Tesla CEO Elon Tesla stated Tuesday that he would allow former President Donald Trump access to Twitter once the purchase of the social network site for almost $44billion is complete.
Trump was banned from TwitterA mob of his loyalists, angered by his false claims about election fraud, attacked and destroyed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan 6, 2021 in order to stop President Joe Biden being certified as the winner of 2020’s presidential election.
Musk described Trump’s ban as “a ban on Trump.” as “foolish in the extreme”At a car exposition hosted by The Financial TimesTuesday
“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake,” Musk said, adding that the company’s decision “alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account shortly after the attack on the Capitol due to the incendiary nature of his public statements.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said less than a week after the attack occurred.
In one of the last tweets Trump published before his account was suspended, he defended his loyalists’ actions and continued to push lies about the 2020 election being illegitimate.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots,” Trump wrote on the evening of the Capitol attack.
Trump has said that he won’t return to Twitter, opting instead to stick with his own social media site, Truth Social. However, those close to Trump claim that he is not going to Twitter again and will stick with Truth Social. will be too difficult to overcome.
Musk plans to make drastic changes to Twitter’s rules once he’s in charge; in his words, the site will become a “digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated” without restriction. Of course, in real town hall settings, there are rules of decorum that must be followed — and people can be banned if they continually incite violence or propagate disinformation.
One recently published study suggests that Musk’s plans may decrease free speech on the platform.
“Social media users have in past years become victims of manipulation by ‘astroturf’ causes, trolling and misinformation,” said head researcher of the study Filippo MenczerProfessor of Informatics at Indiana University. “Abuse is facilitated by social bots and coordinated networks that create the appearance of human crowds.”
He also added:
Musk’s likely acquisition of Twitter raises concerns that the social media platform could decrease its content moderation. This research shows that a stronger moderation of the information environment is needed to combat harmful misinformation.
“The voices of real users would be drowned out by malicious users who manipulate Twitter through inauthentic accounts, bots and echo chambers” if Musk’s laissez-faire policies were enacted, Menczer said, noting that such policies “would ironically hurt free speech.”
