Infowars Deplatformed By Corporate Censorship

In one big swoop of leftwing corporate censorship, Spotify, Apple and Facebook have all deplatformed Alex Jones and Infowars on the grounds of “hate speech”:

“In a statement Sunday evening to BuzzFeed News, Apple confirmed that it notified Jones of the decision to remove the five shows under its hate speech guidelines earlier this weekend. “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” a company spokesperson said. “Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”

Facebook confirmed on Monday morning that it had removed four pages promoting Jones and his shows: The Alex Jones Channel Page, The Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Nightly News Page and the Infowars Page.

In a lengthy press release, a Facebook spokesperson said the pages were taken 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.”

Facebook last week removed four of Jones’s videos for violating hate speech and bullying rules and suspended Jones himself from being a page admin for 30 days – this further action was taken after more videos were reported by users.

A Spotify spokesperson confirmed on Monday morning that the company has removed all episodes of The Alex Jones Show, after it removed some selected episodes last week. Spotify’s hate content policy prohibits anything that “expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics.” The policy warns that repeat offenders will be removed from the platform.

The sweeping move is just the latest in a line of technology companies taking action against Jones and Infowars for violating rules against hateful content. Last month YouTube pulled down four videos posted by Jones and the podcast app Stitcher followed suit, removing specific episodes of Jones’ audio show, citing hateful content policies.

As the internet’s largest podcast platform, Apple faced pressure all week from media and activists to remove Jones and Infowars from its services. Sleeping Giants, the online activist group which has lobbied for tech platforms to cut all ties with Jones, roundly condemned Apple last week for being slow to join Spotify and Stitcher, suggesting Jones’ content routinely breaks the company’s terms of service. …”

As usual, White Nationalists are the free speech canary in the coal mine whether it comes to violent Antifa engaging in illegal mob violence, corrupt mayors issuing stand down orders to police or powerful multinational corporations defunding and deplatforming the Right.

It really is a slippery slope. Years ago, Antifa were violently attacking White Nationalists and pressuring hotels and restaurants to break contracts. The mainstream Right chose to ignore the gathering threat to free speech because it only marginalized “racists.” Now, Antifa are violently attacking Trump supporters and Patriot groups as “Nazis” in the streets and getting conservatives kicked out of venues. A year ago, Antifa were pressuring PayPal and Patreon to defund the Alt-Right. Now, conservatives and libertarians are starting to get defunded for “hate speech.” In the aftermath of Trump’s election, the Alt-Right was the first to be banned and shadowbanned on Twitter. Now, the mainstream Right and even sitting Republican members of Congress are being banned or silenced by rigged algorithms.

The mainstream Right ignored the dangerous precedent that was being set for free speech when Daily Stormer and Stormfront had their domains illegally seized after Charlottesville. They chose not to notice that AirBnb and Uber and even OkCupid were banning people from their services for political reasons. The Republican Party turned its attention to passing massive tax cuts to reward corporations like Google, Facebook and Apple for engaging in political censorship.

Now that Infowars has been deplatformed for “hate speech,” who will be next? This is a huge step down the road of criminalizing dissent and the Left seizing control of the internet. We’re spiraling toward a world where in the name of “anti-racism” certain people won’t be allowed to have a job, book a hotel or restaurant reservation, have health insurance, a bank account or a website for political reasons.