Elon Musk blames ‘political activists’ for lying about Twitter’s moderation council & reinstating Donald Trump

While trying to assuage advertisers and users on the platform after he took over, Elon Musk announced that he will take no decision on unbanning or reinstating banned accounts and that he would be creating a Moderation Council which will be made up of people with “widely diverse viewpoints.” However, despite his “promise,” Musk went on to reinstate the banned accounts of several figures without forming the Moderation Council.

Musk’s reason to do so? He blames ‘political and social activists’ for targeting Twitter.

Late last week, Elon Musk put out a poll to his followers and asked if he should let Donald Trump back on the platform.  

Reinstate former President Trump

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022

Soon afterwards, announcing that “The people have spoken,” Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account.

The people have spoken.

Trump will be reinstated.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022

People have since then called out Musk for making Twitter a more vitriolic place than it needs to be. Certain theories have surfaced, claiming that by reinstating controversial figures like Donald Trump, Musk hopes to not only increase the engagement of users on the platform but also give users another reason to subscribe to Twitter Blue.  

In response, Musk has come out and tweeted, explaining the reason why he reinstated banned accounts like that of Donald Trump and a few others. Musk wrote that the moderation council was part of a deal he had made with an unnamed “large coalition of political/social activist groups.”

A large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition.

They broke the deal.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

The deal, Musk claims was made to keep those groups from trying to destroy Twitter’s ad revenue, and that those groups “broke the deal” -  so he no longer has to uphold anything that has to do with the council.

This isn’t the first time that Musk has blamed political activists and social activists, and if his recent political leanings are anything to go by, whenever Musk blames political activists and social activists in the same breath, he is usually referring to left-leaning organisations, without naming them.

Earlier this month, Musk had tweeted that certain activist groups were “pressuring advertisers to not advertise on Twitter” in an attempt to “destroy free speech in America.”  

The Verge then reported that they has seen documents from one of the three major ad companies that advised clients to stop running campaigns on the platform. These ad companies did not cite pressure from political or social activists for advising their clients to pull their advertisements off the platform. Instead, these ad companies believe that Twitter under musk poses a risk for their clients because of concerns around compliance, imitation, and a lack of moderation.

Furthermore, Musk’s flip-flopping decisions on verification have also been a cause for worry. But most importantly, the massive layoffs and the exit of key compliance officers and engineers and the potentially adverse effect that those exits would have on the company’s ability to operate was the reason why ad companies and brand managers decided to halt their ad spending on Twitter.