{"id":165,"date":"2022-12-03T18:32:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T17:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/2022\/12\/03\/elon-musk-just-brought-an-infamous-neo-nazi-back-to-twitter\/"},"modified":"2022-12-03T18:32:44","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T17:32:44","slug":"elon-musk-just-brought-an-infamous-neo-nazi-back-to-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/2022\/12\/03\/elon-musk-just-brought-an-infamous-neo-nazi-back-to-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk just brought an infamous neo-Nazi back to Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ye might have crossed the line<\/a> by tweeting a swastika superimposed with a Star of David, but you can\u2019t blame other Nazi apologists for getting mixed signals.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Musk personally intervened after the artist formerly known as Kanye West<\/a> shared the symbol. \u201cI tried my best,\u201d Musk tweeted in response to a tweet raising alarm at West\u2019s behavior<\/a>. \u201cDespite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Truth Social, West shared a screenshot that indicates he was only suspended from Twitter for 12 hours \u2014 a relatively lenient sentence. But West\u2019s account was still suspended as of 1 PM PT on Friday.<\/p>\n

Hours prior to his suspension, West openly elaborated his antisemitic beliefs in an interview with Alex Jones. West appeared wearing a full mask on the show and praised Hitler, repeatedly declared his \u201clove\u201d of Nazis and doubled down when a visibly uncomfortable Jones gave him a chance to backtrack.<\/p>\n

As Nazi-related hashtags take over Twitter\u2019s trending topics, the infamous neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin<\/a> also re-appeared on the site<\/a>, tweeting from a new handle associated with the account he had banned back in 2015. Anglin, who created the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer, probed Twitter\u2019s new rules in a reply to Musk. \u201cYe caught a 12 hour suspension for tweeting a Star of David with a swastika in it\u2026 Whatever the rules are, people will follow them. We just need to know what the rules are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anglin was de-platformed from the broader internet<\/a> when companies providing The Daily Stormer\u2019s web hosting, DDoS protection and other utilities cut off their services back in 2017. That push against the site, which is named after a Nazi propaganda paper, came after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville raised alarm about a rising tide of open white supremacy in the U.S. In a speech he wrote that was read aloud at the rally (Anglin wasn\u2019t present), Anglin warned that he and his supporters would soon be \u201cdigging graves\u201d and called for death to \u201cenemies of the white race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

After Charlottesville, more web service providers ditch The Daily Stormer for TOS violations<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

Anglin\u2019s fans quickly welcomed him back to the platform. One account with an obvious reference to white supremacy in its handle tweeted that it was checking in for duty. Other neo-Nazi and white supremacist accounts criticized Musk\u2019s action against West, characterizing them as an unexpected betrayal.<\/p>\n

Richard Spencer is also benefiting from Musk\u2019s changes at Twitter. Spencer, a Unite the Right organizer<\/a> and an open white nationalist who has greeted supporters with the Nazi salute, is now a verified Twitter user who pays for a Twitter Blue monthly subscription. Spencer is currently promoting a Twitter Space declaring \u201cYe-ism triumphant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s pre-Musk policy against hateful conduct is still online, but the company\u2019s new owner mostly appears to be winging it lately. Last week, Musk conducted a Twitter poll of his followers and later declared \u201camnesty\u201d<\/a> for any accounts that \u201chave not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.\u201d That decision set up potentially thousands of accounts that previously violated Twitter\u2019s policies against hate and harassment to be restored to the platform.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s one-man approach to content moderation is unlikely to scale. The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO slashed Twitter\u2019s moderation teams when he took over at the company last month. He also lost Twitter\u2019s Global Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth who helped steer the company through many of its thorniest policy decisions in recent years. \u201cOne of my limits was if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by policy\u2026 there\u2019s no longer a need for me in my role, doing what I do,\u201d Roth said in his first post-departure interview this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In spite of his early promises for a policy-making council<\/a>, so far Musk is relying on unscientific Twitter polls skewed toward his supporters to set the platform\u2019s rules. According to research<\/a> from the ADL, white supremacists and other extremists noticed the opportunity and encouraged their supporters to vote in Musk\u2019s \u201camnesty\u201d poll on Telegram.<\/p>\n

One Telegram channel with thousands of followers cautioned members who planned to head back to Twitter: \u201cRefrain from obvious slurs; don\u2019t make it easy for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Twitter locks Kanye West\u2019s account for antisemitic tweet following warm Elon Musk welcome<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n

\n

Musk says Twitter will offer \u2018amnesty\u2019 to suspended accounts<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n

Elon Musk just brought an infamous neo-Nazi back to Twitter<\/a> by Taylor Hatmaker<\/a> originally published on TechCrunch<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ye might have crossed the line by tweeting a swastika superimposed with a Star of David, but you can\u2019t blame other Nazi apologists for getting mixed signals. On Thursday night, Musk personally intervened after the artist formerly known as Kanye West shared the symbol. \u201cI tried my best,\u201d Musk tweeted in response to a tweet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/adil\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}