Musk asks Twitter users if suspended accounts should receive amnesty

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Billionaire Elon Musk asked Twitter users on Wednesday if accounts that were previously suspended should be reinstated under what he termed a "general amnesty."

"Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?" the social media website's CEO asked in a poll.

There is still nearly one day left before voting ends but with more than 207,000 votes already cast, the vast majority of respondents, 74%, agreed Musk should move forward with his proposal.

Musk has already reinstated several accounts that were banned for violating Twitter's rules, including those of former President Donald Trump, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kanye West.

Trump was banned for violating rules against inciting violence for his tweets during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Greene was suspended after repeatedly sharing coronavirus misinformation while West's account was locked for posting anti-Semitic tweets, including threatening "death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE."

Musk's ownership of Twitter, now rounding out its first month, has been marked by widespread chaos at the company as he seeks to make the service profitable by instituting mass layoffs and attempting to institute policies that have been met with widespread internal opposition on the platform leading to additional staff losses, or quickly rolled back.

Teams that had traditionally been used to monitor compliance with Twitter's internal rules have been decimated.

Musk's attempts to institute a widespread $8 per month verification system have been repeatedly upended by users who have purchased the service to impersonate famous accounts, causing further havoc on the website.

A fake account that purported to be Eli Lilly and Co. posted a brief nine-word tweet falsely claiming the firm would make insulin free earlier this month, causing the pharmaceutical company's stock to plunge. The account sported the blue verified check mark, which Twitter had for years used to show an account's authenticity.