Twitter’s latest (and final) punishment for Alex Jones: A permanent ban

Enlarge / Conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones. (credit: InfoWars)

After weeks of controversy, Twitter officially banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars site from its platform. The social media company tweeted out the decision from its Twitter Safety account Thursday afternoon, stating that it permanently suspended Alex Jones and InfoWars after both accounts posted tweets and videos that violated the company’s abusive-behavior policy. Previous violations also contributed to the decision to ban both accounts.

Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations. https://t.co/gckzUAV8GL

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) September 6, 2018

Both accounts show “account suspended” messages, so the tweets and videos that violated Twitter’s policy are no longer available. However, according to a report by The Daily Beast, Twitter confirmed that one of the videos that violated its policy was an InfoWars video posted to Jones’ Twitter account. It showed Jones verbally attacking CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, saying, among other things, “Those are the eyes of a rat.”

Last month, Twitter gave Jones a small punishment for his inflammatory behavior on the platform—a one-week suspension that prevented Jones from tweeting or retweeting from his personal account. That came after users flagged a video that Jones posted to Twitter in which he encouraged his supporters to ready their weapons against the media and other groups.