Australia’s far right has enthusiastically returned to Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk, using the platform to hijack and insert itself into online mainstream conversation.
Since buying the company last year, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX has overseen changes that have shifted Twitter to the right while using his position as one of the platform’s most followed users to amplify and answer the concerns of far-right users.
These acts have emboldened the most extreme and fringe users, including neo-Nazis, to flock back to the platform.
Once banished to alt-tech platforms like Telegram or forced to constantly set up new accounts that would be banned, Australian far-right groups are now able to stably operate accounts on Twitter.
Australia’s best-known neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network, has been able to maintain an account since November 2022 — created just days after Musk officially took over — where it openly promotes anti-Semitic and racist views. And despite having been found to have broken the platform’s rules against hateful conduct, Twitter has allowed it to continue to use its platform.
In many cases, Twitter is directly profiting off these accounts’ subscriptions to Twitter Blue, the platform’s $13-a-month service that amplifies an account’s posts to other users. This pay-for-play service has helped Australia’s far right to insert itself into online political discourse.
Joel Davis is an Australian white nationalist and anti-Semite who has avidly used Twitter since Musk’s takeover to hijack mainstream discussion. He’s used Twitter Blue to help drive the crusade against drag shows for children and, more recently, to campaign against the Voice to Parliament referendum.
When a reply to a tweet by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week received more likes than the original post, Davis celebrated its success on Telegram.
“Cheers for juicing it boys and I implore you to keep juicing the fuck out of it because the more savage the ratio the more of a statement it makes. Also it links to my thread on the Voice which is solid [mainstream conservative] bait,” he said.
Far-right researcher Dr Kaz Ross said Twitter’s newfound inhabitability has been key to the strategy to push politics to the right and wedge mainstream conservative parties.
“Nazis are using Twitter to insert themselves into Australian political debates. Telegram has a limited audience, but on Twitter, their stuff can be retweeted by people who don’t know who they are,” Ross told Crikey.
“Like with the Kellie-Jay Keen protest or with Pauline Hanson saying she isn’t anti-immigrant, they want to point out that conservative parties aren’t really their friends. Twitter lets them disrupt and push politics to the right.”
