Twitter banned Alex Jones and InfoWars; Cites abusive behavior: NPR

Updated at 18:29 ET

Twitter said Thursday that it "permanently suspended" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars store, citing "new reports of tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our policy of abusive behavior."

Last month, YouTube, Apple, Facebook and Spotify banned Jones' main platforms due to concerns about its content. But Twitter has suspended only some of its privileges, which has sparked criticism.

On Wednesday, Florida senator Marco Rubio faced Jones after Jones confronted him and touched him outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

And at a hearing of the House Energy and Business Committee, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been confronted with questions from Republican critics that big tech companies are suppressing conservatives online.

Dorsey denied that Twitter is politically selective. He tweeted"I want to start by making something clear: we do not consider any political point of view, perspective, or party affiliation in any of our policies or enforcement decisions." our guiding principle. "

But Thursday, Twitter announced in a tweet: "Today, we have definitely suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports from Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to past account violations. "

Twitter linked to his retailer page its policy on abusive behavior. This policy states in part: "You can not engage in targeted harassment or induce others to do so. We consider that abusive behavior is an attempt to harass, intimidate or silence the voice of someone.

After the announcement of the ban, Jones said in a video posted on the InfoWars website: "I was arrested, not because we lied, but because we were popular. until Rubio and stand up to the lies of mainstream media and tell the truth.

"This is the deep state that is fighting back and putting pressure on these tech companies to censor," said Jones.

In August, Dorsey explained why Twitter did not ban Jones at the time. "He did not break our rules – we will make sure he does it," Dorsey said. tweeted. In apparent reference to other tech companies that had banned Jones, he said Twitter would "not succumb and would simply react to outside pressure."

Dorsey added, "We are going to keep Jones at the same level as we have on every account, not taking punctual action to feel good in the short term, and adding fuel to the new conspiracy theories."

As David Folkenflik of the NPR pointed out, "the ideas that Jones shares are particularly harmful, the idea that Sandy Hook's killing of schoolchildren was a hoax, the idea that 9/11 was an inner work and other things".

Jones faces defamation lawsuits, most of which focus on comments about shootings in schools.

After the previous bans, Jones said "America was sold" and Infowars' Twitter feed said the actions against his company were "communist-style censorship".