The bad news for Alex Jones, the notorious internet conspiracy theorist, keeps coming.
Late Friday, Apple removed his Infowars app from its App Store, eliminating one of the final avenues for Mr. Jones to reach a mainstream audience. An Apple spokeswoman said it was removed under company policies that prohibit apps from including content that is “offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust or in exceptionally poor taste.” She declined to say whether any specific content in the app led to its removal.
Apple had removed Mr. Jones’s show from its podcast service on Aug. 5, leading Facebook, YouTube and other tech companies to also eliminate Mr. Jones and his Infowars site from their services. Those moves have cut off Mr. Jones from a wider audience; social media was his primary channel for finding new viewers. After those removals, downloads of the Infowars mobile app spiked, and Mr. Jones has recently been directing his followers to find his show through Infowars’ website and app.
Apple’s move does not affect iPhone users who had already downloaded the Infowars app, but it limits any more users from downloading it. The app is still available on smartphones that run Google’s Android software, which backs roughly 80 percent of the world’s smartphones.
recommendmeapodcast on September 8th, 2018 at 06:26 UTC »
I wish these platforms would be specific in citing why exactly they are banning someone, especially someone as well known as this. Would give a lot less fuel to his supporters and free speech activists.
Right now, they could say "they are banning infowars because they disagree/don't like him!" and nothing from these tech companies refutes this line.
"Here is what he did, here is our policy. Banned." Seems simple to me.
vix86 on September 8th, 2018 at 04:07 UTC »
My conspiracy theory. Jones has made himself rich off of InfoWars through all the sponsorships and now has enough money to retire before being 50 (who wouldn't want to?).
He can't just up and quit though, his fans would crucify him for it. So instead he starts pushing the line knowing that people will shut him down eventually. Once he's off all the platforms his viewer numbers will shrink, it'll get harder to get good deals from sponsors, and inevitably he'll have to shutter InfoWars. It won't be his fault though, it'll be the illumanati's fault.
He'll keep his fans and maybe downsize the operation to something that only needs 2-3 people to help run it and he can retire on a nice beach and drink margaritas while recording podcasts from a home studio.
voksul on September 8th, 2018 at 03:47 UTC »
In case you guys haven't seen it, Alex Jones is handling his bans really well.