Australia’s most well-known nationalist figures have been suspended from X in a mass unexplained ban wave, sparking calls for Elon Musk to honour his commitment to free speech.
Prominent activist Blair Cottrell, self-described leader of White Australia Thomas Sewell, and National Socialist Network (NSN) leader Jacob Hersant were among 15 accounts suspended at about 8.30pm on Tuesday night, and almost exactly 24 hours later Joel Davis was also banned.
Tim Lutze, Jim Roberts, Nathan Bull, and Graham Connolly were banned on Tuesday, as were seven accounts representing the NSN and White Australia state chapters, the suspensions coming as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tries to pass new “hate speech” legislation.
In the past day there was a massive banwave of Australian nationalists, including Joel Davis who had a very large following here
This was just a couple of days after Australian political parties called for more online censorship to target these people@elonmusk has previously… pic.twitter.com/xckkUbdw8c
— Keith Woods (@KeithWoodsYT) February 5, 2025
Noticer News understands that no explanations were given, but Mr Davis, who had 38,500 followers on X, said he believes the Australian government ordered the suspensions and has called on Elon Musk to shed light on why the bans were carried out.
“The obvious explanation for our accounts being banned is that it was at the request of some department of the Australian government. Politicians who claim to support free speech must use their position to give transparency to the Australian people as to which faceless bureaucrats are censoring the political activism of Australia citizens off the internet, and why,” he told Noticer News.
“Also, everyone in Australia and around the world who cares about freedom of speech must pressure Elon Musk into giving an explanation as to why we were banned. This was directly contradictory not only to Musk’s commitment to free speech but also his public opposition to the censorship efforts of the Australian government.
“We are a well-known and well-supported political activist organisation in Australia with the intent to work towards the creation of a registered political party. We are being censored for one reason and one reason alone – we spread a nationalist message and have become too popular.
“If nationalism is outlawed, Australia will no longer be a liberal democracy, but will have degenerated into an antiwhite tyranny.”
A disgrace, but also a much needed reminder that for every non-American, free speech on X can be taken away at any time. We must also organise offline. https://t.co/ReBhK3u5WZ
— Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) February 5, 2025
The first bans came after Mr Sewell and Mr Cottrell appeared on AFL personality Sam Newman’s podcast, sparking condemnation from the corporate media and Jewish groups, and Mr Cottrell responded by saying on Telegram: “Stepping on the wrong toes again. I needed to focus more on work anyway.”
Mr Sewell, who had 26,000 followers, responded to his ban by highlighting a post from Liberal Senator James Paterson demanding the government take stronger action on anti-Semitic graffiti, to which he had replied: “Are you trying to have us banned off X because we are more popular than you? Or because we are pointing out the truth that Mossad are carrying out these attacks as part of an extortion racket to fleece hundreds of millions out of the Australian taxpayer?”
“Well I called it yesterday. James Paterson heads the security committee of the Australian Government and has been trying for months to have us banned,” he wrote on his Telegram channel after being banned.
“This targeted censorship of Australian Nationalists comes directly from the Australian Government threatening legal action against Twitter.”
So are we just speed-running the lifecycle of Twitter all over again?
>free speech platform
>Trump elected
>far right purged
>two-tiered verification system
>(you are here)
>shadow banning
>editorial censorship pic.twitter.com/l6qxHNf0Dp— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) February 5, 2025
Mr Davis also spoke out on Telegram, asking his followed to contact politicians such as Pauline Hanson, John Ruddick, Ralph Babet, Pauline Hanson, David Pocock, Mark Latham, Lachlan Lade and Gerard Rennick, as well as the Libertarian Party and the Free Speech Union to ask them to investigate the bans.
“Other than pressuring Musk, we also need a pressure campaign on these politicians who claim to support ‘free speech’ to use their security clearance to look into what involvement the Australian Government had in us being banned from twitter to get transparency for the Australian people,” he wrote.
Mr Rennick is understood to have told X users on Wednesday night that he would look into the issue.
X should unban Joel Davis. https://t.co/HnnNu4CjJW
— Jared Taylor (@RealJarTaylor) February 5, 2025
Mr Davis and Mr Cottrell also streamed their weekly Joel and Blair Show on X, but Mr Davis said it would continue to be available on Rumble and Odysee, and vowed to continue posting on his Telegram channel.
The bans sparked condemnation from nationalist figures worldwide, with many reminding Musk he had promised after buying the platform that no user would be banned for lawful speech.
“In the past day there was a massive banwave of Australian nationalists, including Joel Davis who had a very large following here,” Irish nationalist Keith Woods wrote on X.
“This was just a couple of days after Australian political parties called for more online censorship to target these people.
“Elon Musk has previously criticised the censorship demands of the Australian government. If they are now demanding censorship of political dissidents, the public should be made aware of this communication.”
Former Belgian MP Dries Van Langenhoven wrote: “A disgrace, but also a much needed reminder that for every non-American, free speech on X can be taken away at any time. We must also organise offline.”
American Renaissance editor Jared Taylor responded to Keith Woods’s post by saying: “X should unban Joel Davis.”
And American right-wing commentator Nick Fuentes shared a photo of Mr Davis’s account and asked: “So are we just speed-running the lifecycle of Twitter all over again?
“Free speech platform, Trump elected, far right purged, two-tiered verification system, (you are here), shadow banning, editorial censorship.”
The Albanese Labor government is attempting to pass minimum jail sentences of between one and six years for “hate speech” due to pressure from the Opposition to act on anti-Semitism ahead of the upcoming federal election, due before May.
Late on Wednesday night Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke introduced amendments allowing minimum sentences for “toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes”, The Guardian reported.
“We want to see this go through both houses of parliament, with as many members of parliament coming together as possible in a show of unity to the Australian people that these hate crimes, these forms of bigotry, have no place in Australia at all,” he said.
“Anybody who says that hate speech is somehow a subset of freedom of speech doesn’t understand that words can be bullets.”
The amendments will create minimum mandatory sentences of 12 months for lesser offences such as Nazi salutes, and six-month terms for serious offences related to threatening force or violence against people on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
