Roku adds conspiracy theorist channel, changes mind after outcry.
After public outcry, company based in Los Gatos takes down controversial show
Roku offers access to thousands of streaming TV channels on its devices and platforms. But one of those channels proved too much for the Los Gatos-based company to deal with after being available for barely 24 hours.
Late Tuesday, Roku began removing Alex Jones’ InfoWars from its platform and services following public outcry over the controversial, conspiracyladen channel being included among its offer- ings. Several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, have banned InfoWars due to Jones’ promotion of theories ranging from the 9/11 terrorist attacks being done by the United States government, to the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut being a hoax.
Spotify also has banned InfoWars from its streaming radio service, and Apple has removed InfoWars’ app from its App Store.
In a statement, Roku said it originally allowed InfoWars onto its platform on the grounds that “voices on all sides of an issue or cause are free to operate a channel. We do not curate or censor based on viewpoint.” Roku also said that, to its knowledge,
“InfoWars is not currently in violation of these (company) content policies.”
But, a rash of comments on Twitter from Roku users became too much for the company to deal with. By Tuesday night, Roku had started the process
of taking InfoWars off of its service platforms.
“It’s out of the channel store and at least point probably gone completely from the platform,” a Roku spokesperson said Wednesday. “It takes a little time to delete off devices after we delete it
from the channel store.”
Last week, Roku said it ended the fourth quarter of 2018 with more than 27 million active accounts, a 40 percent increase over the same period in 2017.