Elon Musk has announced a “general amnesty” for suspended Twitter accounts. The new Twitter CEO says suspended accounts that “have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” will get a new life on the platform starting next week. This comes shortly after he reversed the permanent ban on former US president Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
Twitter will soon welcome more suspended accounts
This “general amnesty” for suspended accounts is likely part of Musk’s idea of content moderation on Twitter. He plans to form a new moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints”. The multi-billionaire announced this shortly after he completed the high-profile, $44 billion privatization of the social network behemoth. He said the company will not make any major content decisions or reinstate suspended accounts before that council convenes.
While Musk has yet to announce the formation of such a council, he has made some big decisions regarding account reinstatement. The Twitter boss has let some high-profile accounts back on the platform in recent days, including comedian Kathy Griffin, conservative satire website Babylon Bee, and author Jordan Peterson. While Griffin was banned just a few days ago for impersonating Musk, the other two accounts were banned earlier this year for violating Twitter’s hate speech policy protecting transgender people.
As said earlier, Musk also recently reinstated Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter in January 2021 for inciting violence. The Twitter CEO let his followers decide whether the former US president should be back on the platform. He ran a poll for it, with more than 15 million people voting. Almost 52 percent of voters favored Trump’s reinstatement. Musk then lifted the permanent ban saying “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
He did something similar for this amnesty decision as well. While only 3.1 million people voted in this poll, over 72 percent of them agreed with Musk’s idea. “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week,” he tweeted shortly after the poll ended. Of course, it isn’t entirely a public decision. Musk has hinted at these kinds of changes on Twitter multiple times. He stated his plan to revoke the ban on Trump shortly after reaching the deal to buy Twitter earlier this year. He said a permanent ban was a mistake.
Musk wants to make Twitter a social platform for free speech. So you can expect a more lenient moderation policy under his reign. Hopefully, the changes he brings will make the platform better for us users. We will keep you posted with all of Musk’s latest announcements on Twitter.
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