Thursday, January 26, 2023

NOW YOU SEE HIM, NOW YOU DON'T
Elon Musk's Twitter just reinstated the account of white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who previously said Hitler was 'cool'

Story by sbhaimiya@insider.com (Sawdah Bhaimiya)

Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist organizer, on November 14, 2020.
 Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto 

Elon Musk's Twitter has reinstated the account of white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
 
Fuentes is known for making antisemitic remarks and has praised Hitler, calling him "cool."
 
Numerous right-wing figures have been brought back to Twitter after Musk's takeover in October.




Nick Fuentes is well known as a white supremacist and anti-semite. That hasn't stopped Trump and at least 5 GOP lawmakers from associating with him since 2017.

White nationalist Nick Fuentes has associated with several MAGA stars who claim they don't know him.

Fuentes has spent time with Donald Trump, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, among others.

GOP leaders like Kevin McCarthy and Mitt Romney have urged others to stay away from Fuentes.

Conservative firebrand Nick Fuentes has had dinner with, posed for pictures alongside, and welcomed on stage at least a half dozen Republicans since becoming a star of the white nationalist movement.

Interactions with the America First Foundation leader have also prompted GOP politicians to deny knowing who Fuentes is and what he stands for. Embattled former President Donald Trump is currently trying to distance himself from Fuentes following a Thanksgiving holiday sit-down at Mar-a-Lago that included the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

The Anti-Defamation League describes Fuentes as a white supremacist, anti-semite, and 2020 election-denier "who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the mainstream GOP." Fuentes, who has been similarly decried by the Department of Justice and Simon Wiesenthal Center, also founded the far-right America First Political Action Conference in 2020 as an alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow aired footage compiled by the Right Wing Watch project that shows Fuentes calling for a dictatorship to "force the people to believe what we believe."

"The white people got to make the right decision, and then Trump's got to get in there and never leave," Fuentes said. "It's time to shut up, elect Trump one more time and then stop having elections."
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 29, 2022

Trump's meeting last week with Fuentes blindsided Trump's 2024 campaign staff and rattled GOP leaders.

"I don't think it's a good idea for a leader that's setting an example for the country or the party to meet with [an] avowed racist or antisemite," outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN on Sunday.

Twitter has just reinstated the account of prominent white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who previously expressed his belief that Hitler was "cool."

Fuentes announced his return to Twitter on Tuesday after being banned from the platform in July 2021 for "repeated violations of the Twitter rules."

He celebrated his return by posting a meme from the cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants."

Fuentes has a history of extremist behavior including attending a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, denying the Holocaust, and making racist and antisemitic comments.

Fuentes has also praised Hitler in a video repeating that he is "cool" and "awesome."

Fuentes is just one of several right-wing figures to have their accounts have restored on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October 2022. Figures including Donald Trump, Kanye West, Jordan Peterson, and Andrew Tate, as well as satirical conservative website The Babylon Bee, had their accounts restored.

Fuentes, who is helping Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — with his 2024 presidential campaign, was seen with him at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, and reportedly had dinner with the former president in November 2022. An anonymous source told Axios that Trump liked Fuentes at the dinner and said: "He gets me."

In a December interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Ye — who was joined by Fuentes — praised Hitler and made a number of overtly antisemitic remarks.

Musk suspended Ye's Twitter account after the interview over repeated antisemitism saying: "I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended."

Fuentes also has an online show called "America First with Nicholas Fuentes," where he has also repeatedly made antisemitic comments.


Elon Quickly Finds Out Nick Fuentes Is Just Too Hateful for Twitter

Story by Kyle Barr • 

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.


Nick Fuentes wearing a Make America Great Again hat standing in front of an America First flag.© 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 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, all while complaining about how mainstream conservatives have not embraced his brand of hate politics fully enough. The hatemonger has gained even more prominence online as he’s been seen as wingman to disgraced rapper Ye, 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 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 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, 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. On Wednesday, a group of German Jewish students alongside anti-hate speech organization HateAID filed a lawsuit 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.


Nick Fuentes Twitter account suspended less than 24 hours after reinstatement

Story by Julia Shapero • 

Twitter has suspended the account of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes less than 24 hours after his reinstatement on the platform.

Fuentes posted a picture of his suspended account on Telegram on Wednesday morning, with the caption, “Well it was fun while it lasted.”

The 24-year-old leader of the “America First” movement had his account reinstated on Tuesday, after being banned from the platform in July 2021.

In one of his first tweets back, Fuentes posted a short video advertising the 2024 presidential campaign of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. The video included an apparent reference to a previous antisemitic tweet from Ye, in which he threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Fuentes’s brief return to the platform was the latest in a series of efforts by Twitter CEO Elon Musk to bring back individuals who had previously been suspended, including former President Trump and Ye.

However, Musk has faced several setbacks on this front. Trump has so far declined to return to Twitter in favor of his own social media platform Truth Social, and Ye was suspended from Twitter once again in December for posting an image of a Star of David containing a swastika.

Fuentes received increased attention in recent months after he attended a dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort alongside Ye. Trump said at the time that he was not aware of Fuentes’s views prior to the dinner.

Twitter, the communications department of which was shut down following Musk’s takeover of the company in October 2022, did not respond to a request for comment on Fuentes’s suspension.

The Hill.

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