Washington: Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who announced that he will begin ‘general amnesty’ for suspended accounts on the micro-blogging platform, has slammed reports that claimed this will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.
After earlier reinstating former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter handle, Musk took to Twitter and put up a poll asking users to vote on whether the micro-blogging site should offer a general amnesty to other suspended accounts provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam. As per the survey results, slightly over 3 million people voted in the poll and with the majority of 72.4 per cent of voting in favour of amnesty. Musk then tweeted, “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”
Following this, a leading American news agency reported that online safety experts predict Musk’s ‘general amnesty’ for suspended accounts will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.
Replying to this, Musk took a witty dig at the agency and said on Twitter, “AP is such an expert in misinformation. Twitter couldn’t hope to compete!”
He also inquired about the “online experts” by tweeting, “But you have piqued my curiosity … who are these “online experts” you speak of?”
Last Friday, Musk began reinstating accounts that were previously subject to indefinite bans for breaking the platform’s rules. Author Jordan Peterson and comedian Kathy Griffin were among the first people whose accounts were reinstated.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and 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 the rest of the Internet,” Musk said in an earlier tweet.