Following a meeting with leftist groups, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Color of Change and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Twitter CEO Elon Musk agreed to reinstate the microblogging site's content moderation tools.
Since his first day of acquisition, there has been a surge of hateful comments and other toxic content, causing possible advertiser pullouts. So, the "Chief Twit" held a virtual meeting with the leading leftist groups to assure them that hate speech and election disinformation would be curtailed. Musk ended up committing to restoring access to the tools.
The conference call was attended by ADL representative Yael Eisenstadt, Jessica Gonzalez, the head of digital rights group Free Press, Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change and Musk as the sole Twitter representative. The civil activists claimed that Musk agreed with their concerns about speech on the platform and promised to work with them.
Musk said he would create speech policies to protect "disadvantaged communities" and make the reasoning behind decisions to restore accounts of individuals who have been barred from the platform more transparent, but never mentioned former President Donald Trump by name, the attendees claimed.
Gonzalez said that the Tesla founder also assured them that he would continue consulting people of color, religious minorities and people most impacted by hate and disinformation on the platform. According to Musk, the 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."
The Big Tech mogul's decision drew criticisms from some conservatives, including author and podcaster Catturd. "When it comes to unfairly suspended accounts being reinstated, it looks like @elonmusk is only listening to the same a**holes responsible for the BS and other far-left groups who could always say anything they wanted. The only group targeted – Conservatives – are getting shafted," Catturd tweeted.
Trump: Twitter is in good hands, but I'll stay on Truth Social
Before he finalized acquiring Twitter, Musk declared a revamp of the platform’s content moderation policies and said he would do away with permanent account bans. Back in May, he also specifically said he would restore the personal account of Trump, who was banned from the platform shortly after the January 6 "insurrection" at the Capitol.
"I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump, I think that was a mistake," Musk commented. "I would reverse the perma-ban. … Banning Trump from Twitter didn't end Trump's voice, it will amplify it among the right and this is why it's morally wrong and flat-out stupid." (Related: New Twitter CEO Elon Musk considering reversing lifetime ban on several people including Trump.)
For his part, Trump said he is glad Twitter is now in "sane hands." However, he announced that he plans to stay on his own social network Truth Social – despite the fact that he had tens of millions more followers on Twitter.
"Truth Social has become somewhat of a phenomena," Trump wrote back in October. "I am very happy that Twitter now is in safe hands and will no longer be run by radical left lunatics and maniacs that truly hate our country. I LOVE TRUTH," pointing out that there is better interaction on his social media site.
Meanwhile, Musk said it would take weeks before they could reinstate banned accounts, such as Trump's. This means, no de-platformed personalities could be restored prior to the midterm elections.
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Watch this video where Trump said he'd prefer to stay on Truth Social.
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