Patterico's Pontifications

5/11/2022

Elon Musk Says He Will Reverse Twitter Ban on Former President Trump

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:33 am



[guest post by Dana]

New owner, new policy:

On Tuesday, Twitter’s incoming owner, Elon Musk, announced he would “reverse the permanent ban” on Trump. At a conference hosted by the Financial Times in London, he called the decision “a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.” In general, Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” stated he was against the concept of permanent bans in general because they “just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter.” He laid out the concept for a censorship protocol that would be extremely difficult to enforce on problem users who, for example, threaten a nuclear exchange online: “If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension — a temporary suspension — is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.”

The lifting of the ban on Trump could happen just in time for the runup to the 2024 presidential election. And while Trump has already said that he wouldn’t return to Twitter if allowed, we all know that a massive platform with a gigantic built-in audience in which to promote himself would be nearly impossible for Trump to resist. Bigly.

–Dana

46 Responses to “Elon Musk Says He Will Reverse Twitter Ban on Former President Trump”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (5395f9) — 5/11/2022 @ 10:33 am

  2. As the WSJ editorial board noted: “If Mr. Trump is back in public view, picking fights on an hourly basis and blaming everyone else for his election defeat, he might remind voters why they grew tired of his antics and made him a one-term President.”

    Granting Trump access is probably the right thing to do from a speech perspective — let all major political forces in our parties have a say on the big topics of the day. It’s the GOP that should have imposed a lifetime ban of Trump after Jan 6th and, absent that, I suppose there are more convulsions that our political system must face. Is sunlight the great sanitizer or are we just beclowning ourselves? Find better people….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 5/11/2022 @ 11:08 am

  3. @2. “The medium is the message” – ‘Twitter.’ And, as the WSJ editorial board also noted:

    President Costanza Takes On Inflation

    Biden lays out his plan on prices, but he’d do better if he did the opposite.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-costanza-on-inflation-joe-biden-prices-11652215621

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUvKE3bQlY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_PSJsl0LQ

    DCSCA (114539) — 5/11/2022 @ 11:43 am

  4. I look at this as a craven, savvy business decision designed to encourage outrage politics on that site.

    whembly (7e0293) — 5/11/2022 @ 12:10 pm

  5. First Amendment – Freedom of Speech.
    Fair Elections – 2000 Mules.
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/iv6LTEPEHI5P/

    Return of the Rule of Law.

    Liberty & Truth require constant vigilance. GLZ.

    Gary L. Zerman (395c2c) — 5/11/2022 @ 12:28 pm

  6. Return of the Rule of Law.

    Yeah– bring back the days of ‘The Dancing Itos.’

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQezL9pLUN4

    DCSCA (114539) — 5/11/2022 @ 12:40 pm

  7. Good! As a person who has been censored myself I oppose censorship. Voltaire said it best.

    asset (c28c15) — 5/11/2022 @ 12:59 pm

  8. First he has to sell memberships on Truth Social before he abandons it.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:01 pm

  9. Good! As a person who has been censored myself I oppose censorship. Voltaire said it best.

    Agreed. The best way to deal with poor speech is better speech. Don’t shut them up, but feel free to call them out.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:03 pm

  10. I just love the Democrat way to combat inflation: print more money and pass it out, demonstrating their complete lack of understanding of WHY we have inflation.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:04 pm

  11. I’m concerned about having the EU rules imposed on my speech, as they include a number of things that would be unconstitutional for the feds or any state to do.

    Then again, I really don’t see any difference between government censorship and censorship by a common carrier. One is prtty much the proxy of the other.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:07 pm

  12. Mr. Musk has been very effective in the businesses he has chosen.
    Twitter is great as a medium for getting attention. As a medium for exchanging information, not so much.
    This looks like a winner for him.

    John B Boddie (b9b5a6) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:12 pm

  13. Twitter is great as a medium for getting attention.

    Which all the children want.

    As a medium for exchanging information, not so much.

    Exchange? Not interested in “exchange.” Interested in promulgation. You’d all be so much happier if you did everything my way.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 2:08 pm

  14. @2: Exactly. Let Trump be Trump. No better way to discredit him.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 2:09 pm

  15. Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:03 pm

    . The best way to deal with poor speech is better speech. Don’t shut them up, but feel free to call them out

    But some people don’t have the skills to do this.

    Still, that is the best way.

    And Musk could hire people to intervene in debates – it would do a lot. Of course what it would do would depend upon the people.

    He could even have Twitter take editorial positions, without banning some things.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 5/11/2022 @ 2:13 pm

  16. New York Times Op-ed article abut Nebraska (and other) politics

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/opinion/trump-nebraska-politics.html

    … Over more than an hour, Mr. Herbster, dressed in his trademark cowboy hat and vest, unspooled a complex and meandering tale of the threat to America, interspersed with labyrinthine personal yarns and long diatribes about taxes.

    It was convoluted but (as best I can understand) goes something like this: The coronavirus was manufactured in a lab in China and released into the United States in early 2020 by “illegals” from Mexico who were also smuggling Chinese-made fentanyl across the border. One of the smugglers, he said, had enough fentanyl in a single backpack to kill the entire population of Nebraska and South Dakota. The goal of this two-pronged attack, he explained, was to create a panic, stoked by Facebook and $400 million of Mark Zuckerberg’s money, to justify allowing voting by mail. Then, through unspecified means, the Chinese government used those mail-in ballots to steal the election — though Mr. Herbster hates that word. “They didn’t ‘steal’ it,” he told the crowd, his finger raised. “Do not use that terminology. They did not ‘steal’ it. They rigged it.”

    To state the obvious: This is not what political speech in Nebraska used to sound like….

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 5/11/2022 @ 2:23 pm

  17. And it’s not the kind of stuff that resonated in Nebraska either. Why they listen to it is probably more important than what is being said.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 2:40 pm

  18. I’m concerned about having the EU rules imposed on my speech

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 1:07 pm

    I honestly don’t know the rules on this. Will the EU rules be imposed on speech outside the EU? I don’t see how that is feasible.

    frosty (8655b9) — 5/11/2022 @ 3:22 pm

  19. Biden almost slips on the stairs to Air Force One, AGAIN

    Joe Biden nearly fell walking up the stairs of Air Force One on Wednesday amid concerns about his health and mental state. Biden was on his way to Illinois to discuss the recent downtick in – but still at a 40-year high – inflation, when he again slipped as he entered Air Force One. -dailymail.com

    DCSCA (d0bfac) — 5/11/2022 @ 4:44 pm

  20. Elon Musk Says His Twitter Plans Align With EU’s New Social-Media Rules

    Elon Musk said his plans for Twitter Inc. are aligned with new European Union rules aimed at compelling social-media companies to do more to police illegal content, after his initial vision for the platform raised concerns among regulators in Europe.
    ……….
    “I think we’re very much of the same mind,” Mr. Musk said in the video, in which he is standing with (Europe’s commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton). “Anything that my companies can do that would be beneficial to Europe, we want to do that.”

    The new rules, which aren’t yet in effect, would require major social-media platforms to swiftly address illegal content and conduct regular risk assessments, among other measures, or face hefty fines.
    ………
    The exchange with Mr. Breton came two weeks after the EU official cautioned on social media and in interviews that a Twitter under Mr. Musk’s ownership would need to comply with the bloc’s new rules. “They can do whatever they want outside of Europe,” Mr. Breton said at the time. “But in Europe they will just have to fulfill rules and obligations which are very clear now.”
    ………

    Related:

    EU Regulator Cautions Twitter on Content Moderation
    ……..
    The Digital Services Act aims to force platforms to take more responsibility for the content their users post online. It will introduce a series of obligations for large social-media networks like Twitter, ranging from new standards for taking down illegal content to a requirement to conduct annual risk assessments detailing how they are responding to harmful content that is posted online.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2022 @ 5:19 pm

  21. Roberts may face roadblocks in probe of Roe leak, reporter who published it says
    ……..
    “It’s not clear he has the right to order anybody to cooperate,” said Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico and lead author of last week’s bombshell story, in an interview on the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast.
    ……..
    “If one justice were to hypothetically say, ‘My clerks are not going to be interviewed. I’m not going to be interviewed. We’ll see you later,’ it’s not clear to me [Roberts] can tell them, ‘I’m sorry, Justice blank, you have to do this.’ Under what authority?”
    …….
    There’s been much speculation that Roberts’s directive could lead to a full-scale FBI probe and even a grand jury subpoena for Gerstein and Politico. “I think it’s pretty clear there is at least enough for a grand jury to investigate,” Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA law school, told the New York Times. “The interesting question is to what extent there’s going to be a subpoena to a reporter.”

    But as Gerstein pointed out, the 98-page draft opinion published by Politico was not a classified document and did not contain sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers that would make it illegal to publish. ……
    ……….

    The best way to stop leaks is to imprison a few reporters. That would deter reporters from publishing leaks.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2022 @ 5:27 pm

  22. Biden almost slips on the stairs to Air Force One, AGAIN

    Chevy Chase is the right age to play Biden falling down stairs. Probably not going to though.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 5:52 pm

  23. Does the Supreme Court have the right to compel testimony? Or even to find people in contempt? Because Politico’s reporters were certainly in contempt. Judging by their start-ass attitude, they continue to be so.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/11/2022 @ 5:55 pm

  24. Chevy Chase is the right age to play Biden falling down stairs. Probably not going to though.

    Jerry Lewis sure as hell is. Definitely can’t though– but who’d know the difference. 😉

    DCSCA (e28470) — 5/11/2022 @ 6:07 pm

  25. Trump’s endorsements are a horse player’s bets. He first looks to see if the person has a chance of winning and colors it with bit of sentiment. Sentiment for himself. Is the person a Friend of Trump? His endorsement helps the candidate to win about as much as $2 “on the nose” helps a horse to win.

    nk (e95379) — 5/11/2022 @ 6:19 pm

  26. I follow certain activist hedge fund investors who but 10% and up interests in companies and then try to gain control of the BoD via alignments with other large share holders.
    They all have large skin in the game.
    Trump does not have skin in the game, which certainly reduces his risk, but not something I’d invest in

    steveg (fa2bd8) — 5/11/2022 @ 7:34 pm

  27. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/05/11/bidens-remarks-in-illinois-were-a-hot-mess-until-he-called-trump-the-great-maga-king-n563225
    wow. The 81 million voted for this pos. SHAME ON YOU PEOPLE.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:02 am

  28. Look to them having a portable escalator for AF One.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:05 am

  29. This malevolent and vindictive imbecile is placed to mock us.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:10 am

  30. Boy, that crypto sure looks like a place for my life savings. Amirite?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:14 am

  31. https://instapundit.com/519735/
    Praying for those families in need.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:17 am

  32. @30 gary kaultbaum of fox business has been warning about crypto when it was at its highs. I disagree with him politically ;but has called this crash for months. He talked about crypto today on his radio show. If you are in the market you need to listen to him and also mo ansari (who keeps his political opinions to himself unlike gary) They are on business radio stations Kaultbaum is more about what is happening now and mo is more what will happen in the short term future market.

    asset (c49284) — 5/12/2022 @ 1:12 am

  33. In other words, Musk would censor, just do it a little differently.
    But why Trump want to return? Devin Nunes told me that “Truth” Social is going gangbusters and Twitter is just an “old platform” for the “elite”.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 5/12/2022 @ 5:22 am

  34. Fair Elections – 2000 Mules.

    Fair elections, yes.
    2000 Mules (produced by a convicted felon), fact-checked. And fact-checked. And fact-checked.

    Paul Montagu (5de684) — 5/12/2022 @ 6:27 am

  35. EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
    INCUMBENT STABLE GENIUS LET’S SLEEPY JOE RIG ELECTION!
    EXTRA! EXTRA!

    A normal human being would be too embarrassed to even hear such a suggestion. And this was the Messiah who was going to Make America Great Again? He couldn’t even get himself reelected!

    nk (7a3b5e) — 5/12/2022 @ 6:36 am

  36. I have always been queasy about Trump being booted from Twitter — though it was always Twitter’s right to do that. At this point, the problem won’t be what Trump says but how the media handles it. Breathless coverage of his fat thumb emanations will take us back to 2016 quickly. Ignoring the hostile tweets will continue the relative peace and quiet we have enjoyed from that sector.

    Appalled (1a17de) — 5/12/2022 @ 7:59 am

  37. I note again that I never read a thing Trump posted on Twitter. However, the MSM repeated it all, and I read it there. If what he said was so concerning, and if all right-minded people want him banned, why did the MSM find it so necessary to repeat?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/12/2022 @ 8:05 am

  38. Being a convicted felon, I know all about being set up like a mother flucker.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 9:20 am

  39. The 81 million voted for this pos. SHAME ON YOU PEOPLE.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 12:02 am

    Shame on anybody who continues to countenance a man who tried to stay in office after losing an election.

    norcal (3f02c4) — 5/12/2022 @ 1:11 pm

  40. Imagine a conspiracy with 2000+ co-conspirators having perfect security.

    Davethulhu (da3c71) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:02 pm

  41. Imagine thinking that the modern Democratic party could run a project with 2000+ members, much less a secret conspiracy.

    Davethulhu (da3c71) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:06 pm

  42. Biden didn’t win by 81 million votes as we dont elect presidents by popular vote. Biden barely won by 43,000 votes: az. 10,000 ga. 13,000 and wi. 20,000 votes or we would be in civil war now. Biden only won those three states because democrat party was able to keep green party off ballot in those three states by using laws put in place by republican legislatures in their never ending attempts to keep libertarian party off of the ballot.

    asset (80f6f6) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:11 pm

  43. @42. Somebody best pull him aside and tell him that an 80 year old Irish Catholic who can barely put a sentence together or walk up steps YELLING at you to make a point is not particularly persuasive politics.

    DCSCA (57e685) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:29 pm

  44. 81 million misfits will do it again. and again. and again.

    mg (8cbc69) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:57 pm

  45. Somebody seems to have told Biden that stage whispers do not help.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 5/12/2022 @ 4:16 pm

  46. asset (80f6f6) — 5/12/2022 @ 2:11 pm

    Biden didn’t win by 81 million votes as we dont elect presidents by popular vote. Biden barely won by 43,000 votes: az. 10,000 ga. 13,000 and wi. 20,000 votes

    Not really right, because if some votes had been different, those wouldn’t have been thr only votes that would have been different.

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 5/13/2022 @ 6:21 am


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