Alex Jones banned from Facebook? His videos are still there, and so are his followers
Infowars is gone from Facebook after a high-profile showdown over the summer between Silicon Valley and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. But another Facebook page, NewsWars, has taken its place — and Jones’ many fans have followed.
In the three months since Facebook removed four of Jones’ pages over allegations of hate speech, the NewsWars page has remained intact and surged in posts and page views. The NewsWars Facebook page identifies NewsWars.com, which Jones said his company operates, as the website associated with the page and lists it under “Contact Info.” Jones said he doesn’t run the Facebook page.
Videos hosted by the NewsWars Facebook page have totaled 3.9 million views since August, nearly reaching the monthly viewership of Jones’s videos on Infowars and other pages he controlled before they were shut down.
These calculations — made by Columbia University social media researcher Jonathan Albright using CrowdTangle, an analytics tool from Facebook — underscore Jones’ agility in navigating his battle with what he calls “Big Tech.” He has claimed to be a victim of internet “censorship” even as tech platforms help maintain his audience and the visibility of the nutritional supplement business that is key to his earnings.
The continuing popularity of Jones’ videos on Facebook, including those focusing on the migrant caravan in Mexico and claims that pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats were hoaxes, also highlights Silicon Valley’s struggle to crack down on hate speech even in cases when tech companies have singled out perpetrators for punishment.
“It shows a huge failure in being able to control this stuff,” said Albright, research director for Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
Jones, who responded to requests for comment in a phone call after an initial version of this story was posted online, acknowledged that his social media staff sometimes suggests content to the NewsWars Facebook page, but said that Facebook has ceased being a major source of referral to his sites, amounting to only 1 percent of overall traffic to his InfoWars.com website.
He criticized what he called “corporate media,” saying news organizations such as The Washington Post were trying to destroy “independent media” but said that his clash with Silicon Valley has allowed overall viewership of his online properties to boom.
A Facebook spokesman noted the company said in an August blog post it was taking down some but not all of Jones’ content. The post also said Facebook would assess allegations of misconduct against pages individually and would not necessarily ban the people maintaining pages even if the pages themselves were removed.
Facebook, Apple, Spotify, Twitter and other companies removed content from Jones in August but, in most cases, gave little detail on the reasons for acting at that time against Jones after years of allegations he engaged in hate speech and spread phony reports masquerading as news.
Facebook’s blog post on Aug. 6 said it initially removed videos from four pages, including the main Infowars page, and blocked Jones for 30 days for his role in administering those pages. “Since then, more content from the same Pages has been reported to us,” Facebook wrote. “Upon review, 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.”
Facebook left up NewsWars, which had started in December 2016 but produced far fewer posts and less traffic than the Infowars page. NewsWars soon swelled with new images and videos.
Alex Jones