Elon Musk Wildly Attacks The ADL As One Of ‘The Biggest Generators Of Anti-Semitism’ In Reply to Notorious White Nationalist

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Elon Musk doubled down on his attacks on the Anti-Defamation League over the weekend while engaging on Twitter, now known as X, with a notorious antisemite and white nationalist who helped #BanTheADL trend late last week.

“The ADL, because they are so aggressive in their demands to ban social media accounts for even minor infractions, are ironically the biggest generators of anti-Semitism on this platform!” wrote Musk on Sunday in reply to far-right Irish activist Keith O’Brien, who goes by Keith Woods online. O’Brien had been banned by Twitter in the past for hate speech, but had his account restored under Musk’s leadership.

O’Brien, who has described himself in the past as a “raging antisemite,” helped boost the campaign to “ban the ADL” last week. The Forward’s Beth Harpaz reported at the time:

The campaign against the ADL alleges that the organization is hindering free speech by demanding that social media platforms sanction neo-Nazis and other extremists who promote antisemitism, racism and other bigotry.

O’Brien’s original post accused the ADL of “financially blackmailing social media companies into removing free speech on their platforms. … Why should they have a platform on X to hold @elonmusk to ransom?”

On Friday, Musk liked O’Brien’s tweet calling to ban the ADL and later posted to Twitter asking whether or not he — a free speech “absolutist” — should poll the platform as to banning the civil rights organization. When a popular Twitter user pushed back on the idea of banning the ADL, Musk replied, “The ADL has done a lot of good work in prior decades, but has been overzealous in recent years & hijacked by woke mind virus.”

“ADL is unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new,” said the ADL in a Saturday statement, adding:

This onslaught comes following our participation in the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington, where ADL proudly marched shoulder-to-shoulder with African-American leaders and those from other minority communities. It also follows a meeting with the leadership of X, formerly known as Twitter, that clearly upset these hateful groups.

Many pundits and observers online were quick to denounce Musk for his continued attacks on the ADL:

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