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    Saturday, May 11, 2024

    Musk's Twitter reinstates Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene; Alex Jones still banned

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington on Nov. 17, 2022. Elon Musk’s Twitter on Monday, Nov. 21, has reinstated the personal account of far-right Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform’s COVID misinformation policies at the time. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
    Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020, in Washington. Musk, Twitter’s new owner, is further gutting the teams that battle misinformation on the social media platform as outsourced moderators learned over the weekend they were out of a job. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
    Infowars founder Alex Jones appears in court to testify during the Sandy Hook defamation damages trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, Conn., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Jones and his company have been ordered to pay an extra $473 million to families and an FBI agent for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax. (Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File)

    Elon Musk’s Twitter has reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform’s COVID misinformation policies.

    The Georgia Republican's reinstatement comes after Musk over the weekend reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump, who was banned in the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 riots on the Capitol in 2021. Twitter — at the time — feared there was a risk of further incitement to violence if Trump were allowed to remain on the platform. Trump himself has said he won't return to Twitter and as of Monday had not tweeted since the reinstatement, although he also hasn't deleted his account.

    Musk apparently based his decision to allow Trump back on the site on an unscientific Twitter poll he posted on his timeline. There appeared to be no such poll for Greene's account.

    Earlier, Musk said he would not make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “ content moderation council ” with diverse viewpoints. Neither Twitter nor Musk have announced the existence of such a council. Twitter did not respond to a message for comment on Monday.

    Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive. Before the U.S. midterm elections this month, he urged his “independent-minded” Twitter followers to vote Republican.

    One account Musk has said he won't allow back on Twitter is that of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.

    “My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to calls for Jones' reinstatement. “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

    Jones was sued by victims' families for promoting false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre. Judgments against him have totaled $1.44 billion.

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