Elon Musk’s Twitter ‘amnesty’ continues: Social media platform will allow ANYONE to appeal an account suspension from February 1
- Twitter is promising to take ‘less severe actions’ when disciplining user accounts
- Will only suspend accounts making ‘severe or ongoing, repeat violations’ of rules
- Comes as users say they’re being bombarded by more spam messages than ever
Twitter is vowing to take ‘less severe actions’ when disciplining accounts that break its rules, in what is the latest softening of the social media giant’s stance since Elon Musk took over.
It will now only suspend accounts that engage in ‘severe or ongoing, repeat violations’ of its rules, while from February 1 anyone will be allowed to appeal suspensions.
The move comes just two months after Musk announced that suspended Twitter accounts would be offered an ‘amnesty’ in response to a poll which revealed a landslide of users support the move.
This led to the reinstatement of several high-profile accounts, including Donald Trump’s.
Twitter is vowing to take ‘less severe actions’ when disciplining accounts that break its rules, in what is the latest softening of the social media giant’s stance since Elon Musk took over
It will now only suspend accounts that engage in ‘severe or ongoing, repeat violations’ of its rules, while from February 1 anyone will be allowed to appeal suspensions
Twitter CEO Musk, who completed a $44 billion takeover in October 2022, said user accounts would be restored as long as they hadn’t broken the law or engaged in spamming.
In terms of the latest changes, the ‘less severe actions’ include limiting visibility of a tweet or telling a user to remove a post before they are allowed back onto the site, both of which Twitter has been doing for years.
However, it will now do these things more often, rather than being so quick to ban people.
Not only that, but the social media giant is aiming to be more transparent about it by introducing a number of as yet unannounced new features that are due to be revealed next month.
These could include Twitter letting a user know when they have been ‘shadowbanned’ and why, which is what Musk hinted about doing last year.
Twitter said: ‘Going forward, we will take less severe actions, such as limiting the reach of policy-violating Tweets or asking you to remove Tweets before you can continue using your account.
‘Account suspension will be reserved for severe or ongoing, repeat violations of our policies.’
It added: ‘Severe violations include but are not limited to: engaging in illegal content or activity, inciting or threatening violence or harm, privacy violations, platform manipulation or spam, and engaging in targeted harassment of our users.
The move comes just two months after Musk announced that suspended Twitter accounts would be offered an ‘amnesty’, after a poll revealed a landslide of users support the move
Twitter CEO Musk, who completed a $44 billion takeover in October 2022, said user accounts would be restored as long as they hadn’t broken the law or engaged in spamming
‘We continue to work on launching features that transparently identify when we have taken enforcement actions and expect to begin rolling these out in February.’
Explaining his policy on account suspensions, Musk said last year: ‘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.’
He added: ‘Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account.’
TIMELINE OF ELON MUSK’S TWITTER TAKEOVER
October 27: Musk is officially made the new owner of Twitter, and tweets ‘the bird is freed’.
November 1: Musk confirms plans to change the system of ‘Blue Tick’ verification on Twitter, for a reduced subscription fee of $8 a month.
November 4: Musk lays off half of Twitter’s workforce as an alleged cost-cutting measure, claiming he had ‘no choice.’
November 9: Musk launches the ‘Twitter Blue’ subscription service which verifies accounts for a monthly fee.
November 11: The Twitter Blue service is paused due to accounts purchasing verification and using it to impersonate brands and public figures.
November 12: Musk fires 80 per cent of Twitter contractors without warning.
November 15: Musk fires employees that posted negatively about him on the business messaging app Slack. The lawsuit between Musk and Twitter is dismissed.
November 16: Twitter staff are told they need to sign a pledge to be able to stay on in their roles where they would be ‘working long hours at high intensity’ or receive three months of severance pay, resulting in a mass exodus.
November 18: A news-ticker was projected onto Twitter HQ in San Francisco dubbing Musk as a ‘space Karen’, ‘mediocre manchild’ and ‘bankruptcy baby’.
November 23: A Twitter user reported that 5.4 million phone numbers and email addresses leaked on the dark web, before his account was suspended.
November 26: Financial Times revealed that 50 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers have paused their ads.
November 29: Platformer reported that Twitter is in the process of reinstating around 62,000 banned accounts that each have more than 10,000 followers.
December 12: Twitter Blue is re-launched with new Blue Tick reviewing process.
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