Musk testing free speech limits, to set up 'content moderation council' for Twitter

Just a few hours after Elon Musk launched a new era at Twitter Inc., the billionaire owner received a barrage of requests and pleadings from users with banned accounts and international leaders.

The influx of requests highlights the difficulty facing Tesla Inc.'s CEO in combining his commitment to restore free speech with his pledge to stop the platform from turning into a "hellscape" in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.

Musk announced that he plans to set up a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints” at Twitter after taking over the social media company, stressing that no changes to the platform’s moderation policies have been made so far.

“No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” the billionaire businessman said.

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The takeover was hailed, but former US President Donald Trump, who was permanently banned from Twitter following the riots on January 6, 2021, said little about making a comeback. “I'm relieved that Twitter is finally being governed by rational people and is no longer being controlled by radical leftist lunatics and maniacs who genuinely despise our nation,” Trump said.

Former Russian President and current Vice-Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev tweeted his congratulations: "Good luck @elonmusk in overcoming political bias and ideological dictatorship on Twitter. And quit that Starlink in Ukraine business."

Others begged Musk to undo punishments meted out by the social networking site.

Musk tweeted, "I will be digging in more today," in response to @catturd2, an anonymous account with 852,000 followers who is well-known for strongly endorsing Trump's claims of election fraud.

Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-run RT channel in Russia, pleaded with Musk to "unban RT and Sputnik accounts and take the shadow ban off mine as well?"

Musk and Twitter are under increasing pressure since he plans to address the Twitter workers on Friday after the purchase is finalised.

Musk has not provided any information regarding who will lead the company or how he will combat online censorship while safeguarding advertisers. Nevertheless, he declared that he would create a "content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints" and that no significant choices on the subject would be taken before the council met.

(with inputs from agencies)