A figurehead of the American far-right, Alex Jones may soon lose his Instagram account, according to internal emails obtained by Business Insider and Channel 4 News.
According to reports, Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, is investigating the issue following an Alex Jones publication that may have encouraged antisemitic behavior on the social network.
On March 14, Mr. Jones published a photo of a painting by American artist Mear One. This painting is described by Business Insider as featuring cartoons of six Jewish men sitting around a Monopoly board supported by four squatting figures.
The image, which has an antisemitic symbolism, was shared with Alex Jones’s 320,000 subscribers on Instagram. The publication has since been deleted.
No clear violation
According to the chain of e-mails apparently involving some unidentified senior officers of Facebook and Instagram, Alex Jones’s Instagram account would not currently violate the platform’s policies.
“An Instagram account must consist of at least 30% violent content [the rules to be banned] according to our usual rules,” wrote one of the interlocutors. However, we are currently having internal discussions about his designation as a hate personality.”
An image problem
Later in the discussion, executives from the British branches of Instragram and Facebook raised concerns about the image that could project the company by not punishing Alex Jones.
“This image is widely recognized as anti-Semitic and is famous in the UK for public controversy around it,” said one of the officials. If we go back and say that it does not violate our policies, we will attract a lot of criticism. ”
A few messages later, another executive agrees, pointing out that Facebook has announced stricter policies for combating hate speech.
“Retaining this publication undermines this announcement, and it will be easy for the media to say that we are inconsistent or incompetent in the application of our policies,” concludes the framework.
Difficult decisions
Contacted by Channel 4 News , Facebook has acknowledged the existence of an internal debate in the company about Alex Jones.
“As this discussion shows, figuring out what content can stay on our platforms and who can use it is some of the most difficult decisions we have to make as a business, so it’s appropriate that we take the time to do it right. do things, “said the company in a written response.
Alex Jones and his Infowars podcast are already banned from many online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify and the App Store and Google Play Store application stores.
With Business Insider information
