X has locked and suspended the accounts of journalists and researchers who shared the alleged identity of a neo-Nazi cartoonist known as Stonetoss after the cartoonist appealed to site owner Elon Musk.
The incident, critics say, highlights once again how Musk has not only welcomed extremists onto his platform but has repeatedly boosted their conspiracies, engaged with their accounts, and seems to have protected them from scrutiny.
“If Elon’s idea of a ‘free speech’ website is one where people can be intimidated into silence, the outcome will be a site where the Stasi will drive out all dissent,” Stonetoss wrote.
“And I want to be that boot, not that face.”
Is this really tech? Anyway, haha get fucked Nazi. I hope you lose your tech job at Open iT.
Wasn’t sure if this was the right place to put it, it seems tech to me since they’re making tech gateway, decisions for social platforms? I’ll delete if it’s not the right place.
Seems pretty relevant if you ask me
I think it’s more of a politics thing, but I don’t know of any politics communities (I’m sure they exist), so I wouldn’t have seen this otherwise.
And it’s actually news, unlike the dozens of posts people used to make linking to articles about Elon eating breakfast or something.
I think it’s fine to leave it. I’m not the mod for this comm, anyway. I’m not sure where I’d have posted this either, it kind of spans topics while not cleanly fitting into any specific one? Ars Technica is ostensibly about tech 🤷
I think it was already the precedent for mainstream social media to delete illegal content from their sites (such as doxxing). Although they did delete the entire accounts of the doxxers, not just the dox itself, which I think is setting a precedent.
Doxxing is a crime in California where X is located. I’m not surprised it was deleted and removed. Stonetoss sucks but they did just straight up dox him.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The incident, critics say, highlights once again how Musk has not only welcomed extremists onto his platform but has repeatedly boosted their conspiracies, engaged with their accounts, and seems to have protected them from scrutiny.
A lengthy X thread posted by the antifascist research group Anonymous Comrades Collective last week claimed that Stonetoss is a man named Hans Kristian Graebener from Spring, Texas.
Stonetoss cartoons, which feature simple and colorful imagery coupled with racist, homophobic, and antisemitic language, have become hugely popular among right-wing communities since they were first published at least seven years ago.
On Thursday, the Stonetoss account appealed to X users who have “a direct line” to Musk, X’s owner, to help to get the thread deleted.
“If Elon’s idea of a ‘free speech’ website is one where people can be intimidated into silence, the outcome will be a site where the Stasi will drive out all dissent,” Stonetoss wrote.
“There is a whole ecosystem of artists out there who cannot (or have stopped) making art because of people on twitter organized to punish them IRL for doing so.” The cartoonist also added that sales of his plush toy were “going gangbusters” since his alleged identity was revealed.
The original article contains 356 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
