Elon Musk explains why he is against permanent bans on Twitter
India Today
As a Twitter boss, one of the first things that Elon Musk will probably do is remove the policy of permanent bans. He said that permanent bans “fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter and is a morally bad decision.”
Very rarely does Elon Musk make sense on Twitter. Over the last few weeks, Musk has tweeted a lot about the changes that he as the Twitter head will bring to the platform in the time to come. Some of these changes make sense, some do not. One of the changes that he suggested for removing permanent bans on Twitter makes a lot of sense.
Over the last several years, the microblogging site banned several Twitter users, one of them being Donald Trump. Twitter banned the former US President in January last year for violating the company’s policies.
At the time, the microblogging site said that Trump’s tweets allegedly encouraged rioters to take part in the violent storming of the US Capitol. Following Twitter, other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat also banned Trump from their respective platforms.
As a Twitter boss, one of the first things that Musk will probably do is remove the policy of permanent bans. During recent interviews with Financial Times, Musk said that permanent bans “fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter and is a morally bad decision.” He also said that he would reverse Twitter’s ban on Trump.
Musk believes permanent bans should be “extremely rare". He said that if a Twitter user violates any of the policies or makes hurtful comments, that tweet should either be made invisible or have restricted reach. In some instances, he said, “temporary suspension” should happen, but permanent bans is “morally wrong and flat-out stupid”.
The Tesla CEO further explains that permanent bans should only happen in case a user is linked to illegal activities, or for spam or bots. Musk has always been against spam and bots on the microblogging site. As per one of the latest reports, Musk gained over 6 million Twitter followers after the deal, but almost half of them are fake or spambots. Musk also once said that spambots are one of the worst things about Twitter.
The billionaire also highlighted that Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is also against the permanent ban on the platform. In a recent tweet, Dorsey also said that permanent bans are a “failure” for the company and “don’t work”. He also explained that a permanent ban should happen only if anyone is involved with “CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc”.
