Mr Musk, a long-described self-described “free speech absolutist”, had said in May that he would reverse Mr Trump’s permanent ban on Twitter and let him back on the social network. But Mr Musk had taken a break from changing Twitter’s content rules after completing his buyout.
Late last month, he said Twitter would form a content moderation board to handle major content decisions on the platform and would not take any steps to reinstate accounts “before that board convenes.” No council has been formed. On Friday, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would allow some people whose Twitter accounts were blocked, including comedian Kathy Griffin and author and psychologist Jordan Peterson, back on the platform.
Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, said it was “strange” that Mr. Musk, who spent months complaining about Twitter’s bot account problem, used a Twitter poll where bots could vote to decide on the issue and then assume the result “reflects some sort of legitimate ‘voice of the people’.”
“It is certainly possible for small groups to create large numbers of accounts to manipulate features such as polls,” he added.
Trump’s recovery on Twitter sparked immediate concern among disinformation experts and others. The former president had used Twitter as a megaphone throughout his presidency to praise, cajole, lobby and advance his version of events. He often spread inaccurate information and occasionally announced policies on Twitter before his own staff knew about them. Before the 2020 presidential election, Mr Trump had also tweeted comments casting doubt on the integrity of the vote.
If Mr. Trump returns to the same kind of content he shared on Truth Social, he could turn Twitter into a “hotbed of hate, harassment and incitement,” said Joan Donovan, the director of research at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy , which has studied the spread of misinformation.
If Mr. Trump returned to Twitter, it would likely boost his personal brand as well, as he would now be able to reach a much wider and more influential audience, she said.
