X users have reportedly had their accounts suspended for identifying a political cartoonist on the social media platform.
This comes after X owner and CTO Elon Musk has previously said he wanted to champion free speech on the platform.
The cartoonist in question goes by the moniker of Stonetoss, sharing right-wing cartoons that often depict anti-Semitic, racist and anti-LGBT+ themes.
Some X users, however, have started sharing what they believe is Stonetoss’ real name.
Those posts have since reportedly been deleted, with X going so far as to allegedly deactivate the accounts of those who posted the claims.
Elon Musk did not like the Stonetoss reveal pic.twitter.com/hVVHSG9Lth
— The Serfs (@theserfstv) March 14, 2024
The cartoonist’s identity is believed to have been revealed by a group known as the Anonymous Comrades Collective, who call themselves an "antifascist journalism collective dedicated to exposing Nazis, racists and fascists".
Who is Stonetoss?
Stonetoss is a webcomic who has been active since 2017 but recently gained more and more popularity among the far-right in recent years.
The themes of his cartoons are often anti-Semitic, racist and anti-LGBT+, with one comic coming under fire for engaging in Holocaust denial.
The cartoons in question are colourful and simple and are often shared on X, right-wing forums, and other social media platforms.
It’s not only passersby on social media who have deemed Stonetoss’ content as problematic. Researchers from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, Hampton Stall, David Foran, and Hari Prasad, have described Stonetoss as a "crypto-Nazi cartoonist” and "a comic creator [who] pulls from neo-Nazi views and makes them more palatable for a broader audience" in a paper dedicated to the study of memes in extremist cultures.
In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League also described Stonetoss as a "far-right illustrator" following the release of a comic depicting anti-Semitic violence.
This wouldn’t be the first time that memes and meme culture have fed into extremist political ideas, with the originally harmless image of Pepe the frog being co-opted into a right-wing symbol over several years.
