Roku has U-turned on its addition of InfoWars – the right-wing conspiracy channel of Alex Jones. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Apple and others had all banned the channel but Roku had defended its carriage claiming it did not censor legal content.

But after facing widespread criticism Roku has responded by dropping the channel.

The California-based company recently declared it had nearly 24 million active accounts. Initially the company had said: “While the vast majority of all streaming on our platform is mainstream entertainment, voices on all sides of an issue or cause are free to operate a channel.”

There was a backlash that included criticism by lawyers representing the families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting: Jones had previously falsely claimed that the 2012 massacre had been “staged” with actors and that the 26 children and adults killed had not been harmed.

Roku tweeted: “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.”

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