Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Offer ‘General Amnesty’ to Suspended Accounts

UTC by Godfrey Benjamin · 3 min read
Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Offer ‘General Amnesty’ to Suspended Accounts
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There are a lot of concerns about how Elon Musk will steer the company to adhere to compliance laws and statutes that the firm entered into prior to his acquisition.

Twitter Inc‘s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Elon Musk has confirmed the company will be offering a “General Amnesty” to all suspended accounts on the platform that has not violated any law. Taking to the bird app to reveal his intentions, the Twitter owner posted a poll seeking consent from the community on whether such accounts should be reinstated or not.

At the time the poll closed, exactly 3,162,112 voted with a total of 72.4% saying they want the accounts unsuspended while 27.6% said they do not support the motion.

Musk obviously pitched tents with the majority, tweeting afterward saying “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” using a Latin phrase that translates as “The voice of the people is the voice of god.”

Should Elon Musk follow through on the move to bring back banned Twitter accounts, the platform may be welcoming back individuals such as former Trump advisor and former executive chairman of Breitbart Steve Bannon who was banned when he said Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.

The approach of Elon Musk as it concerns the management of hate speech tendencies has been called into question in several quarters as many fear the Twitter platform will now be colonized by extremist individuals. The new approach Musk is trailing is even more affirmed when he reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump and that of hip-hop star Ye (aka Kanye West) last week.

Uncertainty Under Elon Musk Twitter: Concern for EU Leaders

Since taking over Twitter, there have been a lot of concerns about how Elon Musk will steer the company to adhere to compliance laws and statutes that the firm entered into prior to his acquisition. The fear is even more grave amongst regulators in the European Union as the company has laid off every of its staff in the Brussels office.

The office in Brussels was floated so that the company can keep up its relationship with the EU’s seat of power. According to a report by the Financial Times, the last two public policy staff of the company departed last week, effectively disbanding that outlet that is considered key to the operations of the company in Europe.

The two staff namely, Julia Mozer and Dario La Nasa have not given any indication that they have departed the firm, either through a tweet or a change in details on their LinkedIn profiles. However, Stephen Turner, the former Twitter EU Public Policy Director announced his retirement from the company last week, confirming that prior to his departure, 4 out of the 6 staff working from Brussels has left.

The layoffs and the no representation has been seen as an attempt to pay leap service to compliance on the digital act in the EU, a move stakeholders say will change the status quo.

“I am concerned about the news of firing such a vast amount of staff of Twitter in Europe,” Věra Jourová, the EU’s vice-president in charge of compliance with the code on disinformation, told the FT. “If you want to effectively detect and take action against disinformation and propaganda, this requires resources. Especially in the context of Russian disinformation warfare, I expect Twitter to fully respect the EU law and honour its commitments. Twitter has been a very useful partner in the fight against disinformation and illegal hate speech and this must not change.”

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