Apple drops extremist podcasts from iTunes

MOST of US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s podcasts from his right-wing media platform Infowars have been removed from Apple’s iTunes and podcast apps, the media news website BuzzFeed quoted a company spokesman as saying on Sunday.

The move by Apple is the most sweeping of a recent crackdown on Jones’ programs by Facebook and other online sites that have suspended or removed some of his conspiracy-driven content.

Apple told Buzzfeed that it had removed the entire library for five of Jones’s six Infowars podcasts including the shows “War Room” and the daily “The Alex Jones Show.”

Only one program provided by Infowars, “RealNews with David Knight” remained on Apple’s platforms on Sunday, according to media accounts.

An Apple spokesperson was not available for comment early yesterday.

In other recent actions against Jones, Facebook suspended the radio and Internet host’s personal profile for 30 days in late July from Facebook’s site for what the company said was bullying and hate speech.

Facebook also announced yesterday that it had removed four pages belonging to Jones for “repeatedly posting content over the past several days” that breaks its community standards.

The company said it removed the pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”

Also, Spotify said yesterday it had removed all of Jones’ Infowars programs. Last week it removed just some.

“We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community,” a spokesperson said yesterday.