By David Futrelle
So the Daily Mail is reporting that two former Infowars employees have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing head Infowarrior Alex Jones and other staffers of harassment and discrimination, describing a workplace lousy with racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual harassment and way more shirtless Alex Jones than anyone should ever be subjected to.
Documents filed by ex-Infowarrior Rob Jacobson suggest that working for Jones as a Jewish person was, well, a lot like one might imagine it would be to work for Jones as a Jewish person.
According to the Daily Mail,
the controversial Infowars owner joked with staff who called … Jacobson ‘The Jewish Individual’, ‘The Resident Jew’ and shouted ‘Yacobson’ across the office, it’s claimed.
Jones allegedly continually bullied, ridiculed and humiliated Jacobson – who worked for Jones’ company Infowars for 13 years – before firing him last May.
Apparently working for Jones as a black woman isn’t much of a treat either.
Ex-Infowars production assistant Ashley Beckford says “the discrimination began almost immediately” after she started work there in 2016, the Daily Mail reports.
According to an EEOC complaint she too has filed: ‘I was subjected to different terms and conditions of employment, in comparison to my non-Black African-American peers, when it came to my salary/wages and benefits (travel), and in regards to my dress, including my hair style.
‘I also was subjected to harassment and racial slurs by Respondent’s management and some peer colleagues, as well as subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile, sexually offensive work environment.’
In a series of allegations, Beckford, who is African American, says she was ‘mocked’ for her skin tone, called a ‘coon’ by a senior manager, and denied promotions to match the salary of other coworkers, according to the complaint documents.
She also accuses Jones and several other supervisors and colleagues of ‘commonly leering at women in the office’, and making ‘sexual gestures and advances’. …
Beckford claimed that Jones groped her behind with his hand and commented to others, ‘Who wouldn’t want to have a black wife?’ …
She claims he made ‘sexual advances’ towards her and made comments about her having a ‘good body that looked like I worked out a lot’ …
She added: ‘Alex often spent his time shirtless, and endlessly leering, with or without a shirt, at female guests and employees while creating a disgusting, hostile environment.’
Apparently, the Infowars offices are also full of dudes who love guns (and Donald Trump) a little too much.
Beckford … claims she was intimidated by the constant display of guns in the infowars’ office in Austin, Texas, which created an ‘extremely hostile work environment’ and alleges she was reprimanded if she ever questioned the actions of President Donald Trump.
For more of the sordid details, check out the documents posted by the Daily Mail.
Alex Jones, for his part, says it’s lies, all lies. “I mean nobody accuses me of stuff like that,” he told the Daily Mail. “No, no and in fact I’m not the type of person to say those kinds of things. So that’s why my feelings are hurt. Wow. That’s all I can say.”
Jones’ dad, who runs the Human Resources department at Infowars (!), wasn’t quite as definite in his denials, admitting to the Daily Mail that at least one of Jacobson’s accusations might sorta be true, maybe. “That might have been a case of 30 seconds of somebody giving him some crap, I can see that, it’s like a damn locker room,” he told the Daily Mail, choosing his words very uncarefully.
Presumably since this interview Alex has confiscated his dad’s phone.
Please tell me you filtered that header picture ….
Edit to add:
What the hell was Jacobson smoking? Sticking there for 13 years of harrassment?! It’s not like infowars is a career pinnacle.
I am stunned.
Whodda thunk?
Can none of these guys go to work and just I don’t know actually work? I mean I recognize the weird that is Alex Jones, but I mean it’s still the work place. Sheesh.
It’s (current year) and people can’t at least pretend to be decent human beings in a work environment.
But seriously, nobody should ever have to go through these things just to make a living.
Reminds me of that time the Daily Mail reported on Roosh V. They’re like a stopped clock. I wonder how long it will it will take Alex Jones to make up an elaborate conspiracy theory about these accusations.
That picture…
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8pc84lPr21qifhpdo5_250.gif
It is funny isn’t it? According to reactionary white dudes, women, POC, and poor people are less wealthy and powerful because they just don’t work as hard as privileged white men. But then the subject of workplace harassment comes up and suddenly privileged white men can’t be expected to just come into work and focus solely on their work. How dare we expect them not to “flirt” and “share their political opinions”?
@Makroth I bet it was that evil Obama that was behind this. “Okay, Rob, you’re going to go to work for Alex Jones. But this is a long term plan. You’ll need to work for him for more than a decade, and when I’ve been out of office for more than a year…THEN we’ll strike! Mwahahahaha!”
Yep. It’s such a hard burden to place on them.
Wow.
I mean… the racism and harassment I pretty much expected, but what surprises me is that InfoWars hires minorities at all. That actually made me tilt my head a bit.
Also– man, Alex Jones should have some sort of restriction on his ID where he has to always wear a shirt–wait, no– two shirts.
Every time I read about abusive, hostile workplaces I reflect on the places that I’ve worked and clients that I’ve worked for — even when I wasn’t hurting for money. I’ve endured, just off the top of my head, intellectual condescension (don’t make me laugh, dudes), sexist crapola (even when it wasn’t happening to me, it wasn’t a lot of fun to observe other women experiencing this), anti-Semitism (and I’m not Jewish!), insufferable boredom, and sexual harassment.
And I stayed. I stayed because a job is a job and work is work, and it’s pretty scary to quit. The next one could be worse!
I don’t want to make it sound all bad. Some work has been interesting and the pay not terrible. (Not great either.) And some people have been nice. But there are a lot of pretty terrible work situations.
And my pain can’t compare to some of the pain of the bad old days. Two of my great-uncles were killed in work accidents, which were not as uncommon in the early years of the twentieth century. Their young lives were cut short; their families were devastated, emotionally and financially. This puts my boredom and rage into perspective.
weirwood: That image of Phoebe crying “My eyes!” is perfect. Couldn’t have picked a better gif.
Also, how does anyone (at least anyone who believes in anti-harassment / hostile work environment policies) stay 13 years (!!!) at *Infowars* ??? Why did Jones bother hiring a black woman, or any women, or a Jewish man, to begin with? And why did they apply? This reality makes no sense!
EDIT: Kat made this reality make more sense, though I still would have thought Infowars would be toxic enough of a brand to keep most normal people away.
OT, but I know you folks will like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Uy0Uznw4E
There is no quantity of shirtless Alex Jones that is not a criminal offense. I mean, “Shirtless-Joneses” could be a metric unit of offensiveness.
I’m utterly unsurprised, and I really hope that they have moved on to better pastures. Jones and his circus needs to fall in a well already.
Being called out by the daily mail is like being called out by fox news,
if you are right wing you need to really screw up for them not to cover for you.
@Jules
Well for infowars its like the black friend defense (We aren’t antisemitic we have a jew!)
For the employees its either our hyper-capitalist and generally bigoted society forcing them to work a job any job just to live and it difficult to find other employment,
or its also possible they were true believers with internalized prejudices.
For those who are wondering, I did filter that pic a little, in a way that made him look a bit more oily. I do apologize, not to him but to you all.
weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
My Economic Analysis of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
If an Employee (A) takes money from the petty cash box every week to visit the local strip club & stuff bills in the dancer’s g-string, then they would be fired & probably charged with theft. The company’s money is not theirs to spend on their personal entertainment.
When a company hires an Employee (B) to increase the productivity of the company, they entail a lot of expense to find, hire & pay the salary of the most suitable candidate.
If Employee (A) harasses Employee (B), they are causing stress that reduces Employee (B)’s effectiveness and value to the company, and perhaps driving them away so that the company has lost both the hiring costs & the value of their work.
Employee (B) was not hired as entertainment for Employee (A). Management that excuses or tolerates Employee (A)’s behavior are condoning theft from their company just as surely (but of a greater amount) than if Employee (A) pilfered from the petty cash box.
@Scildfreja:
The Y (Yiannopoulos) is the standard unit of offence. One Y is enough to cause a single pearl to be clutched for one second.
The Sj (Shirtless-Jones) is the standard unit of giving offence. One Sj equates to one Y per second, which is enough to cause one pearl to be continually clutched.
The Ce (Clinton-email) is the standard unit of outrage field strength. One Ce equates to one Sj per unit of underlying moral decrepitude (measured in Rooshes, abbreviated Vz.)
Besides the dorky electric-field joke, I like this system because it means that the Clinton-email also works as a unit of innocence.
Why is he shirtless so much around the office?
@Moggie
Probably something to do with being manly mayun unga unga something.
It just puts me off my lunch, even though it’s 1:30 AM my time. It’ll put me off my future lunch. Or maybe it’s retroactive on my past lunch. Who knows?
So I don’t want to indulge in victim blaming but 13 years?
THIRTEEN YEARS?!?!
What on Earth was he thinking?
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Why would you, as a Jewish person, work for the clumsier modern equivalent of Joseph Goebbels for 13 years??? Especially considering Jones spends all his time vilifying Jewish people and other minorities???
Sorry, not sorry. If you had a hand in furthering Jones’ disgusting Hate Speech agenda, specifically designed to advance policies meant to intimidate and disenfranchise women and vulnerable people, you do not deserve one OUNCE of sympathy.
He may be trash and his words and actions are inexcusable, but these people are trash as well.
I’ve watched compilations of this buffoon, and in one clip, he actually bragged about how high his testosterone level happened to be at that point in time.
He’s ruined his voice, what with all the shouting he’s always doing. Listen to early clips of his, if you can stomach it, and you’ll see what I mean.
@Moggie: I really think it’s just exhibitionism.
EJ’s back!?
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/4330154/jason-segel-o.gif
Where’s your misandry lion?
Diego,
Really? There’s a lot of reasons that someone might end up at a place like Infowars. Conspiracy theories are not on their surface bigoted. A lot of times it only becomes apparent when you dig a little deeper. If someone is sucked in enough, they might put up with it thinking it’s a bug and not a feature and the cause is more important. People who believe in this stuff get to feel special. They, unlike everyone else, know the real truth. Once those ideas are cemented, it’s hard to talk a believer out of it. Conspiracy theories are extremely seductive for this reason and because they offer a simple explanation for why the world so often sucks. It’s not like white supremacist groups where the bigotry is the entire point. So I don’t think fair it’s condemn believers in conspiracies as all terrible people.
Or the reasons that the workers stayed there could be simpler. Media jobs can be tough to come by. Maybe this was all they could find. Or maybe they really are assholes. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter.
We should be supporting victims of workplace harassment and abuse no matter what. We need to provide an environment where people do feel like they can come forward. It’s the only way it’s going to stop. We don’t have to like them personally or agree with their ideas to acknowledge that something wrong and shitty happened to them. When you say “I have no sympathy” the implication is that they deserved it. That abuse is a fitting punishment for wrongdoing. It’s not. Nobody deserves it.
tl;dr can you not do this?