Alex Jones has returned to X after Twitter permanently banned him and his show, Infowars, five years ago for violating the site’s policy on “abusive behavior.” Elon Musk, who previously stated he would not unban Jones due to his claims about the Sandy Hook massacre, created a poll on X asking users to vote on whether Jones should be reinstated. The poll resulted in a majority vote for “Yes.” As of Sunday, Jones’ personal account was active again and retweeting Andrew Tate.
Jones is known for promoting disturbing conspiracy theories that have caused real-world harm. He was sued by the families of Sandy Hook victims, who won nearly $1.5 billion in legal judgments after testifying that they had been harassed and threatened by Jones’ followers. After Jones appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on X last week, the debate over his ban was revived.
In response to a user after the poll closed, Musk wrote, “I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or not? That is what it comes down to in the end. If the people vote to bring him back, this will be detrimental for X financially, but principles matter more than money.” The decision comes at a time when X is losing advertisers due to hate speech on the platform, some of which Musk himself has promoted. Walmart, Apple, IBM, and Disney, among others, have recently pulled their ads from X.
