No platform, no problem for Alex Jones.
The controversial conspiracy theorist has seen his InfoWars app blitz up the Apple App Store charts on Tuesday, one day after he was exiled by several of the biggest companies in tech.
InfoWars currently sits as the fourth-ranked News app on the App Store — jumping more than 40 spots since Sunday. The rapid increase pushed InfoWars past CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times in the rankings (trailing only Twitter, News Break, and Reddit).
The app has had a similar run on Google Play as well, moving from 31st to 11th for news apps, according to The Verge.
The surge comes after Facebook, Spotify and, yes, Apple, removed Jones’ content from their platforms on Monday. Facebook — which had already slapped a 30-day suspension on Alex Jones’ personal Facebook page — removed a number of official InfoWars related pages, including “The Infowars Nightly News” “The Alex Jones Page” “Infowars Page” and the “Alex Jones Channel Page.”
“All four Pages have been unpublished for repeated violations of Community Standards and accumulating too many strikes,” said Facebook in a statement. “We have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”
Apple quickly followed, removing five of six InfoWars podcasts, including its signature “Alex Jones Show.” Spotify — which had already deleted certain Jones podcasts last week for “hateful content” — jettisoned Jones entirely from its service soon after.
In a statement to TheWrap, the InfoWars chief accused China and George Soros of being behind the effort to silence him.
“China pulls the strings of big tech now. Choose a side. Soros is proud of you,” Jones said via text, which also included a Chinese flag emoji.
It’s unclear if Apple will take action against the InfoWars app. Its App Store guidelines are vague on what warrants a removal, saying: “we will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’”