“Monday, the coordinated war against Alex Jones escalated along several fronts, within a space of about 12 hours.” 

This is an excerpt from an article titled “The War to Destroy Alex Jones, Part One” that was posted to InfoWars on Tuesday. 

InfoWars and its illustrious figurehead, Alex Jones, are the subject of much controversy after having their content banned from big name media platforms like YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Facebook. The brand—whose site is complete with news articles, podcasts, and merchandise—is notorious for its spread of controversial conservative  conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated reporting. 

The big brands that have banned Jones from their sites have all done so in relation to his violation of their community guidelines. Facebook, who removed four pages including Jones’s personal account, cited the content’s use of  “dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates [Facebook’s] hate speech policies.” The Alex Jones Channel, which YouTube removed Monday, had 2.4 million subscribers, and had videos with 1.5 million views. 

Some of Jones’s most controversial viewpoints have been his view that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by the White House, that the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting were actors hired by liberals to push forth anti-gun agendas, and “Pizzagate," a conspiracy that imagined Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant, which turned violent when someone fired in the establishment last year. 

Woven into the story of Alex Jones are questions of censorship and rights to speech, especially as it came so close on the heels of the firing of Disney director James Gunn and the controversial addition of tech journalist Sarah Jeong to The New York Times editorial board. 

For his part, Jones himself tweeted out Monday: 

“Understand this: The censorship of Infowars just vindicates everything we’ve been saying. Now, who will stand against Tyranny and who will stand for free speech? We’re all Alex Jones now.”

So, are we Alex Jones? We could be.

But I highly doubt it.