Twitter won’t unban users before setting up ‘a clear process’: Musk

Twitter will not revoke any accounts that have been banned or suspended from the platform until “a clear process” is set for the same, according to its new chief executive, Elon Musk. Responding to a tweet by Yoel Roth, head of safety and integrity at Twitter, the executive said that establishing the process will take “at least a few more weeks”.

“Twitter’s content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups (that) face hate-fueled violence,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday.

The statement comes on the back of questions and concerns around how Twitter, under Musk, will handle content moderation, as well as treat the accounts of users that have so far been banned by the platform under its erstwhile policies.

Notable personalities that have been banned from Twitter till date include former US president Donald Trump, his ally and Republican US politician Roger Stone, and Indian actors Kangana Ranaut and Payal Rohatgi, among others. Stone, notably, signed up on Twitter through a new account on April 28, shortly after Musk made his first public offer to buy the microblogging platform.

However, Stone was banned again hours after he signed up through his new account, after stating that he was “anxious to see how strong Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech is”.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter for $44 billion, which saw multiple delays and a court battle in Delaware that was cut short, was completed on October 27. Since then, the SpaceX and Tesla chief has fired the core Twitter hierarchy in a revamp of the social media company, including erstwhile chief Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, legal, policy and trust head Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.

Amid this transition phase, Twitter India’s monthly compliance report, published on Tuesday, disclosed that it banned over 52,000 accounts in the country for failing to comply with its policies on child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and terrorism.

According to market statistics firm Statista, Twitter disclosed its monetisable daily active users at around 240 million as of the June quarter this year. As of January, India was Twitter’s second largest market after the US, with nearly 25 million active users.