https://gizmodo.com/nick-fuentes-twitter-twitter-space-nazi-elon-musk-1850030536
Elon Quickly Finds Out Nick Fuentes Is Just Too Hateful for Twitter
The man who’s known for Holocaust denial and racist great replacement
nonsense was again banned after he praised Hitler and the Unabomber in a
Twitter Space.
The 24-year-old white supremacist Nick Fuentes has been at the center of
multiple far right campaigns, including multiple stop the steal rallies. His
online fan group have executed multiple digital harassment campaigns against
critics.
Photo: Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News (AP)
After just one day after being reinstated back on Twitter thanks to owner
Elon Musk’s blanket pardon of hate figures, white nationalist and anti-Semite
Nick Fuentes has once again been kicked off the platform.
Twitter reinstated Fuentes
<https://gizmodo.com/nick-fuentes-groyper-twitter-instagram-neo-nazi-1850025370>
on Tuesday without notice or fanfare. Fuentes is known for his live streams
where he goes off about offering praise of Adolf Hitler, denying the
holocaust, and promoting great replacement theory
<https://gizmodo.com/buffalo-shooter-great-replacement-theory-eugenics-ra-1848986922>,
all while complaining about how mainstream conservatives have not embraced
his brand of hate politics fully enough. The hatemonger
<https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/nick-fuentes>
has gained even more prominence online as he’s been seen as wingman to
disgraced rapper Ye
<https://gizmodo.com/kanye-west-elon-musk-banned-twitter-swastika-nazi-texts-1849845316>,
formerly Kanye West. His fans, a community called “groypers,” spread his
messages on social media even though Fuentes has been exiled from most major
platforms.
After getting his account back, Fuentes didn’t post too much to his main
profile in the few hours he was active. However, Hannah Gais, a senior
researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote that overnight Fuentes
hosted a Twitter Space
<https://twitter.com/hannahgais/status/1618259893940809731?s=20&t=9rEH4ooDojtlNkLL4qi7jg>
where he praised both Hitler and domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, AKA the
Unabomber.
Twitter has not made any statement about Fuentes’ or any other far right
accounts being reinstated or banned. Gizmodo reached out to the company for
comment, but since the platform no longer has a communications team, we will
likely not hear back.
Fuentes’ mistake was immediately going all in on his white nationalism. Other
neo-Nazis have maintained their accounts
<https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-bans-journalists-twitter-reinstating-nazis-1849901795>
long after the Musk-owned platform reinstated them over the last few months.
Stop the Steal organizer and fellow far-right personality Ali Alexander also
had his account banned on Wednesday. Alexander’s account was reinstated
earlier this month.
Other far-right accounts on Twitter have already started stumping for Fuentes
and Alexander’s profiles to be reinstated. Fuentes himself has taken to his
own cloistered community on Telegram to also ask for his account back. Musk
has been known to take advice directly from people on the right
<https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-ngo-antifascist/>,
like conspiracist writer Andy Ngo, about accounts to ban. This has included
antifascist researchers and other folks who have extensively reported on the
far-right.
There has been a rash of hate speech on Twitter ever since Musk took power,
which researchers have linked to examples of real world violence
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/18/hate-speech-antisemitism-antigay-twitter/>.
On Wednesday, a group of German Jewish students alongside anti-hate speech
organization HateAID filed a lawsuit
<https://hateaid.org/twitter-landmark-case-antisemitism/#1653654063813-9a598f23-620e>
against Twitter Tuesday, complaining that the company had been failing to
remove anti-Semitic content. The groups are arguing they have the legal right
to force Twitter to comply with its own terms and conditions against allowing
hate speech on the platform.
