Last Updated on February 4, 2020
Newsweek was seemingly so upset over so-called “proxy” accounts which posted videos containing pundit, Alex Jones, who has been banned from YouTube–as well as several other social media platforms–that they contacted YouTube for comment, which led to the termination of the accounts hosting Jones’ content.
According to Newsweek, at least three accounts had been opened since October, amassing thousands of followers and over a million views, operating under the name “General Shepherd.”
Newsweek writes:
Analytics from the social media tracking service SocialBlade indicated that each of the channels had steady growth since stealthily surfacing online.
Two of the proxy Infowars channels brought in more than 550,000 views in the past 30 days, while the most-popular channel boasted 1,689,757 views in total.
As a result, Newsweek decided to flag the content to draw the Google-owned tech company’s attention to the social media persona non grata, Alex Jones.
Jones has been blacklisted from several social media sites for his commentary, including Facebook, Apple, Spotify, Twitter, and Google.
In the article, the author continues:
A YouTube spokesperson said the channels flagged by Newsweek had been deleted, noting they were created to circumvent a previously-issued suspension by uploading “terminated content.” YouTube confirmed the ban on Infowars and its host remains “active and consistent.”
- General Shepherd – 9.73K subs, 943,982 views
- General Shepherd – 8.87K subs, 1,696,939 views
- General Shepherd – 1.17K subs, 29,825 views
Jones, 45, who continues to spearhead the controversial media operation made famous by peddling conspiracy theories and unfounded claims, was banned from mainstream social media websites and app stores in 2018 – including Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Spotify and Google. Prior to deletion, Jones’ YouTube channel had over 2.4 million subs and 17 million monthly views.
The report from Newsweek comes a few days after financial markets blog, Zerohedge, was permanently suspended from Twitter, despite amassing over 650,000 followers, after Buzzfeed had complained that the blog had released personal information of a scientist in a post alleging that the deadly Coronavirus may have been “a bioweapon.”
