Following his decision to lift the suspended account of Donald Trump through a poll, Elon Musk said he will now grant amnesty to all suspended Twitter accounts starting from next week.
Musk lifted Trump’s account last week following the “yes” result of a poll where he asked Twitter users whether the banned former US President should be reinstated. On Wednesday, the billionaire, in a similar way, asked if amnesty should be granted to all suspended Twitter accounts.
On Thursday, Musk granted the wish of the majority of voters. More than 72% of voters voted “yes” to his question while a little over 27% voted “no.”
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“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. (voice of the people, voice of God),” Musk said in response.
The people have spoken.
Amnesty begins next week.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022
However, the world richest man said only accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” will enjoy the amnesty. But online safety experts said the move will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.
Musk’s controversial acquisition of Twitter brought a lot of changes to the social media platform. The Tesla CEO got into an early fracas with advertisers, who have decided to halt their Twitter patronage until they see where the platform is headed under Musk. He said late last month when he took over that that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints that would consider the cases.
But several prominent accounts banned for breaking hate speech and misinformation rules, including far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform’s COVID misinformation policies, have been reinstated since then.
Musk has justified the reinstatements as he tries to monetize Twitter Blue with the introduction of $8 fee for the verification check. He said on Tuesday he’s reneged on his promise to set up a diverse content moderation team because “a large coalition of political-social activists groups” broke the deal he had with them by urging advertisers to abandon Twitter.
Against this backdrop, the concern that Twitter under Musk’s leadership will eventually become the platform of hate speech and harassment, is growing.
Musk didn’t spare time in firing Twitter executives and eventually more than half of the company’s 7,000 workforce, which includes content moderating teams when he took over. Others, including Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, have resigned due to lack of faith in Musk’s ability to keep Twitter from turning into a platform of chaos and uncontrolled speech.
The rest of Twitter’s employees are gradually being eliminated under Musk’s “extremely hardcore” work ultimatum.
Unfortunately, not everyone is having a great Thanksgiving break pic.twitter.com/cqmsXMQqQK
— Peter Yang (@petergyang) November 25, 2022
Uptick in racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech has been reported on Twitter by the groups that monitor the platform for such ills, according to a report by AP. That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on, the report said.
The concern is that reinstating suspended accounts will spur an avalanche of hateful contents on Twitter. But Musk is understood to be working to increase the number of users on the social media platform, a promise he made to shareholders when he was pushing to acquire Twitter.