Facebook said it was banning Infowars content from its platforms -- but several associated pages are still up

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Update (5/6/19): The following pages have since been removed: The David Knight Show, Infowars Prisonplanet, InfoWars Emergency Page, InfoWars Live Feeds, Infowars south-Africa, Infowars.com, Infowars Bill of Rights Channel, INFOWARSMUSIC.COM, InfoWars Breaking News, both infowars.com pages, Alex Jones Is The Illuminati Slayer, and Alex Jones Infowarrior Organization.

Facebook announced on May 2 that it had banned a handful of dangerous extremists from its platforms Facebook and Instagram: conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his site Infowars (for the second time), Infowars talking head Paul Joseph Watson, anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer, neo-Nazi sympathizer Milo Yiannopoulos, white supremacist Paul Nehlen, and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Because of Jones’ record in circumventing social media bans, Facebook also announced a stricter approach to Infowars content, as reported by The Atlantic:

Infowars is subject to the strictest ban. Facebook and Instagram will remove any content containing Infowars videos, radio segments, or articles (unless the post is explicitly condemning the content), and Facebook will also remove any groups set up to share Infowars content and events promoting any of the banned extremist figures, according to a company spokesperson.

A review from Media Matters after the tech company enforced its ban has found that multiple Facebook pages that have promoted Infowars content are still active, as is a page for one of Infowars’ shows.

Paul Joseph Watson's Summit News​ is still live on Facebook. The page's “about” section even lists Watson's YouTube channel, heavily featured on Infowars, and nearly every post to the Summit News Facebook page features articles with Watson's byline.

Facebook pages that associated themselves with Infowars in their “about” sections

These Infowars-centric pages have shared a substantial amount of Infowars content