John Cena has a rosy reputation: Beloved 16-time champion pro wrestler, blockbuster movie star, Guinness World Record-holder for the most wishes granted through the Make-A-Wish foundation (he’s the organization’s most-requested celebrity). In the eyes of the public, he’s a wholesome, all-American entertainer.
So why is he following prominent white supremacists, antisemites, and hate accounts on X (formerly Twitter)? It’s probably not on purpose. If, as seems more than probable, these accounts were indiscriminately followed by Cena’s team without knowledge of the content they share, it underscores a crucial brand safety problem with X since Musk acquired the platform in 2022. In slashing moderation, welcoming back banned users, algorithmically boosting paid verified accounts and promising the privilege of absolute “free speech” to far-right ideologues, Musk created favorable conditions for misinformation and hate speech to run rampant — and rack up engagement. And while following a toxic account cannot be taken as a de facto endorsement (many of the feeds mentioned in this article are tracked by misinformation researchers, for example), it can be perilous for those with a certain image to protect.
Like many famous people, Cena has an X account mainly for promotional purposes: his latest tweets publicize his new Prime Video action-comedy, Jackpot! Unlike most other famous people, however, Cena follows tons of users on the site — more than 850,000 at this point. (Full disclosure: this reporter is one of them.) A handful of big accounts are known to cast such a wide social net, for whatever reason; actor Taye Diggs and broadcaster Soledad O’Brien also follow hundreds of thousands. It stands to reason that none of these individuals can possibly keep up with everything on their feed, and it would also make sense if they followed many of those accounts without carefully vetting their content. It’s likely, too, that social editors or teams are managing these public profiles on the celebrities’ behalf.
But, given Cena’s persona — and the #RiseAboveHate hashtag in his bio — it’s strange to see that he follows someone like Andrew Torba, the antisemitic CEO of Gab, a social media haven for white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Or Steve Sailer, a notorious eugenicist who writes for the anti-immigration hate website VDARE. (Both Diggs and O’Brien follow him, too, intentionally or not.) Or Erin Elizabeth, a “health” influencer who claims that more people have died from vaccines than were killed in the Holocaust. (A representative for Cena did not return a request for comment on the list of many far-right extremist accounts he follows.)
While O’Brien and Diggs have their share of questionable follows, Cena’s account takes the cake — and it’s not just the prominent hate accounts and conspiracy theorists. He follows more obscure, often anonymous (yet verified) users openly attacking Jews, Black people, immigrants and the LGBTQ community. Take, for example, “Gentile News Network,” which almost exclusively posts antisemitic content (Cena even follows other random small accounts that retweet this material). “People keep blaming @ElonMusk for allowing antisemitism on X,” this user tweeted on Sunday. “But all he did was give people a modicum of free speech. It just turns out that most people were already antisemitic, they were just being censored.” Another Cena-followed blue check account, @ViolentSavages, posts videos of Black people fighting and adds racist commentary. The user identifies the page as a “pro-white” account and recently sympathized with a white woman shown screaming the N-word in a video, writing: “What years upon years of N fatigue does to a person.”
Other figures on Cena’s following roster include: Keith Woods, an Irish YouTuber with ties to white nationalists Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes; Jory Micah, an influencer who shares antisemitic memes and conspiracy theories under the guise of pro-Gaza activism (Diggs and O’Brien also follow her); H. Pearl Davis, an “anti-feminist” influencer who has platformed Nick Fuentes; Graham Linehan, a former TV writer previously banned from Twitter for transphobic comments; Josh Lekach, a livestreamer and sports drink entrepreneur who posts racist commentary and memes (followed by Diggs); Ryan Dawson, a Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist; Isabella Maria DeLuca, an influencer who spreads misinformation about vaccines and has promoted the white genocide conspiracy theory; Jake Shields, a former UFC fighter who has asked why we can’t “debate” the facts of the Holocaust and claimed that it’s “the one historical event that we aren’t allowed to question”; Val Venis (real name Sean Allen Morley), a former pro wrestler and anti-vaxxer who demonizes LGBTQ people and believes that George Soros is funneling immigrants into the U.S. (O’Brien follows him); and Dom Lucre, a QAnon promoter once banned for sharing child sexual abuse material on X (Musk reinstated his account).
Other pseudonymous accounts Cena follows include the misogynist hate account “Women Being Awful,” as well as “Censored Men,” which originally existed to support misogynist manosphere celebrity Andrew Tate as he faces rape and human trafficking charges in Romania (which Tate has denied) but pivoted to anti-Israel content after Oct. 7, and “Canadian Patriot,” a self-described “nationalist” who posts racist memes and has tweeted that “race mixing should be illegal.” Cena also follows the account for Died Suddenly, an anti-vax conspiracy theory film that falsely claims people are dying of complications from Covid-19 vaccines. Their current pinned tweet absurdly alleges that researchers have found “nanobots” in the shots.
Whoever handles Cena’s X activity should be more careful about linking his name to these characters and causes, but it’s also clear that the collapse of moderation on X has created an ecosystem where this stuff flourishes and is now hard to avoid. That’s what triggered an exodus by advertisers, who decided they didn’t want to buy space next to tweets from Nazis. Amid cratering revenue, Musk has lashed out at these companies (at one point telling them “go fuck yourself“) and brought lawsuits against the watchdog groups that documented the rise in extremism on X/Twitter under his ownership. The first, against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, was tossed by a judge in March, while another, targeting Media Matters for America, is slated for trial in April 2025. X has additionally sued the advertisers themselves, alleging a “boycott” of the platform that violates antitrust law.
Cena, of course, is a brand unto himself, just as vulnerable to unwanted associations with toxic elements of the site so long as his mass-following social media strategy continues. If the preponderance of harmful and extremist junk floating around the site isn’t addressed at some point, will highly visible celebrities have to reevaluate the risks of maintaining a presence there? Musk would do well to head off such concerns for the biggest names on X, but his priorities tend to lie elsewhere. Maybe when enough of them delete their accounts, he’ll file another lawsuit.
From Rolling Stone US
