Opinion: How Alex Jones Disinfo Empire Gets Around Social Media Bans – By Jared Holt (Daily Beast) / April 29, 2022
Infowars might be deluged by lawsuits, bankruptcy, and social media bans—but Jones’ far-right conspiracy theory business lives on through his proteges
Times are tough for Alex Jones, his media operation Infowars, and his businesses and associates facing legal headaches and financial blows alongside the conspiracy theory mogul.
Several defamation lawsuits—filed by people whom Jones and his network have targeted with alleged falsehoods, harassment, and conspiracy theories—are leaving a mark on his disinformation empire. And both Jones and Infowars have faced widespread social media bans.
But Jones is a wily one, having also invested in online infrastructure that’s enabling his proteges to grow with their own audiences. Through the creation and fostering of his independent video hosting platform, Banned Video, Jones is shepherding the careers of employees and outside contributors, as they build a repository of far-right digital content.
Many of those personalities have storied histories of their own, and to some degree mirror the trajectory of Jones’ own career: appealing to some of the wackiest conspiracy theories the internet has to offer, laundering far-right extremism, and espousing an abundance of hateful rhetoric.
