falsely implying that our broadcast itself is somehow illegal.
Now we see where this is going: the FCC will send letters to stations that rebroadcast me, because we&#8217;re free-to-air, and imply that running my broadcast is illegal.
This is an attempt to poison the well of radio and TV stations across the country.
And this is the establishment attempting to completely deplatform us through our free-to-play transmissions which are completely lawful and legal that anyone can pick up who wishes to.
Mr. Jones does not own, operate, or have any relationship with that radio station or its owners. It is not his &#8220;flagship&#8221; station, and as the FCC will confirm, the FCC&#8217;s actions were in no way related to the fact that the station may have broadcast Mr. Jones&#8217; programs in the past. The FCC has acted against the station&#8217;s owners because of its operation without a license, in violation of FCC rules. This has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Jones and his programming. Recent news articles convey the entirely false implication that the FCC&#8217;s actions were directed against Mr. Jones.
In short, Mr. Jones has no involvement in the ownership, operation, or conduct by the radio station, and it is not his &#8220;flagship&#8221; station.
</blockquote>

Alex Jones’ Flagship Pirate Radio Station Goes Dark UPDATE: Jones: ‘Media Hoax’

After resisting the pressure for a while, the social media platform Twitter has now joined the rest of the Big Tech cadre by restricting Alex Jones&#8217;s account for violating its policies, albeit only for a limited period of time.
&#8220;Jones will be blocked from posting on Twitter for seven days because of a post that linked to a policy-violating video,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/twitter-suspends-alex-jones.html">CNBC</a>.
A Twitter representative told CNBC: &#8220;I can confirm that a tweet was reported to us which contained a link to a video on Periscope. Upon review, we determined it violated our rules and required the account to delete the tweet and video.&#8221;
The famed conspiracy theorist&#8217;s account will now have &#8220;limited functionality&#8221; during the seven day restriction; for one week, Jones will be unable to tweet or retweet. The InfoWars account remains up and active.
Twitter&#8217;s move to suddenly put restrictions on Alex Jones comes on the heels of its CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34217/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-wont-ban-alex-jones-he-paul-bois">exclaiming</a> they had no desire to follow Facebook, Spotify, and Youtube in banning him.
Dorsey tweeted: &#8220;If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that&#8217;s constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That&#8217;s not us.&#8221;
Since the ban on Alex Jones last week, his platform has claimed upward of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34303/alex-jones-claims-56-million-new-subscribers-paul-bois">5.6 million new subscribers</a>.

Twitter Caves, Issues Alex Jones A One Week ‘Restriction’

In just 48 hours after the purging of his site Infowars from major platforms like Facebook and Youtube, Alex Jones claims he has gained a staggering 5.6 million more subscribers. Speaking with the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6039753/Alex-Jones-says-5-6-million-people-subscribed-Infowars-Apple-ban.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Daily Mail</a> on Wednesday, Jones said that the purging of his site only increased traffic, concluding that it ultimately backfired on his enemies.
&#8220;The good news is Infowars has had the highest traffic it&#8217;s ever had &#8211; 5.6 million new subscribers in the past 48 hours &#8211; and so has my radio show,&#8221; he said. &#8220;De-platforming doesn&#8217;t do anything, we already have the subscribers, it doesn&#8217;t do very much.&#8221;
Jones continued: &#8220;The loss we&#8217;ve had &#8230; on various platforms, has been way compensated by millions of new subscribers and visitors to our website, the mobile app, to our free podcast. We&#8217;ve never had this much people signing up for our news letter, podcast, video feeds, they&#8217;re all hitting subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.&#8221;
The only way that Big Tech could completely shut Jones out would be forcing internet providers to shut down his servers. Not even Apple, which kicked Jones off iTunes, will <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/09/apple-defends-decision-not-to-remove-infowars-app/">remove the Infowars app</a>.
&#8220;Even if I was ever defeated, from other places around the world victory is going to come, this fight for human liberty is unstoppable,&#8221; Jones said. &#8220;People understand what&#8217;s happening and we&#8217;re gonna go on to the end whatever the cost is. We&#8217;re gonna never surrender.&#8221;
Jones argued that the purging of his platform was a sign of future purging for other platforms, explaining, &#8220;It&#8217;s very dangerous for everybody else, but for me, who has been chosen as the sacrificial lamb, there&#8217;s a big effect. Democrats are trying to demonize free speech, set the precedent to try to restrict free speech and so it&#8217;s a very villainous overall program. &#8230; They&#8217;ve got mainline Democratic senators saying they ought to restrict Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Matt Drudge, the President himself.&#8221;
Following the Infowars purge, Democrat Chris Murphy called for Big Tech to begin <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34171/backlash-democrat-chris-murphys-push-censorship-ryan-saavedra">purging sites altogether</a> in the name of defending eemocracy.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.
&#8212; Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1026580187784404994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

Alex Jones Claims 5.6 Million New Subscribers Following Purge: ‘Never Had This Much People’

Apple seems to have &#8212; at least partly &#8212; reversed its position on Infowars. Just days after the tech giant banned Infowars host Alex Jones from its iTunes podcast platform, it announced that it plans to leave the InfoWars app in its iTunes store in the interest of tolerance and diversity.
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/apple-allows-infowars-in-app-store.html">CNBC reports that</a> Apple, which touched off a social media deluge over the weekend by banning Jones and four of his co-hosts, whom they claim violated iTunes&#8217;s guidelines, will not bow to critics and remove the Infowars app from the App Store because Apple &#8220;strongly supports&#8221; all points of view being represented on its sales platforms.
To add to the confusion, the company also released a statement.
<blockquote>
We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and follow our clear guidelines, ensuring the App Store is a safe marketplace for all. We continue to monitor apps for violations of our guidelines and if we find content that violates our guidelines and is harmful to users we will remove those apps from the store as we have done previously.
</blockquote>
According to CNBC, Apple justified their distinction by saying that content on the app is &#8220;ephemeral,&#8221; and that some controversial videos disappear after they&#8217;ve been viewed, or when new content appears. The podcasts, however, remain searchable on Apple&#8217;s site.
Some of the content, however, appears to be the same as content Apple described last week as &#8220;hate speech,&#8221; when it told Infowars that &#8220;we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users.&#8221;
Apple&#8217;s CEO, Tim Cook, made the decision to ban Jones over the weekend, touching off a domino effect on social media. Google and Facebook both followed Apple&#8217;s lead and suspended Jones&#8217;s profiles (Twitter, however, has allowed Jones to stay). The decision prompted discussions about how to define hate speech across the affected platforms, but it also pushed Jones&#8217;s Infowars app to #3 in the App Store and #5 on Google Play.

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