YouTube Deleted InfoWars Reporter's Account

YouTube deleted the account of InfoWars' Washington D.C. bureau chief on Thursday after he received two warnings for violating the platform's bullying and harassment policy, screenshots show.

Jerome Corsi—one of the most prominent faces for Alex Jones' InfoWars, according to the journalism school Poynter Institute—complained about YouTube terminating his channel in a caps-laden Twitter rant Thursday afternoon.

"GOOGLE/YouTube JUST TERMINATED MY YouTube channel (jrlcorsi) without NOTICE or EXPLANATION," wrote Corsi, who has amassed 33,000 YouTube subscribers. He said the site "Stole my FEB EARNINGS," and called his channel's deletion "CENSORSHIP."

Per YouTube policy, accounts may be disabled after receiving three or more strikes. The site also strips features from accounts that have violated YouTube policies, and bars channels with two strikes from posting any new content for two weeks. Accounts that receive three strikes in as many months are terminated.

Corsi's tweet included two screenshots: One showing his two previous strikes on February 20 and February 26, both for violating YouTube's policy on harassment and bullying; and a second shot showing his account had been deleted. The first screenshot also noted that Corsi had apparently appealed both strikes, and that both appeals had been rejected.

The termination came just two days after USA Today—the country's highest circulated newspaper, gave Corsi a major platform on its op-ed page. The paper first identified him as an "investigative journalist and author," omitting his relationship with his controversial employer. It later added his connection to InfoWars to the column online, after it had gone to print, Poynter noted.

InfoWars has promoted the Obama birtherism fallacy, the notion that the survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were actually "crisis actors" and the bizarre "Pizzagate" conspiracy, which claimed Democratic operatives were involved in a human trafficking and child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor.

These conspiracies have not existed solely on the internet; they have carried real-world consequences. In December 2016, a North Carolina man obsessed with the Pizzagate conspiracy drove to the D.C. pizza parlor, which doesn't have a basement, and fired several shots inside the building with an AR-15 in an attempt to expose the trafficking operation. Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, later pleaded guilty to transporting firearms and ammunition across state lines, a federal charge, and for assault with a dangerous weapon.