Elon Musk to form a content moderation council for Twitter

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After Elon Musk closed the USD 44 billion Twitter deal on Thursday night, he announced the formation of a content moderation council for Twitter. The council will be accountable for all the main content-related decisions and no account reinstatement will be done before the council convenes.

Musk wrote in a tweet, “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.”

The Tesla CEO had raised eyebrows worldwide when he tweeted “Let the good times roll” shortly after acquiring social media platform ‘Twitter’ and closing the deal.

According to media reports, the Tesla and Space X owner is expected to remain the CEO of Twitter in the interim but may eventually relinquish the position in the long term. Elon Musk had previously dismissed speculation about why he would purchase Twitter for USD 44 billion, as well as his thoughts on advertising.

“The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” Elon Musk had said in a statement on Thursday.

Meanwhile, he walked the halls of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday, video clippings of which received widespread attention on the internet. Musk had also posted a video of himself carrying a kitchen sink on twitter with a caption – “Let that sink in!”. Elon Musk’s Twitter profile was also changed to “Chief Twit” shortly after he hinted at moving forward with the Twitter acquisition deal.

Elon Musk, who had long expressed interest in purchasing Twitter, had terminated the agreement in July, claiming that Twitter violated their mutual purchase agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform. The market had fallen sharply after Musk announced the termination of the deal. Twitter later sued Musk, accusing him of using bots to get out of a deal. Last week, Musk confirmed that he would proceed with the Twitter acquisition at the originally agreed-upon price of USD 54.20 per share.