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Facebook, Google censor Alex Jones documentary

July 15, 2022 - 4:52pm

Infowars’ Alex Jones, described by The Southern Poverty Law Center as ‘one of the most prolific and influential conspiracy theorists in contemporary America,’ has long been the subject of controversy — and a social media ban. 

When Facebook removed him in 2018, they stated that he both glorified violence, ‘which violates our graphic violence policy’ and uses ‘dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.’

But what was not clear until this week is that the social networks now seem to have banned all discussion of him, however critical.

Alex Lee Moyer is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose films have appeared at Sundance and SWSX festivals. Her latest movie — made with independent production company Play Nice — is called Alex’s War. It is an investigation of Alex Jones, but despite it only being on only out on pre-sale, she has already found that her attempts to market the film have been blocked by the social media giants because of the controversial subject matter.

According to Play Nice, when the team first released the documentary trailer, they were blocked by Instagram from adding paid promotion of it. Even posts screenshotting a Washington Post article that mentioned Alex’s War was rejected. They were informed they were being rejected to ‘protect our community.’

Screengrab from Instagram

 

While there may be a prosaic explanation for this (too many people logged in from too many devices), the same cannot be said for TikTok, which took down the trailer because it deemed the video to contain ‘hateful behaviour’.

Screengrab from Google

Instagram’s parent company Meta, followed a similar path. The company explained that the trailer for the movie could not be advertised because of ‘inauthentic behavior or violations of our Advertising Policies and Community Guidelines’. It is unclear which one of Facebook’s advertising policies the video fell foul of.

Elsewhere on Google Ads, the team was told that it was completely banned for being in violation of our Google ad policies’, with a strict warning not to create another. That also means that Play Nice cannot promote the trailer on YouTube, which got 25k views on its first day, before mysteriously flatlining over the following two weeks.

Screengrab: YouTube

Lee Moyer told UnHerd that her attempt was to grapple with, and authentically portray, the Alex Jones phenomenon. 

“My goal is to create work that authentically reflects this moment we are living in. That’s what people are craving right now. So, they can ban this film, block it, misrepresent it, but at the end of the day everyone is gonna see it,” she said.

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Jim R
Jim R
2 years ago

It’s all completely normalized now. How much longer until we won’t even be able to read a story like this? Eventually the ISPs will start regulating all internet content. Then we will become like the Vogons in hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy. Drones will be devised to rise up out of the sand and whack you on the nose if you have an independent thought. So you never will.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
2 years ago

In Canada the Trudeau government has passed legislation to regulate the internet. Progressives have realized that the people they sneeringly told ‘if you don’t like it – build your own Facebook’ are doing exactly that. Substack – Gab – .win communities – Truth Social – etc. So now they will force ISPs to block ‘misinformation’ from the internet completely. As usual mainstream media are either not covering this – or are full on cheerleaders for it.

Ray Mullan
Ray Mullan
2 years ago

For grown–ups, please allow me this opportunity to plug Alex Jones on Odysee and Alex Jones on Rumble.
At this point, I wouldn’t take a cookie from Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter if it were the last one in the barrel — too much sugar and no substance.
NB, UnHerd moderators: remove this post and I will remove your bookmark.

Cleo Sauldog
Cleo Sauldog
2 years ago

I find it disturbing the sheer number of posts calling for graphic violence toward supreme court justices and the lack of bans of those accounts. Biased much?
Or what about the dehumanizing language to describe people who are Trump supporters. Seen plenty of that too. Yet, no bans.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago
Reply to  Cleo Sauldog

Of course not. Why is anyone surprised ?

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
2 years ago
Reply to  Cleo Sauldog

We are now at the moment in Orwell’s 1984 when an interrogator holds up four fingers and punishes us until we say we see three fingers.

Christian Moon
Christian Moon
2 years ago
Reply to  Cleo Sauldog

It’s all right when we do it.

Mike Michaels
Mike Michaels
2 years ago

Turns out he was right about most things ..

Hendrik Mentz
Hendrik Mentz
2 years ago

Know when all the cool people stop visiting your restaurant, and it dies? Well that’s what the legacy/MSM are or will soon start discovering. The people who matter no longer read them or watch.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago
Reply to  Hendrik Mentz

I wish that were so. However, there are millions of people who are completely addicted to these sites and believe all this.

Hendrik Mentz
Hendrik Mentz
2 years ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o’clock in the morning | Eliot’s The hollow men

Give it time; alternatively we’re doomed.

Joe Wein
Joe Wein
2 years ago

I’m not sure that I could sit through 90 minutes of Alex Jones – he’s a nutjob. But the concerted effort of media to suppress this documentary may force me to do it.

Arkadian X
Arkadian X
2 years ago

Is your interview still on YT?

Marcia McGrail
Marcia McGrail
2 years ago

If she says ‘ya know..’ one more time, I’ll…..!!**!!