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."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
‘The problem isn’t solved by simply swapping out the faces on screen’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
3 officers killed in Pennsylvania shootingSpeed Read Police did not share the identities of the officers or the slain suspect, nor the motive or the focus of the still-active investigation
-
Fed cuts interest rates a quarter pointSpeed Read ‘The cut suggests a broader shift toward concern about cracks forming in the job market’
-
Google avoids the worst in antitrust rulingSpeed Read A federal judge rejected the government's request to break up Google
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodesSpeed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
