Musk has previously said he believes Twitter should be more “reluctant to delete things” and “very careful with permanent bans.” On Tuesday, he called Twitter’s decision to ban Trump in January 2021 a “mistake.”
“I think it wasn’t right to ban Donald Trump, I think that was wrong,” Musk said. “I’m going to repeal the permanent ban…but my opinion, and Jack Dorsey, I want to be clear, I share that opinion, is that we shouldn’t have a perma ban.”
Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s comments.
“Blocking Trump from Twitter has not ended Trump’s voice, it will amplify him among the right which is why it is so morally wrong and totally stupid,” Musk said at the event on Tuesday.
CEO of Tesla and SpaceX He admitted that his takeover of Twitter and Trump’s return had yet to be a final deal. “I’ll say I don’t own Twitter yet, so that’s not something that’s going to happen for sure, because what if I don’t own Twitter?” He said.
On Tuesday, he reiterated his desire to rid Twitter of bots that promote spam or scams, and His plan is to make the Twitter algorithm available for everyone to see And how are we.
“I would literally put the Twitter algorithm on GitHub and say like, ‘Hey, anyone want to suggest changes to this?'” Musk said. Please go ahead,” he said, adding that he sees such a move as a way “to build transparency and trust.” “
He also criticized what he sees as political bias on Twitter, echoing claims by some prominent figures on the right.
“I think Twitter needs to be a lot more fair,” he said. “It currently has a strong left bias because it’s located in San Francisco.” “I don’t think the people there necessarily mean, or at least some of them do not intend, to bias the left. They just, from their point of view, seem moderate, but they pursue it from the very distant environment.”
(Twitter previously said that its algorithms and employees do not discriminate against any particular political view.)
In addition to unblocking Trump, Musk said he would make permanent bans “extremely rare,” while keeping them for “bot or spam and fraud accounts where there is absolutely no legitimacy to the account.”
Musk has also expanded his vision to moderate Twitter content. Previously, Musk has said he intends to limit Twitter moderation of content to what governments deem explicitly illegal — not going any further.
But on Tuesday, Musk acknowledged the possibility of a wide range of objectionable content he wants Twitter to force against him. In addition to illegal content, Musk identified two other categories of content that could be subject to penalties: “world-destroying” speech and “wrong and bad.”
“If they say something illegal or world-destroying,” Musk said, “there could be a timeout, a temporary suspension, or that particular Tweet should be rendered invisible or have very limited impact.” He added, “I think if there are wrong and bad tweets, they should either be deleted or made invisible, and the suspension, temporary suspension is appropriate but not permanent ban.”
Musk did not mention the metrics Twitter might use to determine if a tweet was “wrong and bad” or “world-destroying,” and when it might choose one type of punishment over another.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Trump’s ban from Twitter. That was in January 2021.
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