Alex Jones had his digital reach diminished further in the form of Apple removing his Infowars application from its App Store late Friday, leaving him with one fewer multimedia outlet hardly a day after being permanently booted from Twitter on the heels of similar bans imposed by tech peers including Google’s YouTube and Facebook.
Apple removed Infowars for violating its guidelines prohibiting objectionable content, according to a notification sent by the company shared by Mr. Jones on Saturday, meaning iPhone and iPad users can no longer download the app, effectively preventing its audience from expanding.
“Your app includes content that could be considered defamatory or mean-spirited and appears to humiliate, intimidate or place a targeted individual or group in harm’s way,” Apple said in the notification.
“The fact that they’ve done this is beyond tortuous interference,” reacted Mr. Jones. “It’s beyond racketeering, its beyond unfair trade practices, its beyond Sherman Antitrust Act Section 2. It’s unprecedented, and the fact that they did that shows that they’re going for broke,” he said in a video response, calling Apple’s actions an example of “digital martial law.”
Apple did not immediately return messages inquiring about the specific content and seeking comment.
Launched hardly two months earlier, Mr. Jones’ app offers direct access to his Infowars website and radio programs, as well an online store that sells supplements and other products used to fund his operations.
The iOS app had been downloaded about 2 million times since July, and a similar app designed for Google’s competing Android operating system has been downloaded roughly 600,000 times in the same span, Mr. Jones claimed Saturday.
Neither statistic Mr. Jones offered could immediately be independently verified, but last month Infowars became the number one “trending” app on Google, and the third-ranked news app on Apple, albeit after YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and Apple’s Podcasts app each stopped hosting related content.
More recently, Twitter permanently banned accounts belonging to both Mr. Jones and Infowars on Thursday, citing violations of its policy against abusive behavior, in addition to past violations.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.