Musk’s use of poll to reinstate Trump sparks backlash

In October, Musk said the company would be “forming a content moderation council” and that “no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before” it convenes. After meeting with Musk soon after, civil rights leaders voiced cautious optimism about the plans. 

But Musk ripped up that playbook on Saturday, restoring Trump’s account after a 52 percent majority of users in a Twitter poll he ran voted in favor of the move. 

Any decision Musk made regarding Trump’s ban was sure to spark backlash, either from Republicans who bashed Twitter for “censoring” the former president or from Democrats who for years said the company failed to fully enforce its rules against him.  

Twitter permanently banned Trump after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, citing fears his posts could incite further violence in the days after the deadly attack. 

But Democratic lawmakers, civil rights groups and content moderation experts said Musk’s use of a poll — rather than a standardized review process — to make the call raised serious concerns about the company’s decision-making process going forward under his ownership. 

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) — a member of the House panel investigating Trump’s Twitter activity as part of its probe into Jan. 6 — called Musk’s decision “a terrible mistake.”

“It contradicts what Elon Musk said, that he was going to establish a council to evaluate this and further contradicts Musk and his claimed concern about bots on his own platform to subject the decision to a poll on the platform that could be easily abused,” Schiff told ABC on Sunday.

He added, “It just underscores the erratic leadership now under Musk.”

Civil rights leaders said Musk’s decision raised the risk of hate speech and misinformation online, and tore into his use of a poll to inform the call. 

“If Elon Musk continues to run Twitter like this, using garbage polls that do not represent the American people and the needs of our democracy, God help us all,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. Johnson called on all advertisers to drop Twitter “immediately.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt: 

Musk responded with a quip. 

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, cheered on Musk’s decision to bring back Trump as a win against “censorship.” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.):

Danielle Citron, who sits on a Twitter safety advisory council formed before Musk’s takeover, said the Trump call highlights how Musk slashed the company’s content moderation teams. 

“Reinstating Trump comes after Musk tore down a well helmed and resourced trust and safety team. … Trump may return to his 86 million followers and wreak havoc. The problem is the guardrails are gone,” Citron told The Technology 202.

Meta’s oversight board — ostensibly a parallel to the council Musk floated — seemingly chided Musk for enforcing Twitter’s rules inconsistently. 

The Facebook parent company is due to make its own decision on whether to reinstate Trump in January. (By acting first, Musk may have provided political cover to Meta and YouTube, which also suspended the former president indefinitely last year, as we wrote in May.)

Musk’s decision-making process on Trump raises major questions about how he will handle other high-profile and politically divisive cases moving ahead.

And it throws his plans of forming a content moderation council to inform those calls into doubt.

Spread of racism on Twitter could be worse amid World Cup, activists warn

Activists say the spread of racism on Twitter could be worse than last year, when English soccer players were targeted with racist tweets, as the company grapples with a mass exodus of staffers and Musk’s leadership style, Post colleagues Naomi Nix and Rachel Lerman report. The soccer tournament, which kicked off Sunday in Qatar, comes as hate speech continues to target soccer players online, activists say. 

Sanjay Bhandari, who chairs anti-discrimination group Kick It Out, said some users have used the perception of Musk as a free speech absolutist to spread online hate. “Some people have heard that as a dog whistle for racism and hate,” he said. “When you combine those factors together that’s a toxic cocktail and I fear what we will have in the World Cup.”

FIFA says it will give players at the tournament access to a service that works to filter out the hate speech targeting them. Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment, but executive Ella Irwin, the new head of Twitter’s trust and safety team, tweeted this week that employees for weeks have been preparing for the tournament. “Ensuring a healthy platform continues to be our priority,” she tweeted. Musk on Friday wrote on the site that Twitter would limit the reach of racist tweets.

FTX owes creditors more than $3 billion, company says

At least 10 of the company’s top creditors are owed at least $100 million, Steven Zeitchik reports. The names of the creditors were redacted in a bankruptcy filing, but FTX received capital from major investment funds and other entities.

“When FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11, it marked a stunning fall for a former powerhouse and its 30-year old co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried,” Steven writes. “At one time valued at $32 billion, FTX had become a public symbol of crypto, its ubiquitous commercials and sports sponsorships signaling to ordinary people that cryptocurrency was a safe and accessible investment. Bankman-Fried’s frequent appearances at global conferences and on Capitol Hill sought to do the same with legislators and thought leaders.”

Musk says he won’t reinstate Alex Jones to Twitter

When a Twitter user told Musk to bring back Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s account, the Twitter owner flatly replied “no,” Axios’s Ivana Saric reports. Jones replied by saying in a video that he doesn’t blame Musk and doesn’t “care if I get brought back to Twitter.”

Musk on Friday also announced that Twitter brought back accounts belonging to Canadian professor Jordan Peterson, the satirical Babylon Bee and comedian Kathy Griffin. The Peterson and Babylon accounts had been suspended for misgendering an actor and a Biden administration official; Twitter suspended Griffin’s account this month for impersonating Musk; she said “no thanks” on social media platform Mastodon in response to the reinstatement.

In crises, officials tweet crucial info. What if Twitter dies? (Reis Thebault, Brianna Sacks and Mark Berman)

Tesla safety at centre of South Korean trial over fiery, fatal crash (Reuters)

CBS News resumes Twitter activity after brief halt over Musk concerns (The Hill)

Google sets rules for HQ guest speakers after row over Indian historian (Reuters)

Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to more than 11 years in prison (Rachel Lerman and Gerrit De Vynck)

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