Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ YouTube channel received a strike on Tuesday for violating the site’s community guidelines, The Verge has learned. YouTube removed four videos from Jones’ channel, which has 2.4 million subscribers, that contained instances of hate speech and child endangerment, sources familiar with the matter said. YouTube channels are deleted if they get three strikes in a three-month period.
Two videos contained hate speech against Muslims, and a third contained hate speech against transgender people, sources said. A fourth showed a child who was pushed to the ground by an adult man, under the headline “How to prevent liberalism.” All four of the videos are currently posted on Infowars.
The offending videos do not include Jones’ threatening rant about Robert Mueller, which stirred a controversy earlier this week after it was posted on Facebook. That video does not appear to have been uploaded to YouTube.
A post on Infowars said the videos had been posted “in a news, documentary, scientific or artistic context.” The Verge reached out to Infowars for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
“We have longstanding policies against child endangerment and hate speech,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. “We apply our policies consistently according to the content in the videos, regardless of the speaker or the channel. We also have a clear three-strikes policy and we terminate channels when they receive three strikes in three months.”
The video showing the child being shoved was posted to dozens of channels and was removed in each instance, sources said.
Jones’ channel previously received a strike from YouTube in February after it promoted the false theory that survivors of the Parkland shooting were actually trained “crisis actors.” That violated YouTube’s policy against harassment and bullying. But strikes expire three months after they are issued, meaning Jones’ channel currently just has one strike against it, sources said.
While YouTube removed four videos, they were bundled together into a single strike due to a quirk in how the system manages violations. Creators are asked to acknowledge strikes the first time they log in following one of their videos being removed. If more than one video receives a strike, they can be “bundled” into a single violation.
The system was designed that way so creators can take action on other videos on their channel if they think they might violate the community guidelines, sources said. But as this case shows, the system can also ironically offer more protection to creators who violate the community guidelines multiple times within a short period. Had Jones’ channel posted these four videos at longer intervals, it very well could have been deleted from YouTube.
With an active strike against his account, Jones’ channel cannot broadcast live on YouTube for 90 days.
Correction, 7:06 p.m.: This article originally said that Jones appeared in the video of the child being shoved down. He did not.
Comments
Awesome that YouTube is doing something now… but how much of this will actually affect his business/content? (besides PR). Does he even livestream?
Or is this all just about sending a message?
By thedrum909 on 07.25.18 2:30pm
Even though I KNEW it was a static picture with an image credit at the bottom and everything, I STILL decided to tap the header image.
It’s my own fault but I still blame you for posting a picture with a play button on it.
By Alain-Christian on 07.25.18 3:15pm
Delete his account!
By bofis on 07.25.18 4:24pm
You can’t help but notice that there is no link, no quote, and even no description of the supposed "hate speech" from Jones.
By Joe2233 on 07.25.18 4:35pm
Irrelevant. Youtube does not require your approval to ban specific content, nor does it require your review. The fact that they did this is good enough. Jones is a complete moron.
By sadf asdf on 07.25.18 9:10pm
I watched 3 of the videos. Not because I watch Alex Jones videos regularly (he can be a bit much) but because I am interested in where companies like YouTube draw the line.
"Anti-trans video" – Mostly surrounds the "Drag Tots" cartoon that Ru Paul produced. AJ rants that this is part of the sexualization of children plot. He then shows a video of a drag queen twerking in front of kids and a child in drag stripping off a skirt in front of a crowd. The specific element of the video that I think had YouTube pull the video was when he referred to some drag queens as hideous.
"Child Beating Video" – This one is short and is basically a kid who keeps pushing and hitting an adult. After about 15-20 seconds the adult pushes the kid to the ground and the kid cries hysterically. A banner then comes down saying something to the effect of this is how you deal with liberals.
"Anti-Muslim" – He says that globalists have overthrown Northern Africa and Europe through pushing radical Islam. He claims that the Iraq wars were meant to radicalize the area. Now he says that he is against organized Islam but doesn’t elaborate why. After that he rants about demagoguery and the stacking of demographics disproportionately towards those dependent on the govt. dole. He then covers statements from Erdogan where Erdogan states that Europeans who are hostile towards migrants will not be safe in the street. AJ then talks about specific events of violence, etc. in Europe. He claims that ads aired in Germany telling German women to adopt the hijab (i’d like to see proof of this). Following AJ is like chasing a cat but in summary he says that Islam is radical, invading Europe, and they will change the country towards the extremist viewpoints and the Europeans will be forced to follow it or be bullied. Why was the video taken down specifically? I think it was because he once referred to migrants as animals in the video.
By VoxMediaUser771462 on 07.25.18 10:43pm
Thanks for the summaries. I was curious, but not curious enough to endure watching Jones for longer than 30 seconds.
By Flumberbug on 07.26.18 5:45am
It is unethical to link to or describe in detail or sometimes even quote an extremist spreading propaganda and hate.
By Pentagen on 07.26.18 11:33am
Jones is a con-man who peddles connedspiracies to idiots. He’s been repeatedly exposed as a total fraud. His divorce / child visitation / payoff "story" is very interesting too. In person, nobody can stand this creep, he’s sexually harassed his employees and has had numerous complaints filed against him. He’s a total schill and he shouldn’t even be allowed near a microphone or a computer.
By sadf asdf on 07.25.18 9:08pm
those screaming for jones to be banned now will scream louder when it happens to them. I support freedom of expression and free speech.
By Yarply Twelve on 07.25.18 9:36pm
Precisely this.
All good when an idiot with whom one disagrees is banned, but when the pendulum swings back, it will not be pretty.
By CountOfMonteFisto on 07.26.18 2:53pm
Lets be real here- even if Alex Jones was banned from Youtube his freedom of expression & speech (neither of which you are granted on a private platform like YouTube, by the way) wouldn’t be taken away. He still has his extremely popular website & social feeds on Facebook & Twitter that he already uses to say what he thinks.
And relevant xkcd comic:
By guppy1 on 07.26.18 2:58pm
Hate speech is illegal to varying degrees in most first world countries. America is a pretty glaring exception.
By chromey on 07.26.18 3:45pm
YouTube simply cannot tolerate intolerance and have instantiated a Zero Tolerance policy for any thoughts differing from theirs. If you aren’t part of the group think, the thought police will banish you to the nether region of YouTube land.
By Anne Oni on 07.25.18 10:53pm
Another first-time commenter!
By ElleL on 07.26.18 12:15pm
Just think of this as Youtube refusing to bake a cake for a marriage they don’t support.
By cometguy on 07.26.18 1:47pm
That’s a terrible analogy.
By ginandbacon on 07.26.18 1:52pm
It is, but it’s likely the kind that Anne would understand.
By cometguy on 07.26.18 1:54pm
….and still the sheep bleat for Alex.
By The Relic on 07.26.18 3:14pm
And the censorship goes on…..
By cleo48 on 07.26.18 10:42am
And another first-time commenter!
By ElleL on 07.26.18 12:15pm
Amazed that people actually buy the supplements he sells.
By oghowie on 07.26.18 12:07pm
Finally, a tech company grew some spine and decided to act. I’m sick of everyone in Silicon Valley bending over backwards for the far-right wing idiots out of fear of appearing partisan. No matter how hard you try to appease them, the far-right will never let go of the notion that Silicon Valley is biased against them. So you might as well enforce policies on them that you would normally do on a centrist, or a left-leaning outlet.
For instance, Slate or Vox would have been banned had they peddled half the conspiracy theories that InfoWars or DailyWire does.
By Shadeslayer on 07.26.18 12:39pm
It’s not even far-right anymore. Alex Jones is basically a mainstream Republican nowadays.
By Cols714 on 07.26.18 1:21pm
I believe Youtube, while hosting many helpful videos, is an agent of he Marxist Progressive Globalists and NOT YOUR FRIEND. Jonse may be weird but in the end, he is found to be correct 80% of the time or more. Fight back:
Go to the infowars.com site directly, screw Youtube
Don’t boycott, but use Youtube 24/7 using maximum bandwidth
Note the advertisers and contact them indicating your displeasure with them
Same with their parent Google, the CIA connected monster of the web
Contact congress about monopolistic practices and demand action
By John Sheridan on 07.26.18 3:06pm