Elon Musk says if his bid to buy Twitter is successful he will reverse Donald Trump’s ban from the platform. The richest man in the world agreed a $44bn (£34.5bn) takeover bid with the Twitter board last month.
But he said it was not a done deal and that ideally it would be completed in the next two to three months. Twitter’s decision to ban the former US president was “morally wrong and flat-out stupid”, Mr Musk told the Financial Times Future of the Car summit.
By Jennifer Meierhans
BBC Business reporter
In January 2021, Twitter said Mr Trump’s account was “permanently suspended… due to the risk of further incitement of violence” following the storming of the Capitol.
But the Tesla owner said: “I would reverse the permanent ban but I don’t own Twitter yet so this is not a thing that will definitely happen.”
He said the ban had not silenced Mr Trump, but by making him move onto his own Truth Social site, it had amplified his voice among the far right.
He pointed out that Mr Trump had previously said he would not return to Twitter even if his account was reinstated.
Mr Musk said he had spoken to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on the subject of locking users out of their social media accounts in response to offensive tweets.
“He and I are of the same mind that permanent bans should be extremely rare and reserved for accounts that are bots or scam accounts,” he said.
Mr Musk said if someone tweeted something “illegal or otherwise destructive to the world” there should be temporary suspension or the post should be made invisible.
He said Twitter needed to build more trust by sharing its algorithm and asking people to make suggestions on how to improve it.
He said the company had a strong left bias because of its origins in the San Francisco tech community and needed to be “more even-handed”.
“Victory would be the far right 10% and the far left 10% are equally upset,” he said.
Dr Catherine Flick, an expert in computing and social responsibility at De Montfort University, told the BBC’s Today’s programme her team had “very strong evidence to suggest [Mr Musk] is completely wrong” about the impact of Mr Trump being removed from Twitter.
“Removing Donald Trump from Twitter actually decreased the amount of polarisation,” she said. “It removed a platform for him to stoke animosity and division between people within the platform.”
Ms Flick added there were a “lot of people” who were worried about Mr Musk “essentially having the keys to this… social media platform to reign over it like a king or an emperor like he seems to want to do at the moment”.
Last week activist groups wrote an open letter to Twitter advertisers warning that under Mr Musk’s management, “Twitter risks becoming a cesspool of misinformation, with your brand attached”.
In the US, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the Biden administration wants online platforms to protect freedom of speech but also ensure they are not forums for disinformation.
Ms Psaki said allowing Mr Trump back on Twitter or not would be a decision for the private sector company to make.
Source: bbc.com
