Musk: Twitter to provide ‘general amnesty’ to suspended accounts

In a poll Musk posted on Twitter, 72.4% of more than 3.16 million participants voted in favour of reinstating accounts.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on October 4, 2022, a phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background, in Washington, DC. - Twitter said it will start laying off employees on November 4, 2022, as the new billionaire owner Elon Musk moves quickly after his big takeover to make the messaging platform financially sound
Change and chaos have marked Elon Musk's first few weeks as Twitter's owner [File: Olivier Douliery/AFP]

Elon Musk has said Twitter will provide a “general amnesty” to suspended accounts starting next week after running a poll on whether to do so for users who had not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.

In a poll Musk posted on Twitter on Wednesday, 72.4 percent of the more than 3.16 million users who took part voted in favour of bringing back those who had been suspended by the social media platform.

“The people have spoken,” Musk, who acquired Twitter last month, tweeted on Thursday. “Amnesty begins next week.”

Last week, Musk, the world’s richest person, reinstated some previously suspended accounts, including that of former United States President Donald Trump, the satirical website Babylon Bee and comedian Kathy Griffin.

He tweeted in October that Twitter would form a content moderation council “with widely diverse viewpoints.” Musk said no big content decisions or account reinstatements would happen before the council convened.

Change and chaos have marked the billionaire’s first few weeks as Twitter’s owner. He has fired top managers, including former Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, while senior officials in charge of security and privacy were announced as having quit.

Those resignations drew scrutiny from the US Federal Trade Commission, whose mandate includes protecting consumers, which said it was watching Twitter with “deep concern”.

Earlier on Thursday, Musk tweeted that users might notice “small, sometimes major improvements in speed of Twitter” which would be “especially significant in countries far away” from the US.

Source: Reuters