Alex Jones, purveyor of conspiracy site and lead-tainted supplement shop Infowars, has seen pretty much every major platform rally against him as of late. After Apple banned most of his media network’s podcasts, Facebook stripped him of his accounts, YouTube and Vimeo banned him, and he managed to get himself kicked off Twitter. Even Pinterest took him offline.
Now, Apple appears to be circling back to finish the job. Jones’ app, which surged in popularity after he was kicked off of other platforms, is no longer available on the App Store. BuzzFeed News reports:
Apple confirmed the app’s removal to BuzzFeed News, but declined to comment, pointing to its App Store Review Guidelines. The company said Infowars would not be permitted to return to the App Store.
The first clause of those guidelines explicitly rejects “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or place a targeted individual or group in harm’s way.”
As BuzzFeed noted, Jones’ app did not store content locally—though watching Infowars content for any stretch of time would almost certainly involve seeing content that barreled past the limits of those guidelines.
Apple came under some criticism for allowing the app to remain on its store after cracking down on Jones, though perhaps it was biding its time. Now that it’s gone, the number of platforms willing to play host to him seems limited to bit players like far-right social network Gab and Google+. His app also remains on Google’s Play Store, and time will tell if it’s under threat there too.
[BuzzFeed News via the Verge]