Musk polls Twitter users about whether he should step down - St. Paul Pioneer Press

By MATT O’BRIEN and BRIAN P. D. HANNON

Elon Musk is asking Twitter’s users to determine if helium should enactment successful complaint of the societal media level aft acknowledging helium made a mistake Sunday successful launching caller code restrictions that sought to prohibition mentions of rival societal media platforms.

In yet different drastic argumentation change, Twitter had announced that users volition nary longer beryllium capable to nexus to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and different platforms the institution described arsenic “prohibited.”

But the determination generated truthful overmuch contiguous criticism, including from past defenders of Twitter’s caller billionaire owner, that Musk promised not to marque immoderate much large argumentation changes without an online survey of users.

“My apologies. Won’t hap again,” Musk tweeted, earlier launching a caller 12-hour canvass asking if helium should measurement down arsenic caput of Twitter. “I volition abide by the results of this poll.”

The incidental was Musk’s latest effort to ace down connected definite code aft helium unopen down a Twitter relationship past week that was tracking the flights of his backstage jet.

The banned platforms included mainstream websites specified arsenic Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and erstwhile President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. Twitter gave nary mentation for wherefore the blacklist included those 7 websites but not others specified arsenic Parler, TikTok oregon LinkedIn.

Twitter said it volition astatine slightest temporarily suspend accounts that see the banned websites successful their profile. However, the signifier is truthful wide that it’s not wide if — oregon however — the institution volition enforce the restrictions connected Twitter’s millions of users astir the world.

One of the trial cases was the salient Silicon Valley task capitalist Paul Graham, who successful the past has praised Musk but connected Sunday told his 1.5 cardinal followers that this was the “last straw” and to find him connected Mastodon. His Twitter relationship was promptly suspended, and soon aft restored.

Twitter had lso said it would beryllium banning promotions of third-party societal media nexus aggregators specified arsenic Linktree, which immoderate radical usage to amusement wherever they tin beryllium recovered connected antithetic websites.

Twitter antecedently took enactment to artifact links to 1 of its rivals, Mastodon, aft its main Twitter relationship tweeted astir the @ElonJet contention past week. Mastodon has grown rapidly successful caller weeks arsenic an alternate for Twitter users who are unhappy with Musk’s overhaul of Twitter since helium bought the institution for $44 cardinal successful precocious October and began restoring accounts that ran afoul of the erstwhile Twitter leadership’s rules against hateful behaviour and different harms.

Some Twitter users person included links to their caller Mastodon illustration and encouraged followers to find them there. That’s present banned connected Twitter, arsenic are attempts to bypass restrictions specified arsenic by spelling retired “instagram dot com” and a username alternatively of a nonstop website link.

Instagram and Facebook genitor institution Meta didn’t instrumentality requests for remark Sunday. Twitter said it volition inactive let “paid advertisement/promotion” from the different banned platforms, arsenic good arsenic “cross-posting” immoderate contented originating from the banned sites.

Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet relationship connected Wednesday, past changed Twitter’s rules to prohibit the sharing of different person’s existent determination without their consent. He past took purpose astatine journalists who were penning astir the jet-tracking account, which tin inactive beryllium recovered connected different sites including Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, alleging that they were broadcasting “basically assassination coordinates.”

He utilized that to warrant Twitter’s moves past week to suspend the accounts of galore journalists who screen the societal media level and Musk, among them reporters moving for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and different publications. Many of those accounts were restored pursuing an online canvass by Musk.

Then, implicit the weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest writer to beryllium temporarily banned from Twitter.

Lorenz said she and different Post exertion newsman were researching an nonfiction concerning Musk. She had tried to pass with the billionaire but the attempts went unanswered, truthful she tried to interaction him Saturday by posting a connection connected Twitter tagging Musk and requesting an interview.

The circumstantial taxable was not disclosed successful the tweet, though it was successful effect to Musk tweeting astir an alleged incidental earlier successful the week involving a “violent stalker” successful Southern California and Musk’s claims that journalists were revealing his family’s determination by referencing the jet-tracker account.

When she went backmost aboriginal Saturday to cheque whether determination was a effect connected Twitter, Lorenz was met with a notification that her relationship was “permanently suspended.”

“I won’t accidental I didn’t expect it,” Lorenz said successful a telephone interrogation aboriginal Sunday with The Associated Press. She said she wasn’t fixed a circumstantial crushed for the ban.

Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post’s enforcement editor, said successful a written connection Sunday that the “arbitrary suspension of different Post writer further undermines Elon Musk’s assertion that helium intends to tally Twitter arsenic a level dedicated to escaped speech.

“Again, the suspension occurred with nary warning, process oregon mentation — this clip arsenic our newsman simply sought remark from Musk for a story,” Buzbee said. “Post journalists should beryllium reinstated immediately, without arbitrary conditions.“

By midday Sunday, Lorenz’s relationship was restored, arsenic was the tweet she thought had triggered her suspension.