Twitter suspended Infowars’ Alex Jones’ ability to tweet.
Screenshot by Joan E. Solsman/CNET
Twitter has cut off Alex Jones from key functions of his account after the founder and star of conspiracy site Infowars violated another Twitter policy.
Jones’ account has been placed in a read-only mode for seven days, Twitter confirmed Tuesday, meaning he can still browse Twitter posts, but he can’t interact with other users by tweeting or retweeting or liking other posts. Jones is also required to delete the offending tweet, Twitter said, although it wasn’t immediately clear which tweet had been singled out.
The action comes about a week after Twitter began clamping down on the right-wing conspiracy theorist, deleting several of Jones’ and Infowars’ tweets and videos.
Jones has been widely criticized for promoting untrue, virulent hypotheses about tragic events, like the 2001 terrorist attacks on World Trade Center in New York that killed nearly 3,000 people and the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 26 students and staff.
Several Silicon Valley giants — Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Apple, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Vimeo and Spotify — banned the notorious conspiracy site from their platforms. The tech giants said they don’t tolerate hate speech and Jones’ Infowars violated their community standards and guidelines.
Twitter initially resisted call to remove Infowars content, arguing that it hadn’t violated Twitter’s rules. However, it ended up deleting some of Jones’ and Infowars’ posts.
Jones didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Infowars and Silicon Valley: Everything you need to know about the tech industry’s free speech debate.
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