Baltimore Sun

Musk plans to grant ‘amnesty’ to suspended accounts on Twitter

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SAN FRANCISCO — New Twitter owner Elon Musk said Thursday that he is granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinforma­tion.

The billionair­e’s announceme­nt came after he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatem­ents for accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” The yes vote was 72%. “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last weekend before reinstatin­g the account of former President Donald Trump, which Twitter had banned for encouragin­g the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrecti­on. Trump has said he won’t return to Twitter but has not deleted his account.

Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots.

In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, antisemiti­c and other toxic speech say it’s been on the rise on the world’s de facto public square.

The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder following Musk’s decision to lay off half the company’s 7,500person workforce, fire top executives and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit. Also let go were an untold number of contractor­s responsibl­e for content moderation.

Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk’s willingnes­s to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontroll­ed speech was Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth.

Major advertiser­s have also abandoned the platform.

In related news, Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to European Union data released Thursday.

The EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinforma­tion.

Scotland teachers strike:

Most schools in Scotland were closed Thursday as thousands of teachers walked off the job, joining scores of postal workers and university lecturers across the U.K. in industrial action to demand better pay and working conditions to cope with the country’s cost-ofliving crisis.

The teachers’ strike in Scotland, which shuttered every school on the Scottish mainland, was the first such one in the region in 40 years. Union members want a 10% pay rise, but Scottish authoritie­s say they couldn’t afford that.

Elsewhere across the U.K., picket lines were set up outside postal offices and universiti­es in one of the biggest coordinate­d walkouts this year. In universiti­es, some 70,000 academic staff were striking Thursday in the biggest action of its kind in higher education.

UN decries Iran crackdown:

The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Thursday to condemn the bloody crackdown on peaceful protests in Iran and create an independen­t fact-finding mission to investigat­e alleged abuses, particular­ly those committed

against women and children.

A resolution put forward by Germany and Iceland was backed by 25 countries, including the United States. Six countries opposed the move — China, Pakistan, Cuba, Eritrea, Venezuela and Armenia — while 16 abstained.

The U.N.’s top human rights official had earlier appealed to Iran’s government to halt the crackdown against protesters, but Tehran’s envoy at a special Human Rights Council on the country’s “deteriorat­ing” rights situation was defiant and unbowed, blasting the initiative as “politicall­y motivated.”

The protests were triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, while in the custody of the morality police for violating a strictly enforced Islamic dress code.

Thursday’s session in Geneva is the latest internatio­nal effort to put pressure on Iran over its crackdown, which has already drawn internatio­nal sanctions and

other measures.

At least 426 people have been killed in the protests and more than 17,400 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group monitoring the unrest.

On the fourth day of an increasing­ly urgent search, Indonesian rescuers narrowed their focus Thursday to a landslide where dozens of people were believed to be trapped after an earthquake killed at least 270, more than a third of them children.

More than 1,000 rescuers used backhoes, sniffer dogs and life detectors to search the worst-hit area of Cijendil village in Cianjur district, where a landslide set off by Monday’s quake left tons of mud, rocks and broken trees.

Suharyanto, chief of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the rescuers are planning to use more heavy equipment to search the landslide.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur

Indonesian quake:

on Thursday and said rescuers will focus on one location where 39 people are missing.

He said distributi­on of relief supplies has been difficult because the injured and displaced are hard to reach.

Monday’s magnitude 5.6 quake injured more than 2,000 people, damaged at least 56,000 houses and displaced at least 62,000 people to evacuation centers and other shelters.

Governor with COVID-19:

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has tested positive for COVID-19, marking the second time she has gotten the virus.

In a statement, the governor said she was experienci­ng mild symptoms and was isolating. The governor said she was fully vaccinated and had received the latest COVID-19 booster.

She wasn’t taking part in Thanksgivi­ng celebratio­ns with family.

“While testing positive just before the Thanksgivi­ng holiday is disappoint­ing, I know that I am protecting

my loved ones by isolating and not joining them for holiday festivitie­s,” Lujan Grisham said.

Biden’s thank-you: President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered at least a halfdozen pumpkin pies to firefighte­rs in Nantucket, Massachuse­tts, during a Thanksgivi­ng Day show of gratitude.

Biden had expressed appreciati­on for firefighte­rs and other emergency personnel earlier in the day when he and first lady Jill Biden spoke to the hosts of NBC’s broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgivi­ng Day Parade.

“I want to say thanks to the firefighte­rs and police officers, first responders. They never take a break,” he said during the call. The Bidens spoke later Thursday with units from each of the six branches of the U.S. military, the White House said.

“We remember them every single day,” he said during the broadcast. “God bless our troops.”

 ?? JEENAH MOON/AP ?? Happy Thanksgivi­ng: Tom Turkey leads the way down Central Park West amid mostly sunny skies and a crisp breeze during the Macy’s Thanksgivi­ng Day Parade on Thursday in New York City. Throngs of spectators packed the streets for more than 40 blocks as floats and balloons ushered in the holiday season. The annual tradition dates back nearly a century.
JEENAH MOON/AP Happy Thanksgivi­ng: Tom Turkey leads the way down Central Park West amid mostly sunny skies and a crisp breeze during the Macy’s Thanksgivi­ng Day Parade on Thursday in New York City. Throngs of spectators packed the streets for more than 40 blocks as floats and balloons ushered in the holiday season. The annual tradition dates back nearly a century.

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