TWEET NOTHING: Elon Musk reinstates banned accounts — but skips Trump & Alex Jones
Right-wing social media users cheered when Elon Musk took over the company, giving them the false hope that Donald Trump would soon return to incessant (and often incomprehensible) tweeting, but on Friday, the new twitlord shot down MAGA hopes, declaring that one of their idols could not return to the site, and that the former president’s fate remains undecided.
Twitter is struggling as Musk fumbles through mass firings and lashes out at employees who dare to criticize him or correct him regarding the direction and function of the site.
Still, for one faction of social media users, there was one primary point to his takeover: bringing back Trump.
Musk tweeted Friday to announce a mixed bag on reinstatements, bringing back Kathy Griffin, whose account was banned after she changed her screen name to “Elon Musk” to mock the newly minted social media mogul, as well as right-wing ‘satire’ site the Babylon Bee and extremist Jordan Peterson, both banned for hateful attacks on transgender people.
However, he said that hateful content would be limited in reach, and demonetized.
Meanwhile, Musk said there was no decision yet on reinstating Trump, who was kicked of Twitter and other social sites for using them to foment rebellion and incite an attack on the United States.
In response to one user’s plea to restore Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ accounts, he gave a flat “no.”
Musk warned:
New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.
Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.
You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.
As seen below, he listed the accounts that have been restored, and declared that he hadn’t made a decision yet about Trump, who is unlikely to abandon Truth Social for Twitter, lest he be seen as admitting failure.
Note: tweets included in this story are in the form of screenshots, lest they be deleted or lost to instability, either of platform or owner.
Below, see an exchange between Musk and a user.
Musk wonders what the site should do next (keeping its long-term competent employees doesn’t seem to be on the list of options being considered), a user suggests bringing back Alex Jones, and Musk rejects the notion fully.
