AMID CHAOS, MUSK REVEALS VISION VS HATE

SAN FRANCISCO—After turning Twitter upside down, Elon Musk on Tuesday tried to clarify his plans for content moderation.

Musk on Friday said he had reinstated certain banned accounts on his site, but added that no decision had been made on welcoming back former US President Donald Trump.

Twitter watchers have been tracking closely to see whether Musk will reinstate Trump, banned for inciting last year’s attack on the Capitol by a mob seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The reinstatement of accounts ousted for violating Twitter’s content moderation rules has been seen as a bellwether of where Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” wants to take the site.

No boosting

In the same blast of tweets, Musk unveiled a new method for handling future hateful or “negative” content that seemed to seek a balancing act between unadulterated free speech and some form of policing on the site.

Finding a solution to content moderation became especially urgent after Musk’s fist major rejig to the site— expanding a paid subscription service—sparked an embarrassing spate of fake accounts that sent advertisers running.

“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” Musk tweeted on Friday.

“Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” he wrote.