Elon Musk welcomes Ye back to Twitter after also unbanning Donald Trump
By Bryan Ke
Twitter has removed bans on several prominent accounts, including former President Donald Trump, as the social media platform’s wild roller coaster ride of events continues to unfold.
Elon Musk, the new CEO and owner of Twitter, posted a poll on Friday asking users if he should reinstate Trump’s account, which was banned following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Hill attack. The result showed that 51.8 percent of the 15,085,458 accounts who voted agreed that Trump should return to the platform.
“Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk, 51, wrote, which is the Latin phrase for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Following the poll, the ban on Trump’s account was removed on Saturday, making all of his previous tweets visible to his over 87 million followers. When asked if he would return to the social media giant, Trump candidly admitted, “I don’t see any reason for it.”
“They have a lot of problems at Twitter, you see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it,” he said before the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting over the weekend.
Trump noted that he would rather stay on Truth Social, a social media platform developed by his Trump Media & Technology Group startup, which he said is doing “phenomenally well.”
Musk also welcomed American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, back on Twitter on Sunday, responding to the singer’s first tweet in weeks, “Don’t kill what ye hate, save what ye love.”
Ye, 45, was banned in early October for posting an antisemitic tweet, writing “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” The “Flashing Lights” singer was reportedly referring to the military term “DEFCON” in his tweet.
The rapper eventually recovered his account in early November but announced soon after that he would be taking a break for the rest of the month.
Other accounts that have been unbanned include the conservative Christian news satire website The Babylon Bee and Canadian media personality Jordan Peterson, which were both banned for violating Twitter’s hateful conduct policies for posting tweets targeting the transgender community.
American comedian Kathy Griffin’s account was also unbanned. Griffin recently had her account restricted for impersonating Musk on Twitter.
In a tweet on Friday, Musk wrote that the social media platform’s new policy is “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted and demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” he added. “You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
Musk took control of Twitter in October after buying the social media platform for $44 billion in April.
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