By Azania Patel
Elon Musk led Twitter into disagreements with the EU, other social media platforms and its users over the weekend.
Twitter’s new CEO has continued his spree of rash decisions, and on Saturday suspended the accounts of journalists who had been covering the social media platform. This included accounts of journalists from BBC, The New York Times and Washington Post amongst others.
Musk’s decision was criticised by the UN, with a spokesperson saying “Media freedom is not a toy to be played with.” The European Union has threatened sanctions against Twitter if the accounts are not reinstated. In response, Musk held a Twitter poll, asking followers if the accounts should be reinstated.
Following the results, the accounts were reinstated. However, Twitter has continued to suspend accounts that are linking content to competing social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon. Mastodon’s twitter account was suspended, while Facebook’s Twitter tweeted an emoji hiding its face in response to the new Twitter policy.
Given the backlash, the policy was quickly abandoned, Musk apologised for the change, and tweeted that a similar thing “will not happen again”.
With advertisers and shareholders losing faith in Twitter, Musk has been asked repeatedly to play by the rules. On Sunday he held a poll asking users if he should quit as CEO. While over 57 percent users voted yes by the poll’s closing , there had been no statement from Musk at the time of publication.
Speaking to the BBC, a former member of staff at Twitter said “I imagine he’s getting pressure from investors to step down and is using this poll to make it look like he’s following the will of the people instead of the will of those paying his bills.”
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