Apple has removed all but one of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones‘ podcast libraries from its iTunes platform, dealing a significant blow to the fake news promoter. The company, which last week became the first to reach the one trillion dollar market valuation mark, cited hate speech as the reason, according to Buzzfeed News.
“Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” a spokesperson for Apple told Buzzfeed. “Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
Following the move by Apple, Facebook announced it had “removed four Pages belonging to Alex Jones for repeatedly posting content over the past several days that breaks … Community Standards.”
Facebook, which has been under pressure to remove Jones, made clear that the hate speech content on Alex Jones’ pages, had “been reported” to it, and that Jones’ false news was not the reason for removal.
The company wrote that it had taken down the pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”
Jones has called the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in which 20 first students, aged six and seven, and six school officials were massacred a hoax, claiming the victims were child actors, according to Media Matters.
UPDATE: ALEX JONES IS HAVING A REALLY BAD DAY – FORTUNATELY IT JUST GOT A LOT WORSE
Fred Gutenberg, the father of one of the teens killed at Florida’s Parkland High School shooting, which took 17 lives, hailed the move.
Sleeping Giants, which calls itself a “campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable,” praised Apple’s decision:
Image by Sean P. Anderson via Flickr and a CC license