Numerous outlets are reporting that the the hate-hellium filled clown balloon that is called Alex Jones has had a series of his podcasts removed from the popular streaming service Spotify. This is another blow to the locust-filled windbag conspiracy theorist who has received blowback from other social media outlets like Facebook and YouTube this past week. This comes on the heels of Jones suing Sandy Hook Elementary School families for court costs, after he mocked and promoted outrageous lies for years, endangering the already grieving families.
Variety received a statement from Spotify about the action.
“We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community,” a spokeswoman said in an email. “Spotify can confirm it has removed specific episodes of ‘The Alex Jones Show’ podcast for violating our hate content policy.” The company did not provide details about the alleged hate speech in the Jones podcasts that were removed, an action it took after many Spotify users complained about them.
The nicest thing one can say about Alex Jones is that he’s a violation of intelligence and morality. According to Rolling Stone, it is unclear how many of the episodes were removed and what the criteria for removing them is. So, while this is a good step, it continues to allow Jones’s brand of “news” a voice. He seems to peddle his shows as news except when he is being sued and then he argues that his show is fictional entertainment. Jones is either entertainment or he is not and it would be important for Spotify to be more transparent in the details of this new policy. We have seen similar public displays of being “tough” on hate speech from companies like Facebook that don’t really seem to be either consistent or tough. A policy is only as good as its implementation.