After Twitter owner Elon Musk’s “general amnesty” for banned accounts, many banned names found the opportunity to return to the social media platform. Although the number of these accounts is expressed as “thousands”, we did not know the exact number until now. But now we know…
The unique Twitter IDs and screen names of banned accounts, tracked and posted on a public Github listing by Germany-based software developer Travis Brown, give an idea of the number of accounts returning to Twitter after being suspended or banned in the past. Brown’s list includes close to 12,000 accounts that have been reactivated since October 27. Several hundred accounts have been reactivated every day since November 8th. In particular, on November 21, nearly 2,500 accounts were allowed to be reopened.
Also, this number may be just the tip of the iceberg. The platformer recently reported that Musk is working on reinstating around 62,000 accounts with over 10,000 followers.
NBC first reported on Friday a dataset describing Brown’s project and the large number of far-right accounts that have been allowed to reopen. Some accounts were also linked to the QAnon conspiracy.
Patrick Casey has returned to Twitter despite once leading a large group defending the white ethnostate, Identity Europa, and coining the notorious “you won’t be able to take our place” slogan.
Other names given a second chance on Twitter include Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi who evaded a $14 million judgment in 2019 for leading a fact-finding and harassment campaign against Jewish Montana residents. Anglin returned to the platform on Friday and deleted all of his posts prior to the 2013 ban.
While some of these alternative-right accounts were given new life, some left-wing activists were suspended after finding themselves targeted by right-wing campaigns.
A separate report from Media Matters for America, which also cited Brown’s data, noted the return of other anti-Semitic profiles, such as E. Michael Jones, who used his platform to spread anti-Semitic rhetoric to his more than 30,000 followers.
Despite Musk’s claims to the contrary, data shows that hate speech has become much more prevalent on the platform since Musk’s tenure began a little over a month ago, but how much of it is due to these old accounts that have been allowed to be reopened, and what It is not yet clear how much is due to racists and radicals feeling more courageous.
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