this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has had his account on X - formerly Twitter - reinstated by Elon Musk.

Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result.

Around 70% of roughly two million respondents voted to lift the ban.

Jones is most notorious for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults died, was "staged".

He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.

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[–] brawleryukon@lemmy.world 89 points 11 months ago
[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 60 points 11 months ago (4 children)

If you're still on Twitter, you're a fascist sympathizer, full stop.

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some people are just oblivious. Take my dad, for instance. He told me last week “so Twitter is now called ‘X’!” Uh, yeah, thanks.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But he's probably not on twitter since it also changed its look.

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

He is, he uses it every day. For some reason he assumed I hadn’t heard of it which I guess makes sense as I deleted my acct and don’t use it at all, but I mean, it was all over tech news for a couple months.

[–] Saltblue@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

Well I'm guess am a fascist now, thank you for the heads-up

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Personally I only have an account still because it's the way I log into Disqus and I don't remember my actual Disqus password. I don't actually go on X/Twitter unless linked to by a post or something, and even then I'm usually not logged in because I don't have the app on my phone, and I do lemmy browsing on phone.

[–] ripcord@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

Is password recovery not working?

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 53 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-users-vote-elon-musk-quit-ceo-poll-rcna62332

A year ago next Monday, Musk asked "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll". The votes came in, 57.5% to resign, 42.5% to stay. If you're wondering how much he care about polls where he hasn't pre-ordained the outcome.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

He did step down... he hired a CEO to run day to day.

He was going to do it either way though

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 16 points 11 months ago

Also, don't think that CEO doesn't do whatever the fuck he wants, it's a puppet

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 3 points 11 months ago

Now is a good time to debate following the letter of the law vs the intent of the law.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

He didn't hire a CEO though.

He hired a scapegoat with the title of CEO.

[–] Cranakis@lemmy.one 38 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Let's see, how can I make it even shittier.....?" -Elon

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Next, he should hire Andrew Tate for a management position

[–] aphlamingphoenix@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is that guy out of Romanian prison yet?

[–] squiblet@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

I believe he’s been under home detention for a while.

[–] RealFknNito@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There we go. Now it's officially Truth Social as run by Elon Musk. He could have just bought the actual Truth Social for way less.

[–] ripcord@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

But he got a huge huge audience, which is what the other platforms lack. It was a realy good move if your goals are to try to move social media massively to the right, shut down conversations you don't like, etc.

It may have been expensive, but way cheaper than buying or starting a new platform and trying to get that size of an audience and apparent lock-in/addiction.

[–] rckclmbr@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm convinced he did it for the '24 election. He lost a lot on Twitter, but he stands to gain a lot more if trump wins.

Remember that last election, all major social media sites released a "fact check" on content at the last minute, completely hijacking Trumps strategy of lying about everything.

[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good, now advertisers have even less reason to spend money on that platform

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

He seems to be going all in on "fuck those who left, I don't need them" philosophy

[–] SatanClaws@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

On the one hand, it is sad to see what Twitter has become. On the other hand, it is a bit funny, as Truth Social is more likely to fail the more X takes on their userbase. Which is hurting Trump right in the wallet.

[–] bender223@lemmy.today 16 points 11 months ago

Smells like desperation 😤

[–] garibaldi_biscuit@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

Xcho chamber

[–] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I see we're still reporting on X as if it retained any kind of importance or significance. Quaint.

[–] jennwiththesea@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

I appreciate the heads up that we're going to be hearing from Alex Jones again soon, regardless of who, exactly, has chosen to platform him again. This is awful. He's a hateful, horrible person, and I don't look forward to the conspiracy theories he's going to create again.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thank you. Tired of hearing about this clown, as if doing alt-right shit is novel. It's only newsworthy when he does something progressive by accident.

[–] Nougat@kbin.social 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Musk has a great deal of control over:

  • Satellite internet
  • Low Earth orbit launches
  • Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
  • Social media

His choices impact world events whether you "hear about this clown" or not. Ignoring him doesn't change that.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Okay, but "asshole let's asshole onto his platform of assholes" isn't any of those things, nor is it somehow surprising and novel and therefore worthy of the bytes needed to convey this "news."

ETA: What is the purpose of an article like this? It's certainly not to convince people like us, so it must be either for people who don't stick Elon in the "malignant asshole" category by default, and/or it's ragebait.

If someone in the former category thinks Alex Jones being let back on is the last straw and not the litany of other transgressions, then they and these authors deserve each other.

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's for us who listen to Knowledge Fight to get a preview of what's coming up.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

Hello, fellow Wonk.

[–] schwim@reddthat.com 6 points 11 months ago

I love anything that further sinks the site.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result.

He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.

After buying the platform in October 2022, tech billionaire Musk rejected calls from some of Jones's supporters to reinstate his account.

After Musk posted the poll, Jones shared a video online in which he called on his supporters to vote in favour of his ban being overturned.

Responding to one user on Saturday, Musk said he "vehemently" disagreed with Jones's statements about Sandy Hook, adding: "but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?"

Last month he accused major advertisers of trying to "blackmail" him when they boycotted X over concerns about antisemitic content shared on the site - including a post by Musk himself, which he later apologised for.


The original article contains 390 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago
[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca -4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wish everyone would stop caring what those children do do with their toys and just let them fade into obscurity.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

just let them fade into obscurity.

If only they would do just that. But they keep finding fellow assholes that will give them money and platforms to spew their vitriol.