Facebook removes US conspiracy theorist's pages for hate speech

Facebook has announced it has removed four pages of US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violation of its policy that bans extremist behaviours including hate speech.

"Earlier today, we removed four Pages belonging to Alex Jones for repeatedly posting content over the past several days that breaks those Community Standards," Facebook said on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The world's largest social media company said it has been pursuing a policy that wants "everyone using Facebook to feel safe. It's why we have Community Standards and remove anything that violates them, including hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others."

Facebook said it banned four videos on four Facebook Pages for violating its hate speech and bullying policies, and these pages were identified as the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the InfoWars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page.

Jones has been banned from posting violating content on his Facebook pages for a period of 30 days, Facebook said.

Jones is a notorious conspiracy theorist who claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax. 

He denied the shooting, which killed 20 students and six school staff, had never actually occurred, asserting that it was "completely fake".

Facebook said after it blocked those Jones pages, it received more content from the same Pages that was taken down for glorifying violence.

Those pages broke Facebook's graphic violence policy, and used "dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies," Facebook said.

Apart from Facebook, Jones has also been banned from other major social media platforms, such as Google-owned YouTube and Apple.

Apple confirmed on Monday that it had taken down five podcasts of Jones' infamous "The Alex Jones Show," and a number of other audio streams from his right-wing media platform InfoWars.

Apple said Jones' podcasts that violated its guidelines were removed from its directory "making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming".