YouTube hits Alex Jones with yet another strike–but he’s still not banned

Alex Jones has escaped a YouTube ban yet again.

The InfoWars founder, most known for falsely reporting that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, has received another strike on YouTube for four videos violating community guidelines. The videos have been removed from the site.

Jones’ YouTube troubles first made news back in February, when he received two separate YouTube strikes for videos spreading conspiracy theories about the Parkland shooting. At the time, many outlets noted that under YouTube’s rules, one more strike would wipe Alex Jones’ YouTube channel from the site. While YouTube does ban a channel when it receives three strikes, users do have an opportunity to avoid the third strike — strikes expire after 3 months.

After receiving a strike, YouTube creators are given  a warning upon logging into their account to overview the violation in question. As the Verge notes, YouTube can choose to bundle multiple videos together as one strike violation.

Last time Alex Jones received what at the time would be his second strike, YouTube had bundled two Parkland shooting conspiracy videos into a single strike. However, those videos were posted within days of each other. The publish dates for the four videos bundled in the most recent strike span over 3 months, from May to July of this year. 

While two of the videos are from the same day in May, if the other two — published in June and July — were viewed as separate strikes, Jones would have run afoul of the three strike ban. Sleeping Giants, an online activist group that works to persuade companies to remove their advertisements from right wing outlets like Breitbart, pointed out on Twitter just how arbitrary YouTube’s bundling of strikes is.

In a blog post responding to the strike, Infowars pointed to YouTube’s own policy stating “it is permissible to post graphic content ‘in a news, documentary, scientific or artistic context’ so long as it is not gratuitous.” In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said that the company has “long-standing policies against child endangerment and hate speech.”

The four videos banned from Alex Jones’ YouTube channel are “How To Prevent Liberalism – A Public Service Announcement,” “SHOCK REPORT: Learn How Islam Has Already Conquered Europe,” “Shocking ‘Drag Tots’ Cartoon Sparks Outrage,” and “VIDEO: French President Macron Pretends Crime Rates And Migrants Are Not Co-Related.” 

In its post about the incident, Infowars directs its viewers to where they can still find and watch all four videos that were removed from YouTube: on Facebook. Over the past few weeks, Facebook has been dealing with the blowback from their own decision to allow Alex Jones’ Pages and videos on its platform.

Embedded over one of the Alex Jones videos that are now banned on YouTube is a warning from Facebook.