Alex Jones purge shows Facebook spineless, no moral leadership

Alex Jones on
InfoWars.
InfoWars

• Alex Jones, the king of conspiracy theories, had his
  YouTube channel, Apple podcasts, Facebook page, and Spotify
  content all scrubbed off the internet
  over the last few days.
• As late as July, Facebook had defended Jones’ right to
  publish and long resisted taking his pages down, saying it was
  a “fundamental” value for them to protect Jones’
  platform. 
• Facebook now says they removed him for glorifying
  violence and hate speech.
• Jones has long glorified violence and spouted hate
  speech, and this example proves that Facebook is a spineless
  corporation.

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When Facebook removed the page
of Alex Jones, InfoWars host and king of conspiracy theories, it
violated a value it called “fundamental” less than one month ago
— and it perfectly illustrates how the tech titan has no backbone
or moral leadership.

“We believe banning these Pages would be contrary to the basic
principles of free speech,” Facebook said when asked by CNN’s Oliver Darcy why Infowars
still had a presence on the site after it stated it would
clamp down on fake news in mid-July. 

“I think part of the fundamental thing here is that we
created Facebook to be a place where different people can have a
voice. And different publishers have very different points of
view,” John Hegeman, the head of Facebook’s News Feed
told Darcy at the
time. 

In removing Jones yesterday, Facebook betrayed its
“fundamental” belief that “different people can have a voice”
that express “very different points of view.” It was, by
Facebook’s own admission, “contrary to the basic principles of
free speech.”

From Facebook on removing Jones on August 6: “We have taken it
down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic-violence
policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who
are transgender, Muslims, and immigrants, which violates our
hate-speech policies.”

Buzzfeed senior technology writer Charlie
Warzel says that staff inside Facebook — and other companies
who have made similar moves — have abandoned their
principles:

“last 6 months I’ve had dozens of convos w/ ppl at YT & FB.
most have taken principled stands about why this channel had to
remain up. They suggested those pressuring to remove the page
didn’t understand nuances of moderation. Funny how that all
evaporated after Apple took action! … feels like a legit
credibility issue for the platforms w/ many of the journalists
who cover them. … the decision to flip the policy
completely would seem to cast doubt on all the past explanations
of why Jones was allowed to stay up for so long.”

In 2012, Jones suggested the parents of the 20 six- and
seven-year-old children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Connecticut were paid “crisis actors” and that no such shooting
took place. When 17 highschoolers died at another school shooting
in Parkland, Florida, Jones again suggested the survivors were
actors. 

Jones pushed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy that eventually saw an armed gunman show up at a
Washington DC pizza restaurant demanding to investigate it as
a possible sex trafficking hub for children with links to Hillary
Clinton, who Jones considers a demon.

Jones frequently accuses Muslims of trying to take over Western
countries and subvert their laws, notably saying Muslims demanded England’s Queen
Elizabeth convert or leave her ancestral home. 

Perhaps at Facebook, one of the world’s biggest
corporations, ad sales and public relations take precedent over
any moral principles. 

Did Facebook remove Jones because he glorified violence or used
dehumanizing language against Muslims or transgender individuals?
There’s ample evidence to say Jones had done that on Facebook for
years.

Did Facebook worry about dehumanizing when it spread anti-Muslim hate speech in
Myanmar during an active ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in
Rakhine?

In defending Jones, Facebook claimed to have some backbone and
some stomach for bad press when its principles were in play. But
when Apple pulled out, and Facebook alone had to stand for up for
free speech, Facebook didn’t lead.

Instead, it followed the cue from its fellow tech giants, and
that spine was nowhere to be found.