Infowars, the popular far-right news site founded by radio host Alex Jones, has just been dealt a harsh blow by its largest advertising partner. AdRoll, a company that places Infowars advertising on millions of websites, has suspended its partnership with Infowars over claims that the website is a purveyor of "fake news".
“When all these big corporations get together and create blacklists of who they want to ban, it’s clearly racketeering,” said Alex Jones on Tuesday. Jones estimates that AdRoll's decision-- which he believes is in violation of its contract with Infowars-- will cost the site $3 million per year in lost revenue.
AdRoll's official explanation is that Infowars had been flagged by the advertising agency's policy team, and goes on to state: "All political content should focus on the merits of the candidate, and political messaging should not target special interests or groups, or imply affiliations."
AdRoll has a habit of targeting pro-Trump sites
Alex Jones and other site contributors are vocal supporters of President Trump, and Jones believes that his site was targeted for political reasons; he pointed out that AdRoll also happens to be the same company that accused Breitbart News of "hate speech".
"AdRoll does not serve ads on Breitbart News because it violates our policies around offensive language and hate speech,” stated a company spokesperson in early February.
Incidentally, on the same day that AdRoll cut its ties with Infowars, controversial Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulis was forced to resign, after an anonymous Twitter user posted year-old video footage that seemingly shows Yiannopoulis making pro-pedophilia comments. Yiannopoulis stated that the video footage was deliberately edited in an attempt to discredit him.
As a result of the controversial video, Simon & Schuster scrapped its $250,000 book deal with the conservative Breitbart tech editor, while CPAC withdrew its invitation to have Yiannopoulis speak at its annual conference. Yiannopoulis stated that he believes that he is the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.
Alex Jones, along with his cadre of conservative reporters at Infowars, undoubtedly feels the same way-- and the evidence seems to substantiate these allegations of censorship.
Believed to be the handiwork of Sleeping Giants
According to the tech website CNET, a "secretive organization" calling themselves Sleeping Giants vowed "to stop racist websites by stopping their ad dollars" after the inauguration of Donald Trump. CNET reported earlier this month that 820 companies have partnered with Sleeping Giants-- which makes the timing of the attacks on Infowars and Milo Yiannopolis rather suspicious.
