Elon Musk fulfilled his promise to reinstate former President Trump’s Twitter account on Saturday. He lifted a ban that kept Trump off the widely used social media platform for almost two years after he incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Musk announced on Twitter that he would allow Trump back after holding a Twitter poll, asking Twitter users if Trump should be allowed back on the platform. The vote to restore Trump’s account won by 51.8%.
While Musk had previously said the Twitter platform would establish a content creation review board and follow new procedures before deciding which suspended accounts would be reinstated, the Twitter poll appeared to be enough to give Musk a reason to reinstate Trump.
In his announcement, Musk said that the people had spoken, so he would reinstate Trump’s account, adding a Latin phrase, ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei’ translating to ‘the voice of the people, the voice of God.’
After a short while, Trump’s account reappeared on the platform, complete with 87.4 million followers, and all 59,000 of his former tweets were still visible.
But despite Twitter finally giving him his account back, Trump snubbed the platform, saying he does not want to rejoin.
In spite of leading in the Twitter poll, the former president said there was no reason for him to return to the platform.
After being booted off the platform, Trump launched his own social media platform, created by the Trump Media and Technology Group. He shrugged at the news of his account’s reinstatement, and he is yet to post any tweets.
Trump, who has nearly five million followers on his own platform, said that the right-wing-friendly platform had better engagement and was performing well.
After the news of Musk’s Twitter takeover, Trump applauded Musk, expressing his joy that the platform was in “sane hands,” adding that he could potentially use both social media platforms.
Since Musk’s Twitter purchase last month, there has been a lot of concern that he would allow accounts of people who spread lies and misinformation on the platform. Even before purchasing Twitter, Musk expressed that he thought Twitter had become too restrictive and advocated for free speech on the platform.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, his social media use became quite challenging to platforms that had to balance the public interest in hearing from the US President while still worrying about misinformation, incitement, harassment, and bigotry.
In May, Musk said that Twitter made a morally bad and foolish decision in banning Trump.
Before Trump’s reinstatement on Twitter, Musk announced that he had restored various suspended accounts, including Kathy Griffin’s, Jordan Peterson’s, and Babylon Bee, which belongs to a conservative Christian site.
According to Musk, tweets that the company viewed as highly negative or included hate speech would only be seen by users who specifically searched for them, adding that the tweets would also be demonetized.