Twitter on Thursday permanently banned accounts belonging to Alex Jones and Infowars over a video of the radio host confronting a CNN reporter for lobbying to blacklist him from the social media platform, which CEO Jack Dorsey described as a “digital town hall” before Congress the day before.
In a statement shared on Twitter, the company said it terminated Jones’ accounts for “abusive behavior”:
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’ past violations. As we continue to increase transparency around our rules and enforcement actions, we wanted to be open about this action given the broad interest in this case. We do not typically comment on enforcement actions we take against individual accounts, for their privacy. We will continue to evaluate reports we receive regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and will take action if content that violates our rules is reported or if other accounts are utilized in an attempt to circumvent their ban.
Ahead of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday, Jones confronted CNN’s Oliver Darcy outside the hearing room, accusing the reporter of leading a campaign to purge Infowars from the Internet.
A Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Beast that Jones’ exchange with Darcy — in which he referred to the activist reporter as a “rat,” “possum,” “evil-looking,” and a “virus” — violated the platform’s Terms of Services. Jones mocked Darcy during the confrontation, predicting the CNN reporter would “go to Twitter and say, ‘He’s bullying me! I’m only trying to deplatform [inaudible] and celebrating it, and then insulting my viewers a week later, saying no one’s doing it!’”
The company warned it will “take action” against Infowars if Jones attempts to bypass the permanent suspension.