This is the most significant blow yet to both Alex Jones and InfoWars, the broadcaster which airs his far right conspiracy theories.
Apple have removed shows involving Alex Jones from its podcast directory, the most significant blow yet to one of the world’s most notorious conspiracy theorists and a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump.
Jones hosts the daily Alex Jones Show podcast which, along with a number of other InfoWars shows, can no longer be found in the Apple directory.
Only one InfoWars show – Real News with David Knight – remains accessible.
Despite the fact that Apple does not host any podcasts directly, its library – which links to independent services across the world, including the likes of SoundCloud – is seen as crucial in the podcasting industry as it drives more traffic than any other single platform.
This is the first time a blanket ban has been imposed on Jones, who is currently being sued by parents of children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting for claims that the attack was a hoax.
Other platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Spotify had taken down individual pieces of content from Jones and InfoWars but – prior to Apple’s decision – shied away from imposing an outright ban on the controversial Texan.
On Monday, Facebook finally banned a number of InfoWars’ pages outright.
“Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” an Apple spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
“Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
On their decision to ban four pages related to Jones and InfoWars, after previously only suspending Jones, Facebook stated: “More content from the same pages has been reported to us – upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”
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