Facebook on Tuesday said that Infowars founder Alex Jones's monologue threatening special counsel Robert Mueller is not a violation of its platform rules.
In his rant, Jones accuses Mueller of covering up sex crimes, challenges the special counsel to an imaginary gunfight and pantomimes shooting the former FBI director. He challenges Mueller to "make the move first, and then it's going to happen" before pretending to shoot the special counsel.
In the monologue, Jones accused Mueller of molesting children but later walked that back and said Mueller just "controls" the rape of children and did not participate in it.
The Hill reports Facebook is eating the policy it doubled down on: The company has said that despite taking down videos and other content pushing hoaxes and banning repeat offenders, Jones's Infowars account doesn't qualify for a ban from the platform.
Despite criticism for this stance, Facebook says that hoax stories alone are not violations of its rules.
It's not clear if Jones's words could constitute a transmitted threat against Mueller, who is currently leading the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Threatening a federal official with violence is a class C or D felony, punishable by up to five or 10 years in prison.
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