Alex Jones is again on X 5 years after then-Twitter made the choice to completely ban him and his present, Infowars, for violating the positioning’s coverage on “abusive behavior.” Elon Musk — who final 12 months said he wouldn’t unban Jones due to the conspiracy theorist’s insistence on calling the Sandy Hook bloodbath a hoax — created a poll on X over the weekend asking customers to vote on whether or not Jones must be reinstated.
The ballot closed with a majority vote for “Yes.” As of Sunday, Jones’ private account was as soon as once more lively, and already retweeting Andrew Tate.
Reinstate Alex Jones on this platform?
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2023
Jones is well-known for pushing disturbing conspiracy theories, which in some instances have led to actual world hurt. He was sued by the households of Sandy Hook victims, who received near $1.5 billion in authorized judgments after testifying in court docket that they’d been harassed and despatched loss of life threats by his followers. However after Jones appeared on Tucker Carlson’s present on X final week, the dialog about his ban was reignited.
Responding to 1 consumer after the ballot closed, Musk wrote, “I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not? That is what it comes down to in the end. If the people vote him back on, this will be bad for X financially, but principles matter more than money.” The choice comes at a time when X is quickly shedding advertisers due to hate speech on the platform, a few of which Musk himself has elevated. Walmart, Apple, IBM and Disney, amongst others, have lately pulled their adverts from X.