Twitter won’t restore banned accounts until after next week’s midterm election, Elon Musk wrote in a tweet early on Wednesday. That means former President Donald Trump and others banned by the pre-Musk Twitter won’t be allowed back just yet.
“Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks,” Musk wrote. “Twitter’s content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence.”
Twitter banned Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, explaining that “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Musk said in May that Twitter’s decision to ban Trump was “morally wrong and flat-out stupid” and that he would reverse the ban if he completed his then-pending acquisition of Twitter. He also said that “permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam.”
Musk completed his purchase of Twitter last week. He is now the CEO and sole director of Twitter, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Twitter Head of Safety and Integrity Yoel Roth wrote that the company is “staying vigilant against attempts to manipulate conversations about the 2022 US midterms.” Roth previously defended Twitter’s decision to restrict much of the staff from policing content violations as part of the post-merger transition.
NAACP expressed “grave concerns” to Musk
A Bloomberg report last week indicated Musk “intends to do away with permanent bans on users because he doesn’t believe in lifelong prohibitions,” meaning that Trump would be allowed back on Twitter. Trump told Fox News last week that he is staying on his own Truth Social network but declined to comment on whether he would use his Twitter account if it’s reactivated.
Allowing Trump back would invite a backlash and complicate Musk’s attempts to convince advertisers that Twitter won’t become a “free-for-all hellscape” under his leadership.
Musk wrote today that he talked to “civil society leaders… about how Twitter will continue to combat hate & harassment & enforce its election integrity policies.” Musk said the meeting included representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, Free Press, the Asian American Foundation, the NAACP, the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
“The NAACP met with Elon Musk to express our grave concerns with the dangerous, life-threatening hate and conspiracies that have proliferated under his watch. The bird cannot be free as long as election denialism, hatred, misinformation and disinformation exist on Twitter,” NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson wrote today.
Update: A spokesperson for the League of United Latin American Citizens criticized Musk for inviting its recently fired CEO instead of the group’s current leadership, saying former CEO Sindy Benavides “does not represent LULAC in any capacity before any audience.” Benavides is reportedly involved in a splinter group in a dispute involving two factions that each claim control of the organization. The battle could be decided in court.
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1894504