Alex Jones, Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulous, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen and Louis Farrakhan have all been banned from both Instagram and Facebook under the companies’ policies against dangerous individuals and organizations. Infowars has been given the strictest ban—content from the site shared by any user will be removed, and multiple violations will incur a ban of the account. Both companies will remove all Infowars videos, radio hits or articles. Facebook will remove any groups sharing the site’s content, and events promoting any of the banned figures. (The Atlantic)
Talking point: Alt-right figures have been allowed to stay on Instagram after being kicked off other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube. Today’s move changes that, but extremists and their audiences have consistently found ways to circumvent bans in the past. For example, after the Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy was banned from Facebook and Instagram in April, new accounts and content were still being created under her name, as well as a paid Facebook ad promoting her personal website. And, by announcing plans to implement a ban ahead of doing so, Facebook and Instagram gave those affected ample time to direct their audiences to alternate platforms.