Alex Jones and his podcast "Infowars" has always been involved in some type of controversy due to the content presented to listeners and viewers. The most infamous is Alex Jones thoughts on the Sandy Hook shooting --- he believes it's all a conspiracy. His constant attack on the parents of the victims led to him being sued for defamation by six of the families. Unsurprisingly, he is currently in the middle of another controversy.
Now, his content is being removed from Apple, Facebook, Youtube, and Spotify. The companies are citing repeated violation in content and community regulations. This has caused a big debate on social media: does this threaten our freedom of speech? Is this the beginning of censorship?
The short answer is no.
While legally American citizens are allowed to say whatever comes to mind, it has been made clear that making problematic and offensive comments do not mean a person will be free from consequences. For example, if an employee is found making offensive comments on social media, their employer has every right to fire them. In this case, with Alex Jones, he violated many companies policies.
Alex Jones and Infowars suffered the consequences. His social media platform is being shut down.
He has already responded, tweeting: "We've been banned completely on Facebook, Apple, & Spotify. What conservative news outlet will be next?"
Despite being taken down from private companies, he still live streams Infowars on his own website. This is the reason why free speech is not threatened: he still has every right to stream on his own, but violated the guidelines private companies established and is suffering the consequences from repeatedly spreading hate speech, false news, and conspiracies. As long as he is able to live stream on his own terms, nothing is truly being violated.
