Source: Politics<\/p>\n
New Twitter owner Elon Musk said Thursday that he is granting \u201camnesty\u201d for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.<\/p>\n
The billionaire\u2019s announcement came after he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatements<\/a> for accounts that have not \u201cbroken the law or engaged in egregious spam.\u201d The yes vote was 72%.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,\u201d Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning \u201cthe voice of the people, the voice of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last last weekend before reinstating the account of former President Donald Trump<\/a>, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Trump has said he won\u2019t return to Twitter but has not deleted his account.<\/p>\n Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots.<\/p>\n In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech say it\u2019s been on the rise on the world\u2019s de facto public square. That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players<\/a> that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on.<\/p>\n The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder<\/a> following Musk\u2019s decision to lay off half the company\u2019s 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives, and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit. Also let go were an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk\u2019s willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontrolled speech were Twitter\u2019s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth<\/a>.<\/p>\n Major advertisers have also abandoned the platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Oct. 28, the day after he took control, Musk tweeted that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a \u201ccontent moderation council\u201d with diverse viewpoints<\/a> that would consider the cases.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, he said he was reneging on that promise because he\u2019d agreed to at the insistence of \u201ca large coalition of political-social activists groups\u201d who later \u201dbroke the deal\u201d by urging that advertisers at least temporarily stop giving Twitter their business.<\/p>\n A day earlier, Twitter reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,<\/a> which was banned in January for violating the platform\u2019s Covid misinformation policies.<\/p>\n Musk, meanwhile, has been getting increasingly chummy on Twitter with right-wing figures. Before this month\u2019s U.S. midterm elections he urged \u201cindependent-minded\u201d people to vote Republican<\/a>.<\/p>\n