Musk says conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will be reinstated on X after poll

(Reuters) -Social media platform X on Sunday showed the account of U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to have been reinstated after a poll organized by owner Elon Musk backed his return after a ban of nearly five years.

“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk posted in reply to a poll on Saturday on whether to reinstate the Jones account. Close to 2 million votes were cast by the time the poll closed, with about 70% voting in favor of Jones’ return.

X did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment asking for confirmation of the same. Reuters could not verify if X reinstated the Infowars account. Alex Jones also could not be immediately contacted.

Alex Jones account with username “@RealAlexJones” now shows his last post from Sept. 6, 2018, the same day the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, permanently banned his account and website Infowars from its platform, saying that the accounts had violated its behavior policies.

The ban came weeks after Apple, Alphabet’s YouTube, and Facebook took down podcasts and channels from Jones, citing community standards.

Since Musk’s takeover of the platform, it has reinstated previously suspended accounts including that of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Alex Jones, who has promoted conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school shooting, was ordered last year to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages to relatives of the victims for falsely claiming they were actors who staged the shooting as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns.

(Reporting by Jyoti Narayan and Mrinmay Dey in BengaluruEditing by Miral Fahmy, David Goodman and Louise Heavens)