After a massive Twitter outage, with hundreds of employees and executives leaving the company en masse, Elon Musk is moving on to the delicate issue of content regulation on the platform.

The three-week social media owner restored the suspended user accounts on Friday, clarifying that “I have not yet made a decision on[former US President Donald]Trump’s account.”

Musk then asked if Trump should be allowed to return to Twitter after his main social media accounts were suspended in January 2011 following the Capitol invasion.

“Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk wrote on Twitter, a Latin phrase meaning “voice of the people, voice of God.” The poll was open within 24 hours, and early results show 60% of respondents are in favor of Trump returning to the platform.

The head of Tesla, who defends his vision of full freedom of speech, said yesterday that “the policy of the new Twitter is freedom of speech, not the freedom to attack people.”

Musk explained that “negative or hate tweets” would be demoted and unable to generate ad revenue. “You can’t find these tweets unless you specifically search for them, which is no different from the rest of the internet,” he added.

Musk’s vision of Twitter, which has found itself at the center of political and public life in many countries, is of particular concern to organizations, authorities and advertisers. They fear that this will remove existing safeguards against disinformation, harassment and other abuses, however inadequate they may be.

Yesterday, in an attempt to prove his neutrality, Musk reinstated accounts expressing political views opposed to his own.

Among them was the account of American comedy Kathy Griffin, who was banned from Twitter last week along with other users after she changed her username to “Elon Musk” to mock the new head of the platform.

The accounts of American satirical website The Babylon Bee and conservative TV host Jordan Peterson also returned on Wednesday. Both were suspended for violating hate speech rules following an attack on transgender people.

Source: APE-ME, AFP, REUTERS.