Roku has long been known as an independent platform. Allowing any provider to have a channel as long as they did not violate any laws or decency standards (unless it’s Netflix who presumably gets a pass due to it’s size).
That streak of free mindedness ended yesterday as Roku bowed to the public lynching cries of Infowars.
After the InfoWars channel became available, we heard from concerned parties and have determined that the channel should be removed from our platform. Deletion from the channel store and platform has begun and will be completed shortly.
— Roku (@Roku) January 16, 2019
Infowars is a non mainstream media news site. Infowars in in the midst of a lawsuit with parents of student victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Infowars allowed conspiracies to be aired on some of their programming years ago (noting they were theories) and were sued. Infowars has not aired the conspiracies since, but this has not stopped the drum beat of an organized effort to exploit and use the tragedy at Sandy Hook to shut down the news site.
Though Infowars has never violated the TOS on the Roku platform, the mainstream has successfully now poisoned Roku with the group think bullying that is spreading across the world. I imagine this will be a loss for Roku in the long run, those siding with mob usually lose out in the end, as the mob will eventually turn on them when they perceive them to have sinned as well.
