WASHINGTON – Infowars publisher Alex Jones argued that he is the “beta test” for technology companies like Apple and Google to start censoring conservatives online.
“They’re talking about me and straw man stuff I never even said or did and how I’m a bad guy so lets ban me off of everywhere when these companies are moving to China and helping round up political dissidents,” Jones said on Wednesday after attending the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
During the hearing, Dorsey and Sandberg explained why their companies are not doing business in China at the moment.
“When we were blocked, we decided that it wasn’t a fight worth fighting right now. We have other priorities,” Dorsey said.
“The Chinese government has chosen not to allow our service in China,” Sandberg told the committee. “You know we’ve been open about the fact that our mission is to connect the world and that means it’s hard to do that without connecting the world’s largest population. But in order to go into China, we would have to be able to do so in keeping with our values. And that’s not possible right now.”
Larry Page, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, was invited but did not attend.
A reporter asked Jones to describe what he thinks lawmakers and tech companies misunderstand the most about him.
“They don’t misunderstand. They know I’m effective, they know I’m huge. They know I’m helping push a populist resurgence in America and the elites don’t want that,” he said. “They want their same old globalist control so they want to misrepresent who I am as a straw man, shut me down as the beta test model, in their own words, and then shut everybody else down and it’s already begun but we are exposing it ahead of the election so we have time to change it.”
Jones explained why he thinks Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was trying to ignore him outside of the hearing on Capitol Hill.
“I just don’t know who you are man. I don’t read weird websites,” Rubio told Jones while he was speaking to a reporter in the hallway.
“I’m asking you not to touch me again,” Rubio said when Jones touched his shoulder. “Oh, you want me arrested?” Jones replied. Rubio shot back, “You’re not going to get arrested, man. You’re not going to get arrested. I’ll take care of you myself.”
Reacting to the altercation that took place, Jones said, “He came over looking at me like he hated me. He obviously knows who I am. I guess I made jokes about him being a ferengi ambassador and it was other people’s news articles about him and bubble parties and all that stuff.”
Jones added, “I never even ran those stories but we did talk about it and there’s nothing wrong if Rubio’s gay. I’m not against people like that, you know. It’s OK if he is. I know he’s married and stuff now but if he wants to be or was gay before it’s all right. So I think that’s why he’s so upset because I think he probably thinks we covered it.”
Jones was likely referring to claims made about Rubio by some gossip websites like Radar Online during the 2016 presidential primary campaign.
“I’m sure mainstream media will say I had a battle-axe or something or like I had nuclear bombs [during Rubio alternation] and I dropped them on him…that didn’t happen. I tapped him and said, ‘hey c’mon’ and he had such just seething hatred for me that he completely flipped,” Jones, a conspiracy theorist, said.
Jones also said he came to Capitol Hill in-person because representatives of technology companies and others in the media often do not tell the truth about him and his website.
“I’m here because I’m sick of them lying about what I say and do, editing it and then never letting me face my accusers. In the McCarthy hearings they got to do it. I get talked about in all these damn hearings. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of them lying about me,” he said.
Jones was hoping to speak to Dorsey while he was on Capitol Hill.
“I appreciate that you have come out and said you are pro-free speech… I would say, ‘sir, you’re going in the right way but you’re letting Antifa and you’re letting ISIS call for real violence and then you are cherry-picking and lying about what I’ve said, when the media says that I said get your battle rifles ready for the media.’ I never said that,” Jones said, explaining what he would have told Dorsey if he had the chance. “I said have guns ready at your house in case Antifa attacks you — that’s what the damn video said but then on none of these shows do they show that.”
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