The major online ad company AdRoll has decided to end its promotion of Infowars products due to their disagreement with the political views expressed on the Infowars website. Alex Jones, who is the founder of Infowars, has of course blown this up and complained that this is a direct attack on his free speech and business. Mr. Jones expressed outrage that his company is being targeted for its support of President Donald Trump and that he will not be able to expand his business due to what he calls an economic attack.
A letter from the AdRoll company that was delivered to Infowars explained that their content should be easily verifiable and that they can't do business with any company that intentionally misrepresents their business or falsely enhances their reputation. You can read the full letter at the bottom of this article.
Alex Jones calls the ad ban a "fake news" witch hunt
Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist from Austin, Texas, claimed that this was a politically motivated attack that will financially cost him around 3 million dollars in lost revenue a year. He went on to proclaim that this is a fake news witch hunt which was spearheaded by the mainstream media.
President Trump first began using the term after he felt he was being falsely accused by the media establishment which he feels is operated by the vast majority of liberals. In response there was a list of fake news websites which was made available online to make readers aware of sites that intentionally publish hoaxes and disinformation to drive web traffic to their websites.
Infowars was one of the main websites named on that list. The mainstream press blamed fake news websites like Infowars for influencing the outcome of the 2016 election which elected Donald Trump as our 45th president. Alex Jones was one of the most outspoken supporters of President Trump and even interviewed him on his syndicated radio show.
Alex was also one of the biggest opponents of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton even mentioned him at one of her rallies and exposed some of his ridiculous conspiracy theories like the Sandy Hook school shooting, where 20 children were killed as being a complete hoax! The fake news list also mentions a couple more falsehoods from Alex Jones such as millions of illegal immigrants voting for Hillary Clinton and that a pizza shop was a front for a pedophilia ring known as pizzagate.
Alex Jones says censorship is a case of racketeering
Alex Jones made a blunt statement on what he feels is clear censorship of his political speech. He goes as far to say, "When all the big corporations and media establishment get together and create blacklists of who they want to ban, it's clearly racketeering." Alex and his employees feel like this is an attack on their free speech by corporations and the media to destroy any competition or any alternative views by going after their funding.
Alex also added, "Before you are physically silenced, you are financially and culturally silenced." The Infowars team say they will do everything they can to legally fight what they call discriminatory and defamatory attacks on their organization.
Does Infowars have a point?
I personally have mixed feelings about this whole issue. On one hand the AdRoll company should have known what type of news organization Infowars was all about from the very beginning. If they felt they were o.k. to do business with from the outset, then why all of a sudden suspend their ad services because of their political content? Then on the other hand, i feel like AdRoll is a private company that can choose not to work with a company anymore if they feel uncomfortable with the political content that they clearly disagree with.
To put it simply, they can pick and choose what they want to spend their money on, it's their legal right. Infowars may have a case if they can prove that they weren't aware of the new guideline policies. You can watch Alex rant and rave about the ad suspension below.