Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, has announced his intention to reinstate the suspended account of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who is known for his extremist views.
What Happened: On Thursday, one social media user asked Musk to “Bring Nick Fuentes back on Twitter,” to which the Tesla CEO responded in the affirmative saying, “Very well, he will be reinstated, provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes.”
When people on his social media platform reminded him that the decision would attract major backlash, the tech mogul said, “I cannot claim to be a defender of free speech, but then permanently ban someone who hasn’t violated the law…This will probably cause us to lose a lot of advertisers and makes me sad, but a principle is a principle.”
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Why It Matters: Fuentes was last suspended from X in January 2023 due to hate speech and disinformation violations.
At the time, it was reported that Fuentes made several antisemitic comments in a Twitter Space. He was also suspended from other social media platforms for hate speech in 2020 and 2021. This included Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube.
Under Musk’s leadership, X has rescinded suspensions on certain accounts that were removed during its prior ownership, most notably the account belonging to former President Donald Trump.
Trump’s account had been permanently banned from Twitter amidst allegations of inciting violence following the events of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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