TO CLOSE

Alex Jones, infowars theoretician and conspiracy leader, denied Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in front of a courtroom on Wednesday. Rubio told Jones not to touch him while Jones called the senator a "little punk" and a "frat boy". (September 5th)
AP

Alex Jones was kicked out of Twitter.

The controversial founder of the Infowars conspiracy website was banned from the social network on Thursday afternoon. Jones' personal account and his website have been removed by Twitter.

"Today, we have definitely suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope," he said on Twitter. "We took this step based on new reports from Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our policy of abusive behavior, in addition to past account violations."

In a separate tweet, Twitter stated that it would "continue to evaluate the reports we receive about other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and take action if content violating our rules is reported or if other accounts were used to try to circumvent their ban. "

According to a Google cache of its presence now removed on Twitter, Jones had about 896,000 subscribers, while Infowars had more than 430,000 subscribers.

Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by USA TODAY.

The ban comes a day after Jones attended a Capitol Hill hearing with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Excerpts from Jones at the hearing, including a confrontation with Senator Marco Rubio, became viral on the social network.

More: Senator Marco Rubio to Alex Jones: "I will take care of you"

Jones and his shows have already been banned by Apple, Facebook, Spotify and YouTube for hate speech.

Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal

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