New Twitter owner Elon Musk has just announced the creation of a “content moderation council,” whose purpose, in part, will be to make decisions about account reinstatements.
Musk had previously made it clear that the primary reason that he was looking to buy Twitter is to restore the principle of free speech to the platform – to end the type of viewpoint censorship that Twitter was practicing while in the hands of leftists.
In conjunction with this, Musk suggested that many Twitter accounts that had been previously banned may, under his leadership, be reinstated — including the account of former President Donald Trump.
The question, though, is how specifically Musk would go about accomplishing all of this, and, now, with Musk officially at the helm, we are getting some answers.
Musk’s new council
Friday afternoon, Musk, who has dubbed himself the “chief twit,” announced, “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.”
Musk has yet to reveal further specifics about the council, but he did add that “no major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
Later in the day, Musk also posted some more tweets that hint at his intentions for the platform.
In one tweet, for example, he wrote, “comedy is now legal on Twitter.” And, in another tweet, Musk wrote, “anyone suspended for minor and dubious reason will be free from Twitter jail.”
What of it?
At this point, no one knows what to make of Musk’s new council, and no one knows what Twitter will look like under Musk’s leadership. It’s one of those things where people — at least the more rational ones — will have to see it before they can judge it.
In the meantime, users who value free speech are generally optimistic about Twitter’s future, considering the sort of things that Musk is saying and doing.
They, for example, are happy to see Musk immediately eradicate such top Twitter executives as CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal policy head Vijaya Gadde — all of whom have become synonymous with right-wing censorship.
The bottom line, though, is that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the future of Twitter. That being said, it’s probably safe to bet that Twitter won’t be worse under Musk than it was under leftist leadership.