Facebook permanently bans Alex Jones, Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, and more far-right figures
Several far-right personalities have just been permanently booted from Facebook.
The social media platform on Thursday said it had banned several "dangerous" extremist figures, including far-right figures Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Paul Joseph Watson, in addition to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, CNN reports. Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist who ran for Congress in 2016 and 2018, was banned as well.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars was also hit with a permanent ban that applies to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Jones and Infowars had previously been banned from Facebook last year. Thursday's ban not only applies to Jones and Infowars itself but also prevents any Infowars content from being posted by anyone on Facebook or Instagram, The Atlantic reports.
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Yiannopoulos had previously been banned from Twitter after targeting Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones with racist attacks, while Loomer received a ban for an attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) that Twitter said violated its hate speech policies.
In a statement, Facebook said on Thursday that it has an "extensive" process for evaluating violators of its policies that ban "individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology," and that this is what led them to remove these accounts.
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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