“Apple Inc said on Friday that it had banned from its App Store the Infowars app belonging to popular U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after finding that it had violated the company’s rules against ‘objectionable content,'” Dan Whitcomb reports for Reuters. “Apple said the guidelines Jones violated bar ‘defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or place a targeted individual or group in harm’s way.'”
“On Thursday, Twitter Inc permanently banned Jones and his website from its platform and Periscope, saying in a tweet that the accounts had violated its behavior policies,” Whitcomb reports. “In a video posted on the Infowars website on Thursday, Jones said in response: ‘I was taken down not because we lied but because we tell the truth and because we were popular.'”
“Last month, Twitter banned Jones and Infowars for seven days, citing tweets that it said violated the company’s rules against abusive behavior, which state that a user may not engage in targeted harassment of someone or incite other people to do so,” Whitcomb reports. “Apple said at the time that the Infowars app remained in its store because it had not been found to be in violation of any content policies, although it had removed access to some podcasts by Jones.”
“The podcasts differ from the Infowars app by allowing access to an extensive list of previous episodes, subjecting all of those past episodes to Apple’s content rules,” Whitcomb reports. “The Infowars app contains only rebroadcasts of the current day’s episodes, subjecting a much smaller set of content to the rules. Apple said it regularly monitors all apps for content violations.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You knew that was coming, too.
SEE ALSO:
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U.S. Justice Department says probing social media companies for stifling ‘free exchange of ideas’ – September 6, 2018
Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones and Infowars accounts – September 6, 2018
White House probes Google after President Trump accuses it of left-wing bias – August 29, 2018
President Trump attacks ‘left-wing’ Google search results – August 28, 2018
President Trump: ‘I would rather have fake news’ than censorship – August 22, 2018
ACLU: Apple’s ban of Alex Jones and Infowars could set dangerous social media precedent – August 22, 2018
President Trump blasts social media ‘censorship’ – August 18, 2018
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: I ‘fully admit’ our bias is ‘more left-leaning’ – August 20, 2018
Twitter bans Alex Jones from posting on Twitter for seven days – August 15, 2018
Apple is monitoring Alex Jones’ Infowars app for content violations as it becomes 3rd-most downloaded app this week – August 9, 2018
Alex Jones: Infowars has racked up 5.6 million new subscribers in the past 48 hours – August 8, 2018
Tim Cook sends Mark Zuckerberg, YouTube, and Spotify scrambling over Infowars’ Alex Jones – August 8, 2018
Jack Dorsey explains why Twitter isn’t banning Alex Jones and Infowars – August 8, 2018
Infowars’ Alex Jones blasts Apple, Google, others; warns on internet censorship – August 7, 2018
Apple’s ‘Infowars’ move thrusts tech giant into the debate over censoring content on internet platforms – August 6, 2018
Apple removes most of Alex Jones’ Infowars podcasts from iTunes Store – August 6, 2018
