In the US, a lot of twisted people have access to guns – that's why Alex Jones and Infowars were too dangerous not to be banned

You’d get into trouble for shouting 'fire' in a crowded building or for making ill-advised jokes about carrying bombs in your luggage at airports. What Jones has been doing goes beyond that

Goodbye Alex Jones.

I think we can safely say that the star of the right wing conspiracy nut is finally on the wane now he has been kicked off Twitter, the last of the big internet media companies to play host to his bile.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the posting by the Infowars impresario of a hate filled diatribe against CNN journalist Oliver Darcy that followed an encounter between the two men.

In it he described Darcy to his face as “a rat” “evil” and “Hitler Youth”. Jones made negative reference to his “eyes” (which looked remarkably mild if slightly bemused to me when I watched it) and accused him of “smiling like a possum that climbed out of the rear end of a dead cow”.

“That’s what you look like. You look like a possum that got caught doing some really nasty stuff.”

Yes, Jones is quite the wit.

At one point he lambasted Darcy for failing to respond.

The journalist, whose dignity in the face of what he was dealing with is quite something to behold, replied: “There is nothing to respond to.”

I’ve written some strongly worded columns in my time in which I’ve been quite rude about politicians and corporate executives. But I back my opinions up with facts (usually their records) and while I might mock them, I would hope never to stoop to Jones’ level of personal abuse.

As a private enterprise, Twitter is entitled to impose rules to curb his sort of behaviour, just as The Independent imposes them on its staff and contributors, including this one.

It’s not as if Twitter’s are not particularly onerous, or stringently enforced.

It could be argued that, in being as light as they are, they are ultimately damaging its business. Its trolls are serving to deter people from using the service.

TV presenter Coleen Nolan, for example, recently quit social media after a volley of abuse sparked by her feud with a former Celebrity Big Brother costar. It included trolls expressing the hope that she “dies like her sister” who succumbed to breast cancer in 2013.

Channel Four, meanwhile, will tonight screen edited versions of ads featuring abusive comments directed at the people who appeared in them, including Samantha Renke, the disability campaigner who appeared in a memorable Malteasers commercial.

The impact of this type of abuse on some people makes it akin to an assault.

Jones’ antics are more sinister still.

He has, for example, used the platform he has been given to describe the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that saw 26 people killed, many of them young children, as “a cover up” and a “put up job” by left wing forces seeking to garner support for causes such as gun control.

Not only is this a vile untruth, and unspeakably cruel to boot, the reaction of his followers has resulted in some of the bereaved parents having to go into hiding.

He was indulging in the deliberate and calculated weaponising of words to inflict harm.

This reached another nadir during the Pizzagate affair. It saw conspiracy theorists, Jones among them, claiming that the leaked emails of Hilary Clinton’s campaign manager contained coded messages referring to human trafficking.

They connected restaurants and high ranking Democratic Party officials to a supposed child sex ring centred on Washington area pizzeria Comet Ping Pong.

It sounds utterly ridiculous because it is. No one in their right minds would believe such tosh.

But there are lots of people who aren’t in their right minds and in America they have access to guns. As part of an attempt to “investigate” and potentially rescue some of those supposedly caught up in the ring, one man turned up with a rifle and fired shots into the restaurant. Jones later backed off, but the damage had been done.

It’s often noted, when debates like this are held, that while speech may be free, there are still limits, even in America with its First Amendment, which is one of the best things about its famed constitution.

You’d get into trouble for shouting “fire” in a crowded building, for example, or for making ill-advised jokes about carrying bombs in your luggage at airports.

What Jones has been doing goes beyond that. It is sinister, and dangerous. He and his pitchfork wielding followers would prevent their opponents from speaking freely. The latter have used threats, and sometimes worse, in an attempt to do that. He has caused real harm.

So no, he is no free speech martyr. This man is far more villain than victim.

The troubling thing, given his record, is that Twitter didn’t act sooner.