(NewsInsights.org) – Twitter banned conservative activist Alex Jones in September 2018 for violating the company’s abusive behavior policy, according to then-CEO Jack Dorsey. On Saturday, December 9, 2023, Elon Musk posted a 24-hour poll on X, formerly Twitter, asking users whether they believe he should reinstate the InfoWars host on the platform. On Sunday, Musk had his answer.
In a landslide, 70.1% of respondents said Musk should reinstate Jones. Comments from advocates for his return included a post echoed often by users like Gunther Eagleman, who said, “Free speech is free speech.”
Yet, of the less than 30% of respondents who voted no, some left comments referring to Musk’s November 2022 post about why he found it unlikely he would reinstate Jones. For instance, Keith Olbermann posted his disappointment with Musk for violating his own principles after Musk equated Jones’ actions concerning the Sandy Hook massacre with the death of his firstborn child. Musk said he didn’t have any mercy for someone who would use children’s deaths for financial or political gain or to leverage fame.
The poll and subsequent decision came on the heels of a video plea Thursday from Jones to Musk posted through the InfoWars host’s wife’s account asking him to watch his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, filmed in Maine. Jones and Carlson discussed why Jack Dorsey banned him from Twitter after he made a video personally attacking Oliver Darcy, a CNN reporter, while he waited to enter a Congressional hearing as a White House press agent.
Jones blamed Darcy and fellow CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter as the architects of his social media bans on Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. Yet, each tech company provided specific reasons for their bans at the time, according to a Vox article from 2018. Spotify said Infowars and its host incited and advocated “hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics.”
Facebook deplatformed Jones for “glorifying violence” and “using dehumanizing language” with respect to immigrants, Muslims, and transgenders, among others. Apple pointed to their Terms of Service guidelines, specifically prohibiting hate speech, as the reason for removing podcasts that violate the policy. YouTube terminated InfoWars’ and Jones’ accounts after issuing repeated warnings about hate speech and harassment.
As of December 10, Jones seemed genuinely happy to return to the X platform and promised to air an interview with Elon Musk in installments in the coming days.
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