The people have spoken: Following A Survey, Elon Musk reinstates conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ X account.

Elon Musk announced that the prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account on X, formerly known as Twitter, will be restored. This is a reversal of the company’s 2018 decision to deplatform Jones due to his continuous violations of policies against harassment and hate speech.

Musk asked platform users if they thought Jones should be reinstated in an unscientific poll that he uploaded to his account on Saturday morning. When the ballot concluded on Saturday night, around two million people had cast “yes” votes.

Musk responded to the poll early on Sunday morning, writing, “The people have spoken, and so it shall be.”

The account of Jones was operational as of early Sunday morning.

The billionaire Musk’s decision is expected to have an even greater effect on X as businesses pull away from the problematic platform, which has seen a spike in hate speech and conspiracy theories as a result of his actions. Musk has publicly supported conspiracy theories and elevated a number of extremist voices since taking over the platform.

Due to worries about hate speech and brand safety, many big advertisers have abandoned the site in recent weeks. This is partly because Musk himself endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory back in November. Following days of intense criticism, Musk issued an apology for the post. However, the boycott of advertisers has persisted, which Musk has warned might ultimately lead to the company’s demise.

Although Musk stated on Saturday that Jones’ reinstatement would “be bad for X financially,” he insisted that “principles matter more than money.” Musk has made an effort to present himself as an advocate of unrestricted free speech, despite the fact that he has taken steps to silence his detractors.

Because of Jones’s unfounded allegations that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a fabrication, Musk stated last year that he would not lift the ban on Jones. However, after an interview with Tucker Carlson, another extreme right-wing celebrity dismissed by Fox News earlier this year, Musk has come under heavy pressure from Jones’ right-wing supporters, who want his account restored.

Musk seems to be swayed by the right-wing campaign; although he expressed disagreement with Jones’ remarks about Sandy Hook, he posed a hypothetical question in a post on X Saturday, “Are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?”

Jones is regarded as one of the top distributors of false and misleading information in the globe. He has a long history of disseminating conspiracy theories on a variety of topics that are hateful and manifestly wrong.

Jones gained notoriety for proposing that the Sandy Hook shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 children and 6 adults, was a fabrication. Due to Jones’s lies about the Sandy Hook shooting, which devastated the parents of the children who perished and set off a wave of harassment against them in the real world, courts have ordered Jones to pay the families of the victims more than $1 billion in damages.

Restoring Jones’ account is consistent with the choices Musk has made since purchasing the social media business for $44 billion in the previous year. Along with restoring Donald Trump’s account, Musk also welcomed back racists and extremists who had been removed from the platform before to his takeover.

Jones’ initial suspension from Twitter

In 2018, Twitter permanently banned Jones and other accounts connected to his website, Infowars, due to his abusive behavior. This move was followed by Facebook, Apple, and YouTube.

One day after the right-wing fanatic harassed CNN reporter Oliver Darcy in a hostile manner on Capitol Hill and livestreamed the interaction on the site, Twitter decided to permanently ban Jones.

Due to Jones’s active publicizing of his lies and hateful actions, Darcy had become one of his main targets. This research sparked concerns about why Jones had been let to stay on well-known social media sites in spite of his serial violations of the platforms’ own policies about harassment and hate speech.

For about ten minutes during the 2018 Capitol Hill incident, Jones angrily yelled at Darcy, calling the Middle Eastern-American CNN reporter anti-American, dehumanizing him, and compared him to vermin. Jones had also yelled at Sen. Marco Rubio in the hallway earlier in the day.

Twitter announced at the time, “Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” in a series of tweets from the platform’s safety team. We took this punishment in addition to the accounts’ prior infractions because we received fresh reports of Tweets and videos uploaded yesterday that break our policy against abusive behavior.

Twitter deleted over a dozen new accounts connected to Infowars a month after removing Jones and the main Infowars account.

Musk’s renegade

Even though Musk had brought back other contentious personalities, he had stated in November of last year that he would not restore Jones’ account. Citing Bible texts and his own personal tragedy of losing his first kid to sudden infant death syndrome, the billionaire gave an explanation of his then-current attitude.

“In my arms, my firstborn child passed away. Musk wrote, “I felt his last heartbeat.” “I avenge those who would exploit children’s deaths for personal benefit, political gain, or public recognition.”

Musk posted a frustrated response on the site to some users’ criticism of his choice to not reinstate Jones’ account: “Too bad.”

However, since purchasing Twitter, Musk has demonstrated a willingness to interact with extreme views, so it seems that he has changed his mind. Even some of Musk’s staunchest supporters didn’t seem to agree with the decision to reinstate Jones.

One of Musk’s closest friends and supporters, investor Jason Calacanis, who was originally thought to be X’s CEO front-runner, wrote on Saturday that while he supports free speech, he believes that what Alex Jones did in insulting the parents of slain children caused real-world suffering. These unfortunate parents were harassed in real life by Jones’ conspiracy-theory-loving audience.