Elon Musk asked Twitter users to decide whether to stay at the helm of the social network, after admitting on Sunday that he made a mistake by issuing new restrictions on posting mentions from competing social networks.
In another policy change, Twitter announced that users will no longer be able to share links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms the company has described as “prohibited.” But the move has drawn so much criticism, including from former defenders of Twitter’s new billionaire owner, that Elon Musk has vowed not to make larger policy changes without first consulting online users.
“Sorry. It won’t happen again,” Musk wrote, before launching a new 12-hour poll asking whether he should step down as Twitter chief, adding that he would “respect the results of this vote.”
The poll ended at 11:20 a.m. Monday and the majority of users (57.5%) voted “yes,” but Elon Musk has yet to comment on the results.
Should I resign as head of Twitter? I will stick to the results of this survey.
-Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
The move to block competitors was the latest attempt by Musk to clamp down on certain speech after he last week shut down a Twitter account that tracked flights on his private jet.
Banned platforms included popular sites like Facebook and Instagram, and rival startups Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social.
Twitter gave no explanation as to why these seven sites were chosen for Twitter’s blacklist, in favor of others like Parler, TikTok, or LinkedIn.
Twitter also announced that it will suspend, at least temporarily, accounts that include these banned sites in their profiles.
A test case was that of investor Paul Graham, who in the past has praised Musk but on Sunday told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that this latest decision had been the “last straw” for him to run into. him on Mastodon, after his Twitter. the account was suspended and shortly after restored, as Musk promised to reverse the policy a few hours earlier.
Elon Musk also said that Twitter will continue to suspend some accounts in accordance with the policy, but “only when that account’s primary purpose is the promotion of competitors.”
Twitter had already taken steps to block links to Mastodon after its main Twitter account posted about the @ElonJet controversy last week.
Mastodon has grown in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users unhappy with Musk’s overhaul since he bought the company in late October and began restoring accounts he found to be violating Twitter leadership’s previous anti-hate rules. and the abuse of violence.
On Wednesday, Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet account and then changed Twitter’s rules to prohibit sharing location without the target’s consent.
Musk banned journalists who wrote about his plane, which can still be found on other social media sites, claiming they were broadcasting “basically murder coordinates.”
Elon Musk used this justification for last week’s decision to suspend the accounts of several journalists covering the social media platform and Musk, including reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and others. posts, but many of these accounts have since been restored.
This weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest journalist to be temporarily banned from Twitter, with the account suspended after posting a Twitter message tagging Musk and requesting an interview.
Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee called this decision an “arbitrary suspension of another Post journalist” that further undermined Musk’s promise to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.
“Again, the suspension came without notice, process or explanation, this time because our reporter only asked for Musk’s comments for a story,” Buzbee denounced. By noon on Sunday, Lorenz’s account was reinstated, as was the tweet believed to have led to the suspension.
Musk was asked in court on Nov. 16 about how he divides his time between Tesla and other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter, and testified in court about a shareholder’s challenge to Musk’s compensation plan as CEO of the company. electric car company.
Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla and also did not want to be CEO of any other company, preferring to see himself as an engineer. Musk also said that he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed next week, a statement he made more than a month ago.
In a public joke to Twitter followers on Sunday, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying such a person “must really like pain” to run a company that “is on a fast track to bankruptcy”.
“Nobody wants the job that can really keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk said.
Source: TSF
