Musk Bans 'Impersonation' After Parody Elons Flood Twitter - The Daily Beast

After vowing to marque Twitter a bastion of “free speech,” Elon Musk announced a caller argumentation connected Sunday that volition region accounts engaging successful the benignant of “impersonation” that comedians and others person utilized to humorously protestation his takeover of the societal web successful caller days.

“Going forward, immoderate Twitter handles engaging successful impersonation without intelligibly specifying ‘parody’ volition beryllium permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted Sunday evening.

The mogul added that portion users antecedently received a informing earlier suspension, moving guardant “there volition beryllium nary warning.”

Celebrities specified arsenic Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, and Mad Men prima Rich Sommer rapidly had their accounts removed for changing their usernames and photos to lucifer Musk’s.

As a fake-Musk, Griffin pushed her assemblage to ballot for Democrats successful the forthcoming midterm elections. “After overmuch spirited treatment with the females successful my life,” the My Life connected the D-List prima wrote successful 1 tweet, “I’ve decided that voting bluish for their prime is lone close (They’re besides sexy females, btw.)”

After Griffin’s suspension, Musk joked that she had been banned “for impersonating a comedian.”

“But if she truly wants her relationship back, she tin person it,” helium wrote successful a brace of follow-up tweets. “For $8.”

The parody bans follow—and seemingly contradict—an Oct. 28 committedness from Musk that nary “major contented decisions” would hap earlier the enactment of “a contented moderation assembly with wide divers viewpoints.”

On Sunday nighttime Musk posted: “My committedness to escaped code extends adjacent to not banning the relationship pursuing my plane, adjacent though that is simply a nonstop idiosyncratic information risk.”

He claimed that Twitter “needs to go by acold the astir close root of accusation astir the world. That’s our mission. Widespread verification volition democratize journalism & empower the dependable of the people.”