Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is calling on other tech companies to ban more sites like InfoWars, and says the survival of American democracy depends on it.
“Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it,” Murphy tweeted Monday.
Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.
In an earlier tweet, Murphy reasoned that private companies “shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate.”
I know Facebook and Apple and YouTube have gotten so big they sometimes seem like the government.
But they aren’t.
They are private companies that shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate. They took a good first step today by removing Infowars.
Apple, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Spotify removed Alex Jones and his InfoWars show from their platforms in recent days, citing violations of their codes of conduct relating to hate speech.
Apple deleted all episodes for five of InfoWars’ six podcasts, including the popular “Alex Jones Show” podcast, which was hosted by Jones, a prominent conspiracy theorist.
Facebook made a similar move by taking down four InfoWars pages after originally removing only certain videos it said violated its hate speech and bullying policies. Jones was previously suspended from the social media platform for 30 days.
YouTube also removed Jones’ channel from the platform.
“They’re invading the First Amendment,” Jones responded.
