Facebook bans Alex Jones and other extremist personalities

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it banned Alex Jones and other controversial US politicians for breaking the company's social media policy on "dangerous individuals and organizations."

Most people whose accounts have been erased are popular figures from the far right, including commentators Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer and Paul Joseph Watson.

Facebook also said that it banned white supremacist Paul Nehlen, declared a congressional candidate in 2018, and the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, who had preached black separatism and described the Jews as "termites."

The company will remove all accounts, pages, groups and events associated with prohibited people, both on its main social network and on its photo sharing application, Instagram. He says that he forbids any user who encourages violence or hatred.

Facebook has not, however, prevented other users from hiring or supporting banned individuals on its platforms, as was the case for militant groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda by the past.

A few hours after the disappearance of his account, videos of Louis Farrakhan were still visible on Instagram among the 17,000 publications with the hashtag #louisfarrakhan, including a video in which he defends his descriptions of Jews.

"If that's the truth, then it's not anti-Semitic," he says in the clip.

Facebook has announced the ban before deleting the affected accounts, giving account owners time to redirect their thousands of subscribers to other channels before the accounts disappear, as the journalist shows. Ryan Mac from BuzzFeed in a screenshot.

Alex Jones, who defended the conspiracy theories about shooting at Sandy Hook School and animated Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, quickly opened a new account and broadcast live to talk about ban, CNBC reported.

Infowars, the website run by Jones, has issued a response stating that the ban "equates to editorial control over user content – and a donation-in-kind to the Democratic presidential candidate of 2020 ".

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Social media companies have an uncomfortable story with far-right voices, struggling for years to decide how to handle extremist content while its providers were using services to raise subscribers and catapult in the general public.

The result has often been a random application of policies: Facebook has removed the pages associated with Jones and its website Infowars last year, but left his personal profile, for example.

Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Twitter on Google also banned Infowars last year.

Businesses have been hard hit by the Conservatives' suspensions of the accounts, accusing them of censorship and bias. Civil rights groups have said that social media giants have not been able to cope with extremism.

Facebook says that it applies its rules without prejudice. Last month, he reinforced these policies by banning the praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism.

"We have always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hatred, regardless of their ideology. The process of assessing potential offenders is complex and this is what led us to our decision to delete these accounts today, "the company said in a statement.

The liberal media watch group Media Matters for America welcomed the initiative, saying it "inspired a certain optimism [Facebook] could be able to take responsibility for the way its platforms have empowered extremists. "