Social Media Bans on Alex Jones Had a Consequence That Was Never Intended
Love him or hate him, radio show host Alex Jones has an undeniable knack for marketing. Even with tech giants targeting his Infowars empire, Jones has turned lemons into lemonade, capitalizing on what some refer to as the “Streisand Effect.”
Earlier this month, multiple platforms removed Jones’ content. According to UPI, “Google’s YouTube removed Jones’ InfoWars channel Monday after taking other action in previous months. The move followed similar decisions by Apple and Spotify, which removed Jones’ podcasts shortly before Facebook removed Jones’ fan page and the one for his radio show InfoWars on Monday.”
Twitter did not follow suit, much to the outrage of some. CEO Jack Dorsey explained in a tweet thread that Jones had not violated any rules that would allow for such a move:
We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.
— jack (@jack) August 8, 2018
Anyone, tech giants included, who thought what appeared to be a coordinated effort to silence Jones would work, is in for a huge disappointment. According to data from website traffic statistics tracking site Alexa, Infowars is thriving. In fact, it is continuing to improve.
Back in October 2017, Infowars had a global rank of 3136. Its ranking in the United States was 1001.
Alexa doesn't have perfect data but Infowars should definitely have made it into that list. I think they just weren't included as one of the "conservative news sites" pic.twitter.com/NOWDQnQEPj
— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) December 30, 2017
Just days after the massive hit from social media platforms in early August 2018, Infowars’ global rating jumped to 3,513 after experiencing a major drop off in July. In the United States, its rating was even better than it had been in October, at 699:
The coordinated purge of all things Infowars from social media has had an unexpected result; website traffic to https://t.co/alueoQPMOB has soared in the past week, according to Amazon's website ranking service Alexa. https://t.co/lu9DocBzpN pic.twitter.com/kQmwK8xGYN
— 𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗭 (@rodriQuez) August 12, 2018
Today, August 24, 2018, the numbers are even better. The global ranking for Infowars is 3167. And the U.S ranking is 591, which is significantly better than it was in October:
According to The Economist, when singer and actress Barbra Streisand sued in 2013 to have photos of her Malibu home removed from the California Coastal Records Project archives, she inadvertently gave birth to the “Streisand Effect.” Essentially, “trying to hide something makes it more visible.”
Her action drove scores of people to seek out the images, creating the opposite effect of what she wanted. The efforts of the tech giants to keep the public away from Jones and his content did the same thing. They created a “Streisand Effect” for Jones.
Jones has been capitalizing on the attacks, and it has been paying off for the “conspiracy theorist” who already regularly opines on the efforts of the global elite to shut down him and others who have similar views. The appearance of a coordinated attack on Jones only added to the outrage of some who are against the global elite.
But he is not alone in driving traffic to his site. Free speech advocates have also been aiding his cause, by defending his right to speak and have his platform, even if they personally disagree with him.
One example comes from television show host Bill Maher, who told his audience, “If you’re a liberal, you’re supposed to be for free speech.” He added, “That’s free speech for the speech you hate. That’s what free speech means.”
Just as with the backfiring of attacks on the NRA drove new members to join, new support for Jones has materialized, some just on principle, alone. For some, the more the left attacks a thing, the more they will push back, even if they weren’t originally customers or supporters:
I just joined the @NRA. I don't even own a rifle, but I'm just sick to death of #Obama's gleeful degradation of constitutional sanctity.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 7, 2015
Chick-fil-A, the NRA and Alex Jones are just a few of the examples the left has yet to learn from. As long as they continue to attack freedom, there will always be those among us pushing back to preserve it.
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