We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified. ||||| Accounts like Jones' can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it’s critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions. This is what serves the public conversation best. ||||| Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is getting slammed for his announcement on Tuesday that Alex Jones would remain on the platform since the Infowars host “hasn’t violated our rules.” 
 
 Jones has a history of promoting conspiracy theories, such as his false claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax. He’s currently being sued by the victims’ family members over harassment they received from “Infowars” fans and has been booted from a number of major platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and Apple. 
 
 Mike Blake / Reuters Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that “accounts like Jones’ can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors,” but alluded it was not Twitter’s job to censor such content. 
 
 But Dorsey said it’s not up to Twitter to disown him. It’s on everyone else. 
 
 “It’s critical journalists document, validate and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions,” Dorsey wrote. “This is what serves the public conversation best.” 
 
 That stance didn’t go over well on his own platform: 
 
 I am not getting paid to clean up your website for you. https://t.co/cVyNYsqtAJ — Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) August 8, 2018 
 
 Do you really think Twitter should be used/abused by Jones to spread his lies and hateful conspiracy theories? Because THAT is what he is doing, Jack, and YOU are letting him. — Maria Langer 🚁 (@mlanger) August 8, 2018 
 
 Soooo... you’re passing off the responsibility to journalists? This is your forum! — Glass City Indivisible (@GC_Indivisible) August 8, 2018 
 
 You have no idea what's going on in your platform. 
 
 
 
 None. 
 
 
 
 Try being your user for month where no one knows you. 
 
 
 
 Watch what it's become. 
 
 
 
 Then reread what you wrote. — Kristine Schachinger (@schachin) August 8, 2018 
 
 Seriously. If Alex Jones’s behavior toward the Sandy Hook families is consistent with Twitter’s terms of service, it’s time to re-evaluate the terms of service/raise the standards. — Miranda Yaver (@mirandayaver) August 8, 2018 
 
 That's not how it works, I'm afraid. I wish it were so simple: if you see someone in thrall to dangerous ignorance or malicious lies, you just present good old verifiable facts to that person and they recant. I wonder if that's ever happened in the history of humanity? — Alexey Kovalev (@Alexey__Kovalev) August 8, 2018 
 
 don't put this on us https://t.co/gwdQHJYAYA — Mike Murphy (@mcwm) August 8, 2018 
 
 Alex Jones is seriously the hill you want your integrity to die on? — Xeni Jardin 👩🏼‍💻 (@xeni) August 8, 2018 
 
 How DARE you put the onus on journalists when you refuse to take any action? “If journalists did a better job maybe Alex Jones wouldn’t be a thing” is the insinuation here. It’s insulting to journalists who disprove this crap every day while you refuse to do anything to stop this — Skylar Baker-Jordan (@SkylarJordan) August 8, 2018 
 
 Translation: “I am totally abdicating all responsibility here and relying on journalists to police my website because I am gutless.” -@jack https://t.co/Qb881sl32Y — Molly Knight (@molly_knight) August 8, 2018 
 
 Seems like a problem with the rules https://t.co/9Yse4kTLqB — Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) August 8, 2018 
 
 if @jack and his fellow doormats here can get through the week without banning Alex Jones they have a shot at getting away with it. don't let them. bug them till they do one defensible fucking thing — Owen Ellickson (@onlxn) August 6, 2018 
 
 Alex Jones had someone on his show who reported that NASA operates a child slave colony on Mars — Ben Mathis-Lilley (@BenMathisLilley) August 8, 2018 
 
 Maybe if Alex Jones uploaded a 90s music video to his page he would get suspended @Jack — Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) August 8, 2018 
 
 Bullshit. I've been suspended for using an expletive and once for telling someone he was the character in a Harriet Beecher Stowe novel. Your narrative that Alex Jones hasn't violated your TOS is not only utterly ridiculous, it's a lie. — Pinky Slivotitz™❄ (@ACreativeMuggle) August 8, 2018 
 
 Come on, jack. It’s a question of common decency. Alex jones attacks the families of children murdered at Sandy Hook. That alone is plenty. This isn’t a hard decision. https://t.co/fgpZPqyXnB — steven pasquale (@StevePasquale) August 8, 2018 ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey took to the website last night to explain why they decided not to ban Alex Jones and InfoWars. 
 
 Jones's conspiracy theory website had been notably banned from several social media sites and platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and Apple. 
 
 However, his account remains on Twitter as he hadn't violated the terms of service, as his content doesn't actually reside on the website, but is instead hosted a click away, elsewhere online. 
 
 Although Jones has been banned elsehwere for 'spreading hate speech' and conspiracy theories, he has apparently not violated Twitter's terms on 'Abuse' and 'Hateful content' which read as follows: 
 
 Abuse: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behaviour an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice. Hateful content: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. 
 
 Dorsey attempted to clarify Twitter's position on Alex Jones in a thread, which didn't exactly make things crystal clear. 
 
 We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified. — jack (@jack) August 8, 2018 Truth is we’ve been terrible at explaining our decisions in the past. We’re fixing that. We’re going to hold Jones to the same standard we hold to every account, not taking one-off actions to make us feel good in the short term, and adding fuel to new conspiracy theories. — jack (@jack) August 8, 2018 If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that’s constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That’s not us. — jack (@jack) August 8, 2018 Accounts like Jones' can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it’s critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions. This is what serves the public conversation best. — jack (@jack) August 8, 2018 
 
 Since Dorsey posted these tweets other Twitter users have been asking why some accounts have been suspended in the past for far lesser crimes, such as changing their username to 'Elon Musk.' 
 
 You guys were suspending people for changing their screen name to "Elon Musk" https://t.co/IRzZ9YqZot — Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 8, 2018 Please say this to the Sandy Hook parents in person. Explain to their faces why you ban comedy Elon Musk accounts but not the man who persecuted them with malicious falsehoods after their children were gunned down. — Susanna Forrest (@Susanna_Forrest) August 8, 2018 So you'll ban anyone using "Elon Musk" in their name or calling out what Alex Jones talks about, but you won't boot the mouth piece? Right. https://t.co/JKwpV1z8IJ — Zack Reese (@zackreese) August 8, 2018 If Alex Jones called himself Elon Musk you'd ban him. God you're awful https://t.co/UXXmyNGQOk — Eboni (@CocoaGoddess) August 8, 2018 .@jack You make me sick to my stomach. Alex Jones has led a campaign to harass the parents of murdered children and you help him do it because it makes you money. 
 
 
 
 You profit from the dead. 
 
 
 
 But you ban people making fun on Elon Musk instead. — Fat Boy: The World's Fattest Boy. (@TheChrisVaughn) August 8, 2018 
 
 Give yourself a funny Elon Musk name: locked 
 
 
 
 Tell a nazi that the nazi things hes tweeting from his nazi phone are what a nazi would say: locked 
 
 
 
 Alex Jones sending legions of his morons to torment parents of dead preschoolers: ain't no rule that says a dog cant play basketball https://t.co/TEYQOfjYIq — Jesse 🏳️‍🌈 (@TurboBurpo) August 8, 2018 I love that Twitter is the only platform that won’t suspend Alex Jones but the rest of us will get suspended for tweeting “Elon Musk thinks Chicken McNuggets are too spicy” — Online Participant (@SortaBad) August 7, 2018 
 
 The 'Elon Musk' trend was merely an attempt by pranksters to mock the billionaire entrepreneur, but multiple accounts were shut down soon after they made the change. 
 
 Twitter decided to ban the profiles on the basis that they could be cryptocurrency scammers who were using Musk's name to reply to tweets in the hope that they could exploit others innocence. 
 
 In a statement given to The Verge Twitter explained that this policy was in keeping with their new attempts to eradicate spam from the site. 
 
 As part of our continuing efforts to combat spam and malicious activity on our service, we’re testing new measures to challenge accounts that use terms commonly associated with spam campaigns. We are continually refining these detections based on changes in spammy activity. 
 
 Twitter's official line on impersonation is as follows: 
 
 You may not impersonate individuals, groups, or organizations in a manner that is intended to or does mislead, confuse, or deceive others. While you may maintain parody, fan, commentary, or newsfeed accounts, you may not do so if the intent of the account is to engage in spamming or abusive behaviour. 
 
 It's arguable that Jones' controversial rhetoric which includes claiming that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax is worst than a little joke at the expense of a very rich man but then again this is a website that refused to ban Donald Trump after he threatened to start a nuclear war. 
 
 More: Trump and Donald Jr peddle debunked Twitter 'shadow ban' conspiracy theory ||||| Twitter has implemented a new method for combating cryptocurrency scammers: it now automatically locks unverified accounts that change their display name to Elon Musk. If you have a non-verified account that is not associated with a phone number, changing your display name to that of the SpaceX and Tesla CEO will result in an immediate lock out. Twitter will then ask you to pass a CAPTCHA test, as well as provide a phone number, to regain access. 
 
 “As part of our continuing efforts to combat spam and malicious activity on our service, we’re testing new measures to challenge accounts that use terms commonly associated with spam campaigns. We are continually refining these detections based on changes in spammy activity,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement given to The Verge. The company declined to comment on whether the measure has been put in place for any other public figure’s Twitter account. 
 
 You can confirm the authenticity of your account and then keep your display name as Elon Musk. That’s because the measure is designed to combat the innumerable bots on Twitter that are imitating Musk’s (very active) Twitter profile to scam unknowing users in replies to his tweets. 
 
 Often, the scams are easy to spot to those fluent in online fraud, but they’re designed to fool the unwary. Usually, an account with a random-sounding handle but an “Elon Musk” display name and photo will typically show up as a reply to one of Musk’s real tweets, making the scam tweet look like a threaded reply. The tweets often take the same formulation: users are offered a rare chance to get in on the ground floor of a new type of blockchain technology, and all they have to do to get rich quick is fork over some cash in exchange for tokens of a new cryptocurrency they’ve never heard of. (Sometimes, the scams take the form of a Tesla giveaway.) 
 
 Given all the hype around blockchain technology and the astronomical rise in Bitcoin prices last year, it’s easy to see how Musk-loving fans who think they’re being gifted a chance at getting rich might fall prey to such a scam. Musk himself even called out the sophistication of the crypto scammers targeting his profile earlier this month: 
 
 I want to know who is running the Etherium scambots! Mad skillz … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2018 
 
 Twitter said in March that it would try to reduce the number of crypto scams on its platform. At the time, Twitter said it was “implementing a number of signals to prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner.” That was mostly in response to vocal criticism from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who even today still has the phrase “Not giving away ETH” in his display name due to how frequently he too was being targeted by scammers. 
 
 But the problem seemed only to intensify. Scam tweets regularly began popping up underneath Musk’s replies, and news organizations even began embedding the scam tweets in stories that mistakenly referenced the giveaways and coin sales as authentic. 
 
 Twitter says it’s still working on additional solutions to the problem, but it seems as if scammers are creating bot accounts faster than the company can actively lock them out. In late June, Twitter announced it had acquired a cybersecurity startup called Smyte that would help it “address challenges in safety, spam and security more quickly and effectively.” 
 
 “As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re continuing to fight spam and other malicious behaviors on our service,” Twitter said in a separate statement given to The Verge earlier this week regarding the resilience of crypto scammers. “This is an evolving challenge. As such, we’re rapidly developing our response to be more agile and effective in detecting these behaviors and enforcing our policies — particularly as it relates to deceptive cryptocurrency accounts in violation of our spam rules.”
– Alex Jones and his Infowars website have seen a crackdown this week from Apple, Facebook, Spotify, and YouTube, but Twitter still won't ban Jones' conspiracy-theory-laden content, which has been labeled by some of the other tech giants as "hate speech." CNN reports that on Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tried to explain why Jones is still getting a pass, noting he got that it was "hard for many" to understand Twitter's stance, but that Jones hadn't breached any of the site's rules. "We'll enforce if he does," Dorsey added. "And we'll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren't artificially amplified." He conceded Twitter had been "terrible at explaining our decisions in the past," noted Twitter will "hold Jones to the same standard" as other accounts, and put the onus on journalists to combat any conspiracy theories Jones may push. "If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service tha'ts constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That's not us," he wrote. Dorsey's remarks didn't go over well, HuffPost reports, with many noting the site had suspended their own accounts for what they said were far less controversial posts. The Independent reports Twitter has even been putting accounts on lockdown recently for users who've been changing their screen names to "Elon Musk" to poke fun at the Tesla CEO. Twitter offered a statement to the Verge on that, noting that the Musk ban was to keep spam levels down.