Elon Musk Won’t Reinstate Trump, or Any Other Banned Twitter Accounts, Until After Forming ‘Content Moderation Council’
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Not long after Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter (and before he tried to back out of it), some of the platform’s famously banned figures, like controversial congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, started daydreaming of a possible return to the platform. Musk hadn’t explicitly said anything about lifting bans, but his general techno-liberterian, anti-woke, extremely-online vibe was enough to provide an inkling of hope.
Now that Musk has officially acquired Twitter, it’s possible the floodgates may open, but not anytime soon. In fact, it appears more like Musk — despite being the primary owner of what will soon be his private company — is trying to abdicate some of the responsibility for such pesky things as “content moderation.”
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The man’s brilliant plan to make sure things at Twitter don’t get too crazy? The formation of a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” Musk announced Friday afternoon. He didn’t specify who would make up that council, how membership would be determined, what kind of power they would wield, or to whom they would answer.
Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.
No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
The only other thing he did add: “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” This is too bad for Greene and Fuentes — or the recently-restricted Kanye West — just have to keep biding their time in the echo chambers of Parler and Truth Social.
Speaking of which, Twitter’s most famous banned figure, Truth Social honcho, and twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, has claimed he will not rejoin Twitter, even if Musk reinstates his account (which Musk has said he would do). Musk has been making more inroads with the MAGA set lately, but it’s unclear if that’s had any sway on Trump, who called Musk a “bullshit artist” at a rally over the summer.
As for Musk and Twitter, the “content moderation council” announcement, combined with yesterday’s open letter promising the platform wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape” feel like a good indicator that Twitter’s new boss actually knows what his real priorities are. Not flinging open the doors to the proverbial digital public square to become the ultimate champion of “free speech,” but keeping advertisers happy.
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