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Elon Musk on Tuesday said that as owner of Twitter he would lift the ban on Donald Trump, contending that kicking the former US president off the platform “alienated a large part of the country.”
Musk’s endorsement of a Trump return to the global messaging platform quickly triggered fears among activists that Musk would “open the floodgates of hate.”
“I would reverse the permanent ban,” the billionaire said at a Financial Times conference, noting that he doesn’t own Twitter yet, so “this is not like a thing that will definitely happen.”
The Tesla chief’s $44-billion deal to buy Twitter must still get the backing of shareholders and regulators, but he has voiced enthusiasm for less content moderation and “time-outs” instead of bans.
“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said.
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country, and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Trump was booted from Twitter and other online platforms after supporters fired up by his tweets and speech alleging election fraud attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a deadly bid to stop Joe Biden from being certified as the victor in the US presidential election.
“Elon Musk would open the floodgates of hate and disinformation on Twitter,” said Media Matters for America president Angelo Carusone.
“Whether Elon Musk is a fully red-pilled right-wing radical or just someone very interested in enabling right-wing extremists, the result is the same.”
Backing off on fighting misinformation and extremists on Twitter would put pressure on other social networks to do likewise in a race to the bottom, Carusone contended.
Musk reasoned that permanent bans at Twitter should be rare, and reserved for accounts that are spam, scams or run by software “bots.”
“That doesn’t mean that…
Source : france24
