San Francisco - Elon Musk''s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has reactivated the accounts of the far-right Identitarian Movement, which were blocked in July 2020 due to several violations of the platform's rules on terrorism and violent extremism.
It comes less than two weeks after X reactivated the account of Austrian white supremacist Martin Sellner, who had also been blocked in the summer of 2020. Sellner is considered the driving force behind the far-right Identitarian Movement.
Until it was blocked almost four years ago, the Identitarian Movement Germany was followed by around 30,000 Twitter users and Sellner by almost 40,000.
On Thursday, around 54,000 X users were following Sellner, who was banned from entering Germany on Tuesday. The Identitarian Movement, on the other hand, had lost around 5,000 followers on its comeback.
The group campaigns against multicultural societies and spreads far-right conspiracy myths. In Germany, it is monitored by Germany's domestic intelligence agency. Sellner was part of a meeting in November that included members of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Attendees discussed deporting immigrants from Germany - even those with a German passport.
The story, uncovered by the investigative journalism outlet Correctiv, has sparked protests against the AfD and right-wing intolerance throughout the country.
Musk had previously defended his company's decision not to delete several anti-Semitic and racist posts in an interview with former CNN presenter Don Lemon, saying they were not illegal. He rejected content moderation on X, calling that "a propaganda word censorship."
X's new moderation rules put in place by Musk could be in breach of the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). Under the provisions of the DSA online companies such as X must offer users improved complaint mechanisms and account for the moderation of content. The EU wants to use the DSA to better combat misinformation and hate speech.