Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones and InfoWars

NEW YORK (WTVQ) – Twitter has banned far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his website InfoWars from its platform for abusive behavior.

Twitter announced the ban Thursday afternoon.

Jones was already banned from Facebook, YouTube and Apple.

Jones and InfoWars are notorious for spreading conspiracy theories and other demonstrably false information, including the idea that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, and that the victims of it were child actors. Some of the parents of the victims have sued Jones for mental and emotional distress.

The move by Twitter comes one day after Jones had traveled to Washington D.C. for congressional hearings at which Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg testified.

According to CNN, Jones confronted Darcy for more than ten minutes, accusing him of being in favor of censorship and insulting his appearance, comparing him to “a rat” and told Darcy he was “evil-looking.”

Jones was live on Twitter’s Periscope service during that confrontation.

In a series of tweets from its @TwitterSafety account, Twitter said, “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’ previous violations.”

Twitter also said that it “will take action” if in the future it discovers other accounts being used to get around the ban of Jones and InfoWars.