Twitter permanently bans US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones

Twitter permanently bans US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones

Twitter logo. (Photo: Twitter/@Twitter)

San Francisco, Sep 7 (IANS) Twitter said it has permanently banned US conspiracy theorist Alexander Jones and accounts associated with his website Infowars for "abusive behaviour".

"Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope," Twitter said on Thursday on its Safety account, Xinhua news agency reported.

The world leading social media site said it took the action "based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behaviour policy, in addition to the accounts' past violations."

The ban will cut Jones and Infowars from its 1.5 million followers on future interaction on Twitter's platform, and Twitter vows to "take action" if the latter attempts to circumvent the prohibitive measure.

"We will continue to evaluate reports we receive regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and will take action if content that violates our rules is reported or if other accounts are utilized in an attempt to circumvent their ban," @TwitterSafety said in one of its tweets.

The social media firm said it will increase transparency in implementation of its rules and actions, but it declines to "comment on enforcement actions we take against individual accounts, for their privacy."

Twitter is one of the latest major tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple that has permanently banned Jones and his associated accounts. It imposed a week-long ban on Jones as a warning for his bellicose behaviour last month.

In August, Google-owned YouTube, Apple and Facebook removed or restricted Jones' activities on their platforms for hate speech.

Jones is a controversial American radio show host and conspiracy theorist, who runs the website Infowars.com that is devoted to conspiracy theories and fake news.

He is notorious for accusing the US government of planning the Oklahoma City bombing that killed at least 168 people and wounded more than 680 others in 1995.

Jones also doubted the government's role in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US that left 2,996 people dead and over 6,000 injured.

--IANS

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