Roku flip-flops to ban incendiary Infowars channel
Roku has bowed to pressure from ‘concerned parties’ by dropping the conspiracy channel Infowars from its streaming platform in light of complaints from ‘concerned parties’.
Roku reversal sees incendiary Infowars channel dropped
The decision marks an abrupt about-turn from a decision made earlier in the week to host the provocative channel, after initially finding that the Alex Jones fronted station did not violate any of its content standards.
On Tuesday Roku broke ranks with other video platforms such as Facebook and YouTube by granting oxygen to the extreme views spouted by Jones in the name of freedom of expression. In a statement outlining its rationale Roku wrote: “While the vast majority of all streaming on our platform is mainstream entertainment, voices on all sides of an issue or cause are free to operate a channel. We do not curate or censor based on viewpoint.
“We're not promoting or being paid to distribute Infowars. We do not have any commercial or advertising relationship with Infowars.”
That stance sparked an immediate backlash from users who forced a change of heart within hours, as a humbled Roku took to Twitter to reverse this decision.
After the InfoWars channel became available, we heard from concerned parties and have determined that the channel should be removed from our platform. Deletion from the channel store and platform has begun and will be completed shortly.
— Roku (@Roku) January 16, 2019
Infowars is no stranger to controversy having previously been outlawed by Apple, Twitter and Spotify for its extreme views.
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