Since Elon Musk has purchased Twitter for $44 Billion, he has received an immense amount of criticism for his actions, such as laying off half of the company’s employees and implementing questionable policies into the site to foster “free speech,” such as allowing users to purchase a blue check mark next to their name that comes with Twitter Blue (because somehow charging $8 a month for users to promote their posts is “free speech”).
But Musk has also used his platform to influence US politics. Leading up to the Midterm elections, Musk urged his followers to vote red in a tweet. His support for Republican politics continued when on November 18, Musk posted a poll asking if Trump’s Twitter Account should be reinstated to the website. It was banned in the wake of the January 6th insurrection due to the violence that then President Trump incited. Unsurprisingly (because the majority of his followers are right-leaning, in large part because of the “freedom of speech” persona that Musk puts on), the result of the poll was in favor of Trump’s reinstatement. The next day, Musk posted the results of the poll and said that Trump will indeed be reinstated. He prefaced his announcement by saying “The people have spoken,” implying that the results of a poll to his followers can be extrapolated to the website as a whole or the entire American population.
Donald Trump's twitter account amasses nearly 6 million followers just a couple of hours after being unbanned
Musk’s announcement comes at an interesting time in the political world of the US, as Trump recently announced that he will be a candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, US attorney general Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to determine if Trump should face criminal charges for his role in the January 6 insurrection and for the mishandling of national security materials. Getting charged for these crimes would hurt his chances at receiving the GOP nomination. Although it’s obvious that many of Trump’s supporters have no problem with his wrongdoings, the charges would funnel some support to likely opposing GOP nomination candidate, Ron DeSantis, which could alter the result of the nomination.
The event that set in motion Trump’s calls for violence was him losing the 2020 Presidential Election to Joe Biden, and Republicans just did worse than expected in the 2022 Midterms, so it will be interested to see how Trump utilizes his newly restored platform and how it may affect the US political scene over the next couple of years.
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Trump was a frequent tweeter during his presidency, so it's almost a given that he will immediately start tweeting again and use the platform to its fullest extent to promote his agenda. This could give him an advantage in the Republican primaries, as he can now reach millions of his followers instantaneously. However, this could also backfire both in the primaries and the general election, as many of his tweets are divisive and controversial and likely could alienate a large portion of the electorate (although he likely already has after January 6). Additionally, Elon Musk is obviously concerned with generating revenue at Twitter, as many advertisers are questioning the viability of the company, especially after Musk's tumultuous first couple weeks as owner. But Trump's large number of followers and controversial statements could help bring more users into the platform and increase Twitter's revenue. Could Elon Musk have made this decision at least in part based on Twitter's financial needs without considering the consequences for the nation?
Andrew makes an interesting point about Musks' motive behind reinstating Trumps' Twitter account. Throughout the last few weeks, Musk has unbanned many controversial figures such as Jordan Peterson and Babylon Bee, both of which were originally banned due to Twitter's hateful conduct policy. Although Twitter may gain more attention and usage by allowing these controversial figures to openly comment/share their opinions, I feel that reinstating these individuals will end up causing more harm than good.
While both Peterson and Babylon Bee have returned to Twitter, Trump claimed that he will continue using his platform, Truth Social, instead of Twitter. Trump has over 4.5 million followers on Truth Social, a number that pales in comparison to the 88 million Twitter followers he once had. Knowing that Trump plans on running for president during the 2024 elections, I am curious to see whether he will continue to stay true to his word, especially when other candidates began using larger media platforms to gain supporters and attention.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, Trump expressed positivity that it would no longer be run by the "Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country"(Truth Social). Social media has played a large part in politics in the last couple of years but it is unclear where it will go next. The goal of social media is spreading information, and I feel like Musk's unbanning controversial figures isn't a problem. I mentioned in a previous blog post that social media is currently in the state of deciding what is "free speech" or "hateful content", where the ultimate goal is a social media site that lets ideas be expressed without pure hateful behavior. One aspect both Trump and Elon are right about is bots, which have made sites like Twitter seem much more polarized in politics and a major issue Musk needs to work on. On the political scene, it seems that Trump is more focused on his own buggy site Truth Social while Twitter is struggling to make money. Musk's intention in buying Twitter is to make it an unbiased social media source, but the truth is hard to distinguish and the internet has made conversion more complex that ever.
I don't think reinstating Trump's Twitter account will cause much harm. As other comments have pointed out, Trump is currently focused on his own social media platform but even if he decided to start tweeting again, the Republican party is so divided that I don't think he has a great chance of winning the presidential election. Now that we know the Democrats will reluctantly vote for Biden, it's on Trump to reunite his party behind him. Only, he doesn't appeal to moderates anymore. Biden is enough of a conservative to attract the moderate voters who voted for Trump in 2016 and Trump doesn't have enough conspiratorial supporters to carry him to the presidency. I hope Trump's idiotic tweets serve as entertainment now that he is no longer in power.
I'm not sure I agree with Lucas's statement. Even if Trump doesn't win the presidential election or Republican primaries, there's still a lot of harm that can be done on social media regardless of if one has the power to set policy or not. Trump has been known to spread disinformation, and many people see him as trustworthy and thus believe him. Other actions such as calling COVID-19 the "China virus" has also contributed to spreading hate, not just online but in real life. The media has significant power in influencing people's beliefs, and while Trump making false claims isn't grounds for a ban given the First Amendment, his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack is clear evidence that his speech and platform are a harm to others.
To address Christien's comment, I have to question Musk's intentions or at least execution of making Twitter unbiased. I'm not seeing how unbanning Trump would allow for the platform to become a less biased news source, as it's always been an open forum for people to discuss their ideas and Trump is far from unbiased. The need for unbiased sources is important and the cause is admirable, but I don't see how Musk's decision will contribute to high-quality journalism or other coverage of events.
I agree with Sarah's comment in that social media is a very powerful tool that has a lot of influence over the public, as seen with the insurrection and COVID. The impact of Trumps's tweets are evidence regarding people who probably aren't very well versed in politics and don't corroborate news with multiple sources blindly believing whatever they see. This reality has gotten worse with the rise of social media platforms and people's increased usage of it as their sole source of information. If Trump's twitter is reinstates and he's running for election in 2024, there could be a chance that we'll see his loyal followers eating up the delusional things he says once again. Also, I think it's interesting how Musk posted the results of his poll and said "the people have spoken" when it seems the majority of those who responded where people who held like-minded, republican-leaning beliefs. This goes to show how easily polling results can be manipulated and generalized when in fact they don't actually reflect the entire public's opinions.
Most of the stuff Elon Musk has been doing is a statement -- he said he was trying to preserve free speech. He doesn't really care about the implications of much of his new policies, and much of them also don't seem to have been thought through (the whole pay-for-verification thing was a mess, and in general, his acquisition of Twitter mainly seemed to be for show). However, I agree with the other comments that say that Trump's restored twitter account won't do much harm: all republicans are not unifying behind Trump, and he is focused on his own social media account.
Elon Musk's buying of Twitter has definitely caused multiple issues internally and externally for the company. One with the massive layoffs of the company to cut costs has weakened the company's security and made it much easier to be hacked. Plus more employees are quitting because they are forced to work longer hours because of how many employees are left in the company. Another major issue that Tyler brought up with the $8 dollar purchase of verifications is that it allowed normal people to spend 8 dollars and pretend to act like companies such as Lockheed Martin or pharmaceutical mainstay Eli Lilly which a fake tweet came out saying they were gonna give out insulin for free which plummeted the companies stock and plummeted by about $22 billion. Another issue that comes from this is with the actions of Elon Musk on twitter it is causing Tesla, his electric car company, stock to fall as well with each tweet.
Given Trump's stubborn platform of supporters, I think it will be really interesting to see how he reacts in future nominations and how he, and his supporters, will react in the event of Donald Trump not getting the nomination/ elected into the presidency again. Elon Musk is one of many right-wing Trump supporters that clearly have no disregard for hateful crimes and will allow hate to continue on a public app so that he can get money and spread his own political views. This displays how the media plays a large role in polarizing American politics and creating a bigger gap between Democrats and Republicans.
I feel that reinstating figures who continuously spread false information and hateful speech could be a problem. Musk tries to do reinstate him in a way that he thinks is smart and won't receive much backlash--through a poll. Musk seems to be trying to make the public believe that a poll produces unbiased results and reflects public opinion. Since Trump trying to win the GOP 2024 nomination, if he continues to use Twitter to instigate hate and build his fanbase, he could end up winning the nomination once again. However, if his agenda is radicalized, this could also end up in backlash in the general election. It's generally hard to predict what Trump will make out of his tweets, and how the public will respond to the.
As an avid twitter user, and someone who has been closely Elon's moves since taking over the company, I find his ethics highly disturbing. Looking past even his annoying and oftentimes criptic tweets, the business model he is promoting is highly unusual and potentially dangerous. When looking at the "blue" subscription, basically anyone can claim validity to their account with the blue checkmark with $8 a month. Essentially, this subscription is paid promotion of the user on the site, which could promote a dangerous amount of misinformation, as one cannot check verification unless they click on the person's page. At a glance, someone seeing a tweet from "Fauci" may actually be a parody account spreading false information someone may internalize if not careful. I'm not sure if Elon is promoting false information or teaching users a lesson about fact checking on the internet.
Recently, Apple has removed advertising of Twitter on the app store and threatened to remove it entirely. This brings up the bigger question of: who should be regulating social media if the platforms fail to do it. As the Apple vs Twitter conflicts demonstrates, device manufacturers have the power to curb the reach of social media platforms through bans on software distribution; however, why leave it up to companies like Apple? The Federal government ought to re-evaluate its stance on internet regulation. Trump took the right of free speech too far, and the Federal government should have the power to regulate such instances of hate speech instead of letting the political views of corporate tech officials determine what to do with hate speech and messages that incite violence.
As someone not familiar with Twitter as a platform, I am not sure of how much of an influence Elon Musk's new polices will have over regular users in terms of promoting "free speech" but I I am aware that unrestricting Trump again will encourage him to continue his old twitting habits. In my opinion, social media platforms such as Twitter should not be weaponized to initiate public outrage towards a certain political party, especially by someone like Trump who has a good amount of influence over his following. Overall, I think if any Twitter user can obtain the blue checkmark, then its existence is pointless since it does not ensure credibility and can potentially make spreading false information easier.
I think reinstating Donald Trump itself is not the issue. The issue is the fact that he is reinstating figures such as Donald Trump who consistently advocates and spreads misinformation. Elon Musk's policies have had a significant impact such as the check mark being for pay. This has already created many issues such as crashing a pharmaceutical company's stock after someone impersonated the company account. I believe that this will create many issues and will allow for more spread of misinformation than reinstating any far-right figure. I belive that this will have long-term detrimental effects.
I think that reinstating Donald Trump is a recipe for disaster. We've seen numerous times how much misinformation he has spread that has cost the lives of countless individuals. For example when he suggested that people take hydroxychloroquine claiming that lupus patients who take the chemical are less susceptible to contracting Covid which he also stated he received this information from a rumor. This suggestion left many to actually attempt to take the chemical and actually increase the number of deaths that were already happening in the beginning stages of covid. It's false information like this that makes me scared that he is now back on one of the biggest social media platforms in the world. Social media as Armita said has a lot of influence over the public, especially on todays youth. We use social media as our form of news outlets, and a popular public figure like Donald Trump who consistently spreads misinformation is going to cause even more safety issues for people. I also recently read an article in Rolling Stone discussing the poll Elon Musk conducted on the reinstating of Donald Trumps account, and it discusses how many ex Twitter employees have shed light on the fact that these polls are "literally designed for bots". Public polls can be very easily manipulated and Elon claiming that "the people have spoken" is once again misinformation. The people haven't spoken because this polls results was a mere fraction of "the people". If anything there was probably a higher percentage of bots than actual people.
(Rolling Stone article: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-twitter-polls-are-bot-driven-bullsht-1234639288/)
Elon Musk has been constantly trying to push his limits. For example when he hyped up bitcoin in order to get multiple investors and immediately he pulled out. His constant push has caused crashes of too many pharmaceutical companies' stocks. But banning Trump from Twitter definitely will impact whether he will win or not in 2024. Trump when he was on Twitter would always be saying something, constantly influencing his followers to think in a certain way. In my opinion, it's a good thing that Trump is not on Twitter anymore. And the fact that anyone could get the blue check mark shows that Twitter can be easily manipulated and companies will lose a lot of money. This is going to create many issues and there is so much misinformation being presented that can lead to a lot of negative effects.
Musk's attempt to generate a justification for reinstating Donald Trump's account is feeble to say the least, with a polling technique that violates basically every rule we learned in polling unit. I don't think the political scene will be directly impacted by Trump's reinstatement, but it insinuates bad things happening with the way Musk is exercising his authority in the moment. Musk's disastrous exercise of authority underscores movements in Twitter, the social media scene, and the greater discussion around free speech. Also, the line between regulating online hate speech and tyrannical government control is becoming more hazy and controversial with these new developments. I'm not sure if the solution is for the government to expand its control over internet content access, though it's important to prevent blatant misinformation and dangerous, inciteful speech. However, the other solution is for corporations like Apple to act on its own will, not to mention Twitter, which has yet to establish a clear policy on suspensions and bans (CNN). The job may also be for watchdog groups, reliable unbiased sources, and interest groups to attempt to keep each other balanced. I don't think reinstating Trump itself will do direct harm for the time being as he stays in Truth Social, as well as the fact that the Republican party may finally be moving on from the ex-president.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/tech/twitter-elon-musk-trump/index.html?utm_term=1669030829195b9b491d03993&utm_source=cnn_Five+Things+for+Monday%2C+November+21%2C+2022&utm_medium=email&bt_ee=%2BIyfbCC1pnHhWkpkAagsXmqudLelJo67jn5nsaSEf%2Bp0YkmtF17Nv5eY5B2hxtJd&bt_ts=1669030829198
Trump, who is known to spread false information and hateful speech on his Twitter account, is now reinstated by Elon Musk. It goes beyond the right of free speech, but more so displays the lack of consideration and thought for the possible consequences of enabling Trump's twitter account. Unafraid to blatantly lie, as shown in his Mar-a-Lago case, Trump will continue influencing his loyal follower base through cryptic comments and Elon Musk is now a promotor of this. Paying for a blue-verification mark, then promoting far-right figures to spread information... what Elon Musk is doing right now is potentially very dangerous.
Simply put, Musk is unqualified and abusing his power through his purchase of Twitter. There have been several videos circulating of Twitter employees casually being fired over unknown reasons, or extremely unprofessional reasons (on Musk's part). Being a billion-dollar social media company used by millions, and being controlled by a biased, authoritative CEO is extremely damaging to our political climate. Since we are already influenced by our polarized media, promoting misinformation and specific parties/candidates by a supposedly unbiased platform can lead to several issues within our election periods. We must also take the Twitter employees into account, and the clear lack of respect and professionalism from Musk. There are thousands of loyal employees being laid off, and Twitter itself is losing around 3 million dollars, per day. By allowing Trump back on this platform, we are reversing progress, and allowing propaganda to circulate.
Being a frequent Twitter user, Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter was terrible and the pay-for verification on accounts didn't just result in funny tweets where people are impersonating celebrities, but it has affected several companies' stocks while Elon Musk scrambles to find a solution while hiding behind his "meme" persona on his personal account. I agree with other commenters and I believe Trump being unbanned from Twitter won't do much in terms of growing a support base for the 2024 elections. Trump supporters will go to his own social media platform to hear his thoughts, and being on Twitter will just allow the left-leaning population hears his misinformation as well. Overall, Elon Musk's attempt at making an unbiased social media platform while allowing the purchase of a blue check-mark contradicts the idea of having an open discussion platform by building a paywall to spread your thoughts.
I honestly did not know Elon Musk bought twitter for 44 billion, which is crazy. The fact that his republican beliefs led him to reinstating Trump's account is really interesting. I do understand that his opinions matter, as well as his supporters and trump's supporters, but by taking advantage of the power he has as the owner of twitter now to bring back a public figure that had his account banned because of the january 6th insurrection, is to me, something that he shouldn’t do out of his own choice to. There was a reason why Trump’s account was banned, which is because of what he had done to the American nation at that insurrection, which will definitely go down in history. I believe that one’s beliefs should not get in the way of their actions when their actions will definitely create opposition in society. I'm not sure, but I definitely know that reinstating Trump’s account definitely created a worldwide discussion between democrats and republicans as to why Musk decided to do that, which demonstrates the power of the media and its influence on politics.
Twitter is pretty much a joke of social media at this point, mainly because anyone can post anything under any name with Twitter blue. You have to go through tedious work to even find out if something is reliable anymore.
Social media has a large impact on politics today which creates a society full of people who depend on tweets and posts to get their information. This creates a huge problem since most, if not all, social media platforms use algorithms to share posts that agree with posts that the user previously interacted with suggesting that it is easy for misinformation to be spread. When one engages with a post that leans more conservative, the following posts are likely to follow this same pattern which results in much information catering to one political perspective thus greatly influencing people’s political opinions, adding to the polarization between parties. Trump is a figurehead in this issue as he is very active on social media and was a large factor in the events that occurred on January 6. With Musk giving Trump his platform back, many are concerned that this will create future issues based on what occurred on January 6. While Musk makes claims that this change is due to freedom of speech, many would argue it is about gaining revenue for twitter and more political attention which benefits him economically. Musk reinstating Trump’s Twitter account may be very harmful due to Trump’s drastic and oftentimes false claims that have a large influence on the public leaving many wondering if an event similar to the one on January 6 will occur again.
Before January 6th, Trump had proven to be extremely influential. His Twitter account is the basis of this influence as it provides fast and efficient communication. I believe that Elon Musk's statement to reopen Trump's account can have harmful implications. The January 6th insurrection served as a turning point. Those most loyal to Trump supported this act, however, those who were beginning to question his decisions truly began to split from him after this incident. Trump has lost many of his followers, yet with his accessibility to such a powerful platform, this could shift. Over these past few months, Trump has proven that he will find ways to communicate with his supporters. I think that gaining back his Twitter platform will serve as a symbol of the power he is attempting to regain.
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