Twitter says users will be able to appeal account suspension under its criteria for reinstatement, which will commence February 1. According to Reuters, Twitter accounts will only be suspended for severe or ongoing and repeat violations of the platform’s policies.
Severe policy violation in this case would mean engaging in illegal content or activity, inciting or threatening violence or harm, and engaging in targeted harassment of other users, and so on.
In essence, Twitter is saying that it will take less severe action, in comparison to account suspension, including restricting the reach of tweets that violate its policies or asking users to remove tweets before continuing to use the account.
Recall that Musk came under severe criticism after he suspended the Twitter accounts of some journalists on issues that bother on publishing public data; the accounts were later reinstated.
A couple of days after controversially lifting the suspension on Donald Trump’s account, Elon Must proposed a pole asking users to vote whether a “general amnesty” should be given to some suspended Twitter accounts.
“Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?”
The lifting of the suspension ran contrary to an earlier statement made by Musk where he affirmed that no decision on account reinstatements would be made until the company had put together a “content moderation council” to decide on such moves. The decision to reinstate the account however, was made after Musk threw it up to other users on the platform.
Signs of what he was up to became evident when the accounts of The Babylon Bee, Kathy Griffin and Jordan Peterson were all reinstated. Shortly after that, Musk then launched a Twitter Poll, asking for people’s views if he should reinstate that of the former President.
Though, the Poll was a pretty close one—51.8 for and 48.2 against, the decision to lift the suspension was of course, carried out.
In recent weeks, hundreds of suspended accounts have been reinstated, and this new policy will of course, open the floodgate for more of such actions to be taken.
