Elon Musk said that X, formerly Twitter, will reinstate the account of Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and holocaust-denying commentator.
The decision came after a supporter of Fuentes asked Musk to do so in a publication on the social media platform. "It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness," Musk said after agreeing with the request.
Very well, he will be reinstated, provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 2, 2024
It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness.
Musk later said that he couldn't be a defender of free speech and "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," he added. Musk defines himself as a "free speech absolutist" and vowed to allow all forms on speech on the platform
Fuentes has been banned from several social media platform for his content. The ban from what was then Twitter took place in December 2021 after several violations of content moderation policy.
After Musk bought the platform in October 2022, he created a new account but was banned again. In justifying the decision back then, Musk said he didn't want Twitter to become "a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!"
Fuentes' YouTube channel was permanently terminated in 2020 for violating the platform's hate speech policy. He became a topic of national attention in late 2022 after he joined Kanye West, currently known as Ye, in a dinner with now GOP presumptive presidential candidate Donald Trump in his residence of Mar-a-Lago. Ye has also made anti-semitic comments in the past years, which led several brands to cut ties with him.
Following public uproar and Ye saying Trump was "really impressed" with Fuentes, the former president distanced himself from the commentator saying he had agreed to have dinner with Ye but he had brought "three of his friends, of which he knew nothing." He reiterated that he didn't know Fuentes and he mainly offered West political and entrepreneurial advice.
Fuentes is reinstated on X at a time when antisemitic attacks are on the rise following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the ensuing war. The Anti-Defamation League said incidents of the kind more than doubled since then and that anti-Jewish hate has grown partly because of antisemitism and Holocaust denial on social media.
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