Status: 30.10.2022 09:42 a.m
After the takeover of Twitter, its new boss Musk announces further content changes. Among other things, blocked users should be “released from Twitter prison”. And the character limit is probably in question.
After the takeover of Twitter by high-tech billionaire Elon Musk for the equivalent of around 44 billion euros, the timetable for the content of the short message service is slowly becoming more concrete. Musk tweeted over the weekend, “Anyone banned for minor and dubious reasons will be released from Twitter jail.” That would be a novelty on Twitter: the previous management always emphasized that there was no way back after a ban.
Will the character limit be lifted?
Musk was also open to removing the 280-character limit for tweets. When asked by a user if the character limit could be removed or increased, Musk replied “absolutely”.
Musk also expressed the idea of creating different versions of the service for different groups of users – especially in terms of age. So he wrote: “Like an age rating in the cinema”.
changes not immediately
Musk had previously announced that he wanted to create a new body to deal with controversial content. However, before such a council meets, there will be no major decisions on content policy or account recovery, he wrote on Twitter. This means that the activation of ex-President Donald Trump’s account, which Musk has been talking about in the past few months, should at least not be expected immediately. Musk did not give details of the committee and its possible composition.
Meta also has a content-related committee
The idea of such a committee for moderating content and users is not new: Competitor Meta has had an independent expert committee for some time that can reverse the deletion of posts and the blocking of accounts, for example. In the case of Meta, the board’s decisions are binding on management.
Lots of conjecture, little concrete about the future of Twitter
One can only speculate about how Twitter will continue. Current information reached the public primarily through media reports and Twitter owner Musk’s postings. However, the information often remained unclear.
It should stay that way: With the purchase, Musk is taking Twitter off the stock exchange and then no longer has to provide information about the development of the business.
Musk had often criticized Twitter for restricting freedom of speech too much. This raised concerns that there might be more hate and hate speech on Twitter under his control. The service has so far followed a strict course against false information about elections, for example – Trump supporters in particular speak of censorship.