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CNN business
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Elon Musk on Wednesday indicated that former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account will not be restored ahead of next week’s U.S. midterm elections, answering one of the biggest unknowns after he acquired a social media company.
Musk Confirmed Early Wednesday morning, “Twitter will not allow anyone removed from the platform for violating Twitter’s rules to return to the platform. It will be at least a few more weeks before we have a clear process.” The Billionaire’s Twitter owner had previously said he would launch a “content moderation council” and no major content decisions would be made until it was implemented.
Before Musk acquired Twitter last week, it promised to roll back at least some of the platform’s content moderation policies and eliminate permanent account bans. He also specifically said he would restore Trump’s personal account, which was banned from the platform shortly after the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, who previously used Twitter to make news, attack critics and set agendas in Washington, D.C., is happy Twitter is in “sane hands” after Musk’s acquisition. has claimed he will not return to the platform. Instead, he plans to stay on his social network, Truth Social. Trump has tens of millions more followers on Twitter than Truth on his social.
Musk’s hints at delaying action on Trump and other banned accounts are to ensure the platform doesn’t become a “free-for-all hell” for users and advertisers who make up 90% of Twitter’s revenue. It comes up when I’m working on reconfirming the . Musk is also working urgently to increase Twitter’s revenue, including subscription products, after raising a large amount of debt to pay for the $44 billion acquisition.
In a follow-up tweet on Wednesday, Musk said:
Since Musk became the owner and de facto CEO of Twitter, the platform has faced a surge of hateful rhetoric and other toxic content, sparking outcry from civil society groups and some Advertisers are rethinking working with platforms. .
In Wednesday’s tweet thread, Musk met with representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Color of Change, Asian American Foundation and several other groups to discuss how Twitter will continue to fight hate and harassment, Whether to force human rights violations,” he said. Election Integrity Policy. ”
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, said on Tuesday that the company is “focused on addressing the surge in hateful behavior on Twitter. We’ve removed more than 1,500 accounts and removed this content. We’ve reduced our impressions to almost zero, making visible progress.” Both Musk and Roth stressed that Twitter’s policy hasn’t changed since the acquisition.
