Apple and Facebook have deleted content belonging to U.S. far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their platforms. The tech companies carried out this stringent action alleging hate speech, glorified violence and other policy violations.

Social media giant Facebook announced on Monday that it had removed four pages belonging to Jones -- "for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies." Facebook added that it had also suspended Jones' account for 30 days for his role in posting violating content to the pages.

Among the conspiracy theories Jones has peddled are charges that the U.S. government was behind numerous attacks, including the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Since founding Infowars in 1999, Jones has built a vast audience with his website and radio show.

For its part, Apple removed five of Infowars' six podcasts - including the shows "War Room" and the daily "The Alex Jones Show - from its iTunes and Podcast apps, BuzzFeed News reported on Sunday.

"Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users," the tech giant told BuzzFeed in a statement.

The most dramatic action came last, from YouTube, which is owned by Google. It removed many top channels associated with InfoWars, including The Alex Jones Channel, which had 2.4 million subscribers and videos that were viewed over 1.5 billion times. "When users violate ... policies repeatedly, like our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts," said a spokesperson for YouTube.

The moves by Apple and Facebook are the most sweeping of a recent crackdown on Jones' programmes by online sites that have suspended or removed some of his conspiracy-driven content.

InfoWars is notorious for spreading demonstrably false information and conspiracy theories on a host of issues. It has also suggested that the 2012 Sandy Hook Mass School Shooting was a hoax. Jones is a huge supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, and has used his radio and podcasts to drum up support for him.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 07, 2018 07:39 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).