Facebook stops InfoWars host posting for 30 days

Facebook has imposed a 30-day suspension on Alex Jones - founder of the InfoWars conspiracy theory site.

Mr Jones is banned from using his account for 30 days for posting videos that Facebook said broke its community standards.

The hiatus applies only to Mr Jones meaning the channel bearing his name on Facebook will still be active.

The suspension follows action by YouTube this week which saw four videos removed from the InfoWars channel.

Liberal critics

The videos that led Facebook to impose the short posting ban are believed to be the same ones that led YouTube to act.

The videos show Mr Jones criticising Muslim immigrants to Europe and denouncing a transgender cartoon. Another shows a man pushing a child to the floor.

"We reviewed the content against our community standards and determined that it violates [them]," Facebook told tech news site CNet.

The social network told CNet that the Alex Jones Channel on Facebook was close to the threshold which would see it shut down and deleted.

InfoWars has not yet responded to Facebook's action.

The suspension comes soon after Facebook was criticised for not taking action against InfoWars and Mr Jones who has repeatedly claimed that the 9/11 attacks were staged by the US government.

As well as taking down the videos, the InfoWars YouTube channel has been hit by a penalty known as a "community strike", which stops it broadcasting live for 90 days.

Infowars said the the videos were deleted because they were "critical of liberalism".

More than 2.4 million people subscribe to Mr Jones's channel on YouTube.