Elon Musk let users decide whether blanket amnesty would be given to previously banned sites and it was a landslide. The vote wasn’t even close since the Maricopa County Supervisors were not involved in the count. A little over 72% voted for reinstatement. This will not include sites that have broken the law or have a history of hate. Alex Jones will not be one of the amnesty recipients. Amnesty will begin next week.
Musk had already restored a number of accounts, but the number of banned accounts was too high to do each individually. He then took a poll to give users the final say in what they wanted the platform to do. The amnesty program will be a huge boost for Twitter as well as conservatives are now welcome back to the heavily partisan site before Musk bought them out. Far leftists have been leaving the site, but who cares?
On Wednesday, Musk tweeted a poll asking whether or not to unban users that had been permanently suspended.
“Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?”
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”
The people have spoken.
Amnesty begins next week.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022
Musk has indicated that moderation will be limited to illegal activities. He has already begun to purge child sex abuse from the platform There has been no indication of what constitutes spam, but whatever it is, I am sure it will not interfere with free speech.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton replied to the poll:
“Please limit content moderation to illegal content (or, at most, a narrow interpretation of moderation under Section 230) and give users the tools that enable the freedom to choose what content they see.”
That’s the general idea
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022
“[W]hatever it decides to do, twitter should be clear and consistent about it’s rules and penalties for breaking them, enforcement should be unbiased, and the mechanisms of enforcement shouldn’t be easily abused by people who have an agenda,” DogeCoin creator Billy Markus replied to the poll.
Musk agreed with Markus’ suggestion, replying with the “100” and “bullseye” emojis. In a separate tweet, he indicated that Twitter’s policies and enforcement methods were dishonest. “The more I learn, the worse it gets,” Musk said. “The world should know the truth of what has been happening at Twitter. Transparency will earn the trust of the people.”
The more I learn, the worse it gets. The world should know the truth of what has been happening at Twitter.
Transparency will earn the trust of the people.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022
The blanket amnesty policy is the latest move in Musk’s effort to restore free speech on Twitter. Under his leadership, the social media giant has already restored the accounts of several high-profile conservative and right-leaning influencers. The list includes: Christian satire site The Babylon Bee, which likely played a role in Musk’s decision to buy Twitter in the first place; clinical psychologist and DailyWire+ host Dr. Jordan B. Peterson; conservative undercover investigative journalism outfit Project Veritas; and former President Donald Trump.
Despite restoring high-profile conservative users, Musk has not been immune from criticism from the right. Conservatives slammed Musk last week after he announced that mean tweets would be aggressively de-boosted, effectively keeping the same “shadowbanning” policies that were in effect by Twitter before he took over.
Musk tweeted:
“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
