Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Form ‘Content Moderation Council’

New Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the company is setting up a council to make important moderation decisions.

“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” Musk tweeted.

“No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” he added.

Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.

No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

Musk’s announcement follows the firing of several Twitter executives.

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Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde (head of legal, policy, and trust), CFO Ned Segal, Chairman Bret Taylor, and General Counsel ​​Sean Edgett.

The Verge reported:

Part of Musk’s professed reasoning for buying Twitter hinged on making it a platform for “free speech,” and he has said he’d consider letting controversial figures like former president Donald Trump back onto the platform. With Friday’s announcement, it seems as if he’s placing that sort of decision into the hands of a council.

The tweet doesn’t contain any details about what kind of viewpoints Musk is seeking to have on the council, how many people will be on it, how they'll be appointed, or how it’s different from the content moderation and policy teams that already exist at the company.

However, Musk has made it clear that he doesn’t agree with how the platform’s existing moderation systems operate; when he took control of the company, he fired several execs, including policy chief Vijaya Gadde, whose decisions he publicly criticized in the run-up to him buying the company.

Deadline added:

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Facebook, facing a storm of controversy in recent years over the content circulating on its network, created a similar body and promised it would function independently from the company’s management team.

Former President Donald Trump and a range of others, especially far-right figures and conspiracy mongers like Alex Jones and David Duke have been permanently banned from Twitter. Trump’s ouster stemmed from his behavior on January 6, 2021, as well as during the runup to the assault on the U.S. Capitol. The company had flagged several of his tweets for promoting disinformation or violence. He went on to create his own alternative platform, Truth Social, but it has attained a decidedly modest following to date.

Musk has described himself as a free speech absolutist and has long vowed to restore voices to the platform and has indicated that Trump would be among those to see a reprieve. At the same time, the advertising-dependent network faces a potential revolt among ad buyers, a reality Musk implicitly acknowledged in a tweet on Wednesday pledging not to let Twitter become a “free-for-all hellscape.” Some expression will, he promised, not be allowed.

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— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022