Array
Elon Musk has said he will not reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Twitter, saying he has “no mercy” for people who capitalise on the deaths of children for personal fame.
Twitter permanently suspended the accounts of Jones and his Infowars website in September 2018 for violating the platform’s abusive behaviour policy.
Jones, 48, gained notoriety for pushing a false conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, which led to harassment of parents who lost their children in the massacre. Jones has been ordered by a US court to pay more than $1.4bn (£1.2bn) to people who suffered from his false claim that the shooting, in which 20 children and six educators died, was a hoax.
Musk appeared to rule out a return for Jones in an interaction with Twitter users on Monday. The author and podcaster Sam Harris asked Twitter’s new owner if it was “time to let Alex Jones back on Twitter” and “if not, why not?”. Kim Dotcom, the internet entrepreneur, also asked if Jones could be reinstated in the interest of “real free speech”.
