Elon Musk has never hidden his absolute vision of freedom of expression. In that sense, the billionaire who bought Twitter a month ago has pledged to disrupt the platform’s content moderation, from the mass recovery of suspended accounts to the fight against misinformation about Covid. “As of November 23, 2022, Twitter no longer has a policy on misleading information about Covid-19,” the San Francisco-based company said in a very rare press release that was only broadcast by the American press on Tuesday.
Like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, during the pandemic, Twitter had special rules in place to combat medical misinformation. The platform specifically decided to report and delete posts containing misinformation about Covid vaccines and then block the accounts in question after five warnings.
“We believe this alert system will help inform the public about our policies and better reduce the spread of potentially harmful or misleading information on Twitter,” the social network explained in March 2021. But Elon Musk, owner and head of the platform for a month, advocates an absolute vision of free speech.
And he has never made a secret of his opinion about the health restrictions imposed during the pandemic, especially when they meant the temporary closure of his Tesla plant in California. “Telling people that they cannot leave their homes and that they will be arrested if they do is fascism. It’s not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their fucking freedom,” he enthused in April 2020 during a conference call for financial analysts.
Accounts suspended but finally restored by Musk
Upon his arrival at the head of Twitter and between two provocations, the multibillionaire tried to calm NGOs and advertisers who feared an outbreak of toxic content (hate speech, disinformation, etc.). He reiterated that the platform’s rules have not changed and that suspended accounts will not be reinstated until a content moderation committee is established.
But in the process, many brands fled, and Elon Musk, feeling betrayed, took action. He launched polls on his profile, reflecting, in his words, the “voice of the people”, and reset the profile of former President Donald Trump (suspended in January 2021 for inciting violence). The short-tempered leader also asked the engineers, who are still working, to restore some 62,000 accounts that have been suspended for repeated violations.