In a post, Facebook said it banned Mr. Jones and his pages for “accumulating too many strikes.”

The company has refused to say how many strikes is too many, however. It has also not answered questions on how long Mr. Jones will be banned or whether Facebook will be reviewing similar content posted by other right-wing conspiracy theorists.

It’s unclear whether the actions Facebook has taken against Mr. Jones signal a new approach by the company against hate speech or whether they are, once again, responding to an isolated case because of public pressure.

— Sheera Frenkel

Google’s Wide Gray Area

Of all the major online services, Google’s YouTube is probably the most explicit about what is and is not allowed. But even with its published “Community Guidelines,” YouTube has wrestled with the subjective interpretation of those rules.

Users can flag videos that they believe violate those guidelines, which include bans on videos with nudity or sexual content or incite violence. YouTube will then review those flagged videos for potential violations. In addition, YouTube’s computer systems also comb the site for videos that violate its rules.

But many videos operate in a gray area. Even in YouTube’s own explanation of “hateful content,” the company calls it is a “delicate balancing act” between free expression and protecting YouTube users.

YouTube still hosts videos of Ahmad Musa Jibril, an Islamic cleric from Dearborn, Mich., whose sermons were viewed by one of the knife-wielding attackers in the terror attack on London Bridge last year. His sermons posed a quandary for the video service because the cleric does not directly call for violent jihad and is, therefore, not in clear violation of community guidelines. YouTube now presents Mr. Jibril’s sermons behind a warning that the video has been deemed “inappropriate or offensive” by part of the YouTube community.