Nick Fuentes: Twitter gives back account to notorious Holocaust denier

Enlarge image

Right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes at a demonstration in November 2020: "Feels good to be home again"

Photo: Nicole Hester/AP

Twitter on Tuesday unblocked the previously suspended account of right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes.

Fuentes has repeatedly attracted attention in the past for his Holocaust denial, racist statements, conspiracy theories, his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his praise for the Taliban rule.

Just a week ago, a video circulated in which Fuentes described Adolf Hitler as a “really cool guy”.

Anyone who watches his videos knows that.

Fuentes has performed with Kanye West in the past and they both visited Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in November 2022.

Twitter permanently banned Fuentes in July 2021 for permanently violating the platform's rules, a company spokesman said at the time.

He had previously been blocked from other platforms such as YouTube or Twitch, and the payment service provider also banned him.

After returning to Twitter on Tuesday, Fuentes wrote that it feels good to be back home.

"Thank you to everyone who helped me get back." Fuentes replied to US Congressman Ritchie Torres, who criticized him on Twitter as a racist, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, in typical online slang "lol" ("laugh out loud «).

Jewish students are suing Twitter for dealing with anti-Semitism

Meanwhile, Jewish students and the organization Hate Aid are taking Twitter to court in Berlin because they believe the group is not taking sufficient action against anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist posts.

The civil action before the Berlin district court is intended to clarify how far the obligation to delete hate messages goes and whether customers have a remedy against the violation of the general terms and conditions.

This was announced by the European Union of Jewish Students and Hate Aid on Wednesday in Berlin - two days before the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th.

The Central Council of Jews welcomed the announcement.

"The lawsuit is a necessary step in the fight against hate speech," said Central Council President Josef Schuster in Berlin.

Every user of social media must be protected from hatred, hate speech and Shoah denial.

In the proceedings, the two plaintiff organizations specifically accuse Twitter of not having deleted six "anti-Semitic and illegal comments" even though complaints had been filed.

That contradicts the general terms and conditions.

In it, the company states that threats of violence or incitement to hatred will not be tolerated.

The basic procedure is about whether customers can legally enforce the rules from their contract with the network.

Twitter initially did not respond to the lawsuit.

hpp/dpa