Alex Jones, the conspiracy-mongering radio host whose Infowars content has been banned from YouTube, showed up on a now-terminated channel under a different name, claiming that last week’s New Zealand attack was a false flag operation.
Less than two hours after HuffPost reached out to YouTube for an explanation on Tuesday, the company took down the account.
“All users agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines when they sign up to use YouTube,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “When users violate these policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.”
Though it remains unconfirmed whether Resistance News was being run by Jones, YouTube removes channels that attempt to skirt its policies by spreading his videos.
A Media Matters report published earlier Tuesday pointed out the channel, called Resistance News, which hosts Infowars-branded content and has collected almost 12 million views and nearly 65,000 subscribers since its inception in 2015.
In a video uploaded Monday and viewed by HuffPost before the account’s deletion, Jones suggested the shootings at two mosques, in which 50 people were killed, were part of a stunt designed to “stage something to blame someone else or to get a desired political outcome.”
A caption beneath the clip accused “the bought and paid for media” of “pushing an anti white American narrative while ignoring the decimation of Christians globally at a record pace.”
The video, which was viewed more than 5,000 times, promoted blatant Islamophobia, as Jones implied Muslims celebrate Easter by committing acts of terrorism and he predicted violence would be seen on this year’s holiday.
YouTube’s hosting of the content is especially troubling in light of the New Zealand alleged gunman’s embrace of white supremacy and hatred for Muslim immigrants, which is evident in a 74-page manifesto he appears to have posted online before his attack.
Last year Jones was hit with a series of defamation lawsuits by family members of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting after he falsely claimed the massacre was a hoax.
In August, YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and Apple began cracking down on Jones’ content, banning him from their platforms. Faced with unrelenting public pressure, Twitter followed in September.
Infowars did not immediately respond to a request for comment.