Apple was among the tech giants that took action against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones last month for breaking certain content policies. The company, in particular, stopped showing results for his podcasts in the iTunes library for hateful content, followed by Facebook"s and YouTube"s move to take down the main Infowars pages from their sites. Now, Apple has removed Jones" Infowars app from the App Store.
While Apple blocked access to Jones" podcasts in August, the Infowars app retained its listing on the App Store at that time, with the company saying it did not violate any rules on content, until now. Reuters reports that the Cupertino-based giant cited the app"s violations against the company"s rules on objectionable content including:
Defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or place a targeted individual or group in harm’s way.
It"s worth noting that the Infowars app is different from the podcasts in that the former contains the episodes broadcast during the current day while the latter shows all the previous episodes. That means Apple"s content policies cover only a smaller set of content found in the app than in the podcasts.
Apple"s latest move follows Twitter"s decision to ban the accounts of Alex Jones and his Infowars website from the platform. In July, Facebook also suspended Jones" account for 30 days over some video content that the social media giant deemed to be in violation of its community standards.
Source: Reuters | Image via A Miner Detail