Alex Jones: Conspiracy theorist returns to X after Elon Musk poll
Alex Jones: Conspiracy theorist returns to X after Elon Musk poll
The conspiracy theorist was banned from Twitter - now X - but its owner has now reinstated him.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has had his account on X - formerly Twitter - reinstated by Elon Musk.
Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result.
Around 70% of roughly two million respondents voted to lift the ban.
Jones is most notorious for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults died, was "staged".
He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.
This asshole always uses a poll as a cover when he does something shitty. "I want nazi's back on the site but it will be unpopular.... better poll my alt-right nazi fans! Heh, heh. I'm so clever."
If you're still on Twitter, you're a fascist sympathizer, full stop.
Um idk about this blanket statement
Ehhh Twitter has been pretty friendly to anti-democracy types for years now. January 6th was literally organized on the app and that was way before Musk. At this point I have an extremely hard time believing any regular Tweeter who claims ignorance.
Well I'm guess am a fascist now, thank you for the heads-up
Personally I only have an account still because it's the way I log into Disqus and I don't remember my actual Disqus password. I don't actually go on X/Twitter unless linked to by a post or something, and even then I'm usually not logged in because I don't have the app on my phone, and I do lemmy browsing on phone.
Is password recovery not working?
What a ridiculous idea. People rely on Twitter for their job and aren't interacting with the politics of social media. They're sympathizers for daring to have a job that involves being seen on social media. Regardless of your view of Twitter, people aren't leaving Twitter and that means their customers are still reliant on it for a source of info on many content providers.
If you are still on by choice then I’d agree with the OP. If you need it for work then that’s different, but you should be trying to move off it.
People did, but Twitter is no longer reliable: https://youtu.be/0kwtVbM5o-o
Yes, they are.
Ok, Elon.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-users-vote-elon-musk-quit-ceo-poll-rcna62332
A year ago next Monday, Musk asked "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll". The votes came in, 57.5% to resign, 42.5% to stay. If you're wondering how much he care about polls where he hasn't pre-ordained the outcome.
He did step down... he hired a CEO to run day to day.
He was going to do it either way though
Coincidence that he just also appeared as a guest on Tucker’s show for the first time ever? I think Alex is getting some kind of push somehow/somewhere to spew his bile back into the limelight.
I’m sure it’s for the 2024 election… the right is drumming up the crazies to get out and vote for the orange traitor.
Hmmm I wonder if we’ll see Trump guest on Infowars like he did for the 2016 election.
I mean if it happens he is going to have to pay the Sandy Hook families the money he owes. Dude is still on the hook for a cool billion with 2 trials to go.
He's been getting a lot of love from Russia, and the GOP and Russia are best friends
There we go. Now it's officially Truth Social as run by Elon Musk. He could have just bought the actual Truth Social for way less.
But he got a huge huge audience, which is what the other platforms lack. It was a realy good move if your goals are to try to move social media massively to the right, shut down conversations you don't like, etc.
It may have been expensive, but way cheaper than buying or starting a new platform and trying to get that size of an audience and apparent lock-in/addiction.
I'm convinced he did it for the '24 election. He lost a lot on Twitter, but he stands to gain a lot more if trump wins.
Remember that last election, all major social media sites released a "fact check" on content at the last minute, completely hijacking Trumps strategy of lying about everything.
Freedom of hate speech
Good, now advertisers have even less reason to spend money on that platform
He seems to be going all in on "fuck those who left, I don't need them" philosophy
On the one hand, it is sad to see what Twitter has become. On the other hand, it is a bit funny, as Truth Social is more likely to fail the more X takes on their userbase. Which is hurting Trump right in the wallet.
Twitter has always sucked and destroying it at his own expense is the one good thing Musk has done. He should buy Facebook next.
I see we're still reporting on X as if it retained any kind of importance or significance. Quaint.
Thank you. Tired of hearing about this clown, as if doing alt-right shit is novel. It's only newsworthy when he does something progressive by accident.
Just keep adding more water to the ship, please!
Smells like desperation 😤
Xcho chamber
I love anything that further sinks the site.
Sometimes I scroll YouTube shorts when I'm bored, and there will always be at LEAST one Alex Jones short that pops up, despite my only engagement being to quickly downvote it and skip it. It drives me crazy
Clicking on the short is engagement.
Downvoting is engagement.
Commenting how much you hate, disagree, or feel stupider for watching, is engagement.
Scrolling past the clip and entirely ignoring it, is not engagement.
So... Don't engage, and remember:
Being happy reduces engagement.
Being angry increases engagement.
The algorithm doesn't care how you feel, just how long it can keep your attention.
From socialvideoplaza.com
You've probably heard the myth that dislikes are a form of engagement. And since engagement is the social currency in which YouTube videos are paid, it makes your video perform better in the YouTube rankings. If that information was true in the first place, it is outdated now.
[the dislike button] is used in the algorithm for a couple of things: It is a sign to the algorithm that it should suggest less videos of that creator to the viewer.
I get random right and far right posts too.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result.
He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.
After buying the platform in October 2022, tech billionaire Musk rejected calls from some of Jones's supporters to reinstate his account.
After Musk posted the poll, Jones shared a video online in which he called on his supporters to vote in favour of his ban being overturned.
Responding to one user on Saturday, Musk said he "vehemently" disagreed with Jones's statements about Sandy Hook, adding: "but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?"
Last month he accused major advertisers of trying to "blackmail" him when they boycotted X over concerns about antisemitic content shared on the site - including a post by Musk himself, which he later apologised for.
The original article contains 390 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I wish everyone would stop caring what those children do do with their toys and just let them fade into obscurity.
just let them fade into obscurity.
If only they would do just that. But they keep finding fellow assholes that will give them money and platforms to spew their vitriol.