Twitter lifts Donald Trump ban after Elon Musk poll | donald trump

Donald Trump’s Twitter account appeared to be back online after a narrow majority of votes were cast in a Twitter poll organized by Elon Musk in favor of reinstating the banned former US president. of the social media service for incitement to violence.

Just over 15 million votes were counted in the poll with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted. During the poll, Musk acknowledged that the number of votes was affected by automated “bots”, which are not people, and suggested that it was necessary to “clean up” Twitter polls so that they are not not influenced by bots and “trolls”.

Trump had seemed less than eager earlier in the day to return to Twitter. “I don’t see any reason for that,” the former president said via video when asked about it by a panel at the annual meeting of leaders of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

He said he would stick with his new Truth Social platform, the app developed by his startup Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).

Trump on Tuesday launched a bid to win back the White House in 2024 and praised Musk saying he had always loved him. But Trump also said Twitter suffered from bots, fake accounts and the problems it faced were “unbelievable”.

Musk first said in May that he planned to reverse Trump’s ban, and the timing of any Trump comeback was closely watched — and feared — by many Twitter advertisers.

Musk has since sought to reassure users and advertisers that such a decision would be made after review by a content moderation board made up of people with “widely diverse viewpoints” and that no account reinstatement will take place. would occur before the convening of the council.

He also said that Twitter would not reinstate any banned users until there was a “clear process for doing so”.

But this week, Musk reinstated comedian Kathy Griffin, who had been banned for changing her profile name to “Elon Musk,” which violated his new rule against impersonation without indicating that he was acted as a parody account. There has been no new information about the moderation process or advice.