Facebook Banned Alex Jones. So Why Did His Insurrection Messaging Still Flood the Site?

The social media platform has some serious explaining to do

Alex Jones, the infamous right-wing conspiracy theorist who sells dubious health supplements to swindle his followers, was finally banned off of Facebook a few years ago—first his misinformation site InfoWars in 2018 and then himself personally in 2019. But if he was banned, how is it that his message of “Prepare For War” regarding the insurrection at the Capitol still spread so rapidly and widely across Facebook?

Alex Jones at the January 6th Insurrection. Photo: ZZ/STRF/STAR MAX/IPX

According to an extensively researched report by Avaaz, an international organization focusing on web activism, Jones posted messages on his various websites promoting false election fraud conspiracies and inciting his followers toward insurrection at the Capitol. On top of this, he provided $50,000 in “seed” money for the rally itself and is now under investigation by the Justice Department for his role in the insurrection.

As reported by Vice, the messaging coming from Jones and his websites included a video from one of Jones’s associates, Owen Shroyer, in which he exhorted them to action. “It’s just confirmed...the epicness that we’re about to see in D.C. this week,” Shroyer said in a video the day before the riots. “We’re going into occupied enemy territory folks. Washington D.C. is occupied enemy territory. Now, don’t look at that as a turn-off not to go; look at that as a reason to get to D.C. to take our country back.”

Jones’s followers, who formed groups on Facebook with obvious connections to Jones such as “Friends of Alex Jones” then spread the message widely by posting links to the video and other material. According to Avaaz, there were 583 different posts on Facebook, with 198 of them promoting false election conspiracies and the January 6 rally. In total, these garnered a whopping 1.18 million interactions on Facebook.

While Facebook had taken action against misinformation spread by Alex Jones directly years ago, it did nothing to stem the flood of misinformation coming from links to his sites after the 2020 election—something it easily also could have controlled had it bothered. And while it did try to apply warning labels to some of the information, it often failed to do so with any coherence. For example, in 120 out of 158 posts labeled as misinformation, Facebook applied a fact check with information about the lack of connection between pregnancy miscarriages and the COVID-19 vaccine. It did not stop the election misinformation from spreading via the links.

Many users personally have experienced Facebook’s heavy-handed censoring of speech that doesn’t rise nearly to this level of danger and impact, with 24 hour suspensions for offenders and even month-long penalties for repeat offenders. Facebook is thus clearly capable of regulating misinformation and hate speech, and it already does so to the point of over-regulation. The company therefore should answer very hard questions over its abject failure to prevent the spread of misinformation from Alex Jones, whom Facebook already recognized as one of the most dangerous purveyors of it.