Twitter CEO defends not suspending Alex Jones, says company won't 'react to outside pressure'

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 8 August 2018

Content from conspiracy peddler Alex Jones has been removed from Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and even Pinterest, but don't expect to see the Infowars founder suspended from Twitter any time soon.

Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Tuesday night that Jones "hasn't violated our rules. We'll enforce if he does. And we'll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren't artificially amplified." Twitter has been "terrible at explaining our decisions in the past," he added, and the company is "fixing that."

Jones has come under fire for saying outlandish things like the parents of Sandy Hook victims are "crisis actors," and Dorsey said if "we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that's constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That's not us." Accounts like Jones' "can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors," Dorsey added, "so it's critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions. This is what serves the public conversation best."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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