By Charlie Conchie
Elon Musk has suggested that Twitter could be split up into maturity-rated content streams to ring-fence harmful and extreme posts, as the debate over moderation of material on the site rages on.
Musk completed a months-long fractious takeover of the social media firm this week and has long hinted he will take a more hands-off “free speech absolutist” approach to policing the platform.
In a post on the site, Musk said he would form a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints” in a bid to ensure posts and accounts are not blocked for political reasons.
But responding to criticism of the moderation council from a Twitter user, Musk said that users may be able to determine the “version” of the site they choose.
“Being able to select which version of Twitter you want is probably better, much as it would be for a movie maturity rating,” he said.
“The rating of the tweet itself could be self-selected, then modified by user feedback.”
In another post on the site, Musk responded positively to suggestions that users should be able to choose their own experience. He said “something like this makes sense” after a suggestion that the site should be divided into sections “where you can start beef and mob each other on verified personal accounts”.
Musk has previously described himself as an “absolutist” on free speech and has criticised lifelong bans from the platform. His takeover has fuelled concerns that protections on harmful content will be rolled back.
Donald Trump, who received a lifelong ban from the platform, has welcomed Musk’s takeover of the firm in a post on his platform Truth Social.
The former president said he was ”very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country”.
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