The new boss of Twitter Elon Musk announced Thursday, November 24 that he would restore suspended accounts on the platform next week if they did not break the law, thus returning to reassuring remarks during his takeover .
To the question, published Wednesday in the form of a poll on his account, whether Twitter should offer a “Blanket amnesty to suspended accounts provided they have not broken the law or sent outrageous spam”72.4% of the approximately 3.16 million people answered “yes”.
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“The people have spoken, the amnesty begins next week”Elon Musk tweeted Thursday, a holiday in the United States for the feast of Thanksgiving, accompanying his publication of the message ” Vox Populi vox dei “ (“The voice of the people is the voice of God”).
Same method to rehabilitate Trump
It is with this same expression that he had, on Saturday, rehabilitated the account of former American President Donald Trump, banned from the social network in January 2021 after the assault on the Capitol in Washington by his supporters in an attempt to prevent the certification of the victory of his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the presidential election.
The leader of Tesla and SpaceX had taken this decision following a similar consultation on the blue bird network, a method of uncertain representativeness. A narrow majority (51.8%) of the 15 million voters expressed themselves in favor of a return of the Republican billionaire, who has not tweeted since the restoration of his account.
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Elon Musk has repeatedly explained that he bought Twitter because he considers the platform to be the “digital public space” essential to democracy in the world.
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Conspirator Alex Jones will remain banned
The richest man in the world considers the moderation of content too restrictive, but his absolutist vision of freedom of expression raises fears of a surge of abuse (misinformation, hate speech) on the social network.
Elon Musk nevertheless seems to have a limit: he indicated that he would not restore the account of the American far-right conspirator Alex Jones, sued for several years by parents of victims of the massacre at the Sandy Hook school in Newton ( Connecticut) for claiming the massacre was just a staged show by opponents of guns.
Having experienced the death of his first child, he explained to be “without mercy towards anyone who would use the deaths of children to [engranger des] financial, political or fame gains”.
Several advertisers “broke the deal”
Many brands have already suspended ad spending on Twitter, which is 90% dependent on it for revenue.
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The libertarian entrepreneur first tried to appease them, recalling at the end of October that the rules had not (yet) changed and promising not to take any decision on the reinstatement of accounts before the creation of a “content moderation advice”.
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But advertisers who had promised to maintain their spending on the condition that this moderation council be created “broken the deal”he wrote on Tuesday in justification of the return of the accounts ousted from the platform.
Several major brands, including Volkswagen, General Motors and General Mills, have announced that they have suspended advertising spending on Twitter since its acquisition by Elon Musk.
Caught up by regulators
Elon Musk is widely criticized for his impulsive decisions at the helm of Twitter, from mass layoffs to the chaotic launch of new features.
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He dismisses criticism several times a day on his account with 118 million subscribers with memes (parodic images), emoticons, provocations, personal attacks and pirouettes.
But the billionaire risks being overtaken by regulators. Twitter must indeed respect European laws, including that on digital services (DSA) which should oblige platforms to quickly remove illegal content and to fight against misinformation.
Arcom, the French media policeman, had reminded the Californian group on Monday of its ” obligations “ and asked him about him ” to confirm “ by Thursday be ” able “ to deal with it and “to inform him of the short-term development of human and technological resources” who are dedicated to it.
