Elon Musk’s plan to lift permanent bans on Twitter might actually work against Trump

Human rights groups are up in arms about the possible lifting of Twitter’s suspension of former President Trump. But I wonder whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to allow Trump back on the platform — with some limitations — and let him make a fool out of himself.

Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, has already said that if he finalizes his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, he will lift the company’s indefinite ban on Trump. Musk said on May 10 that “a temporary suspension is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.”

And that may be the right approach. Perhaps allowing Trump back on the platform, and only suspending him temporarily when he endangers peoples’ lives by inciting violence or spreading dangerous fake news, would help remind Americans of how irresponsible he is, and what a dangerous leader he would be if he returns to power in 2024.

Twitter banned Trump after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters for violating the platform’s rules against violence incitement. Before Trump’s ban, he had posted more than 56,000 tweets over the years, many of which were racist or condoned violence.

Some of his tweets were stupid but relatively harmless, such as his 2012 posting that China had “created” the concept of global warming allegedly to harm U.S. manufacturing firms, or his 2013 post falsely pushing the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not an American, despite the fact that Obama had already produced his birth certificate.

But other Trump tweets were much more dangerous. His October 2020 tweets minimizing COVID-19 and blaming the media for supposedly exaggerating the threat of the virus, and similar tweets months earlier, kept many Americans from getting vaccinated and probably led to tens of thousands of deaths.

Just as dangerous were Trump’s tweets after the 2020 elections, when he falsely claimed that he had won, and condoned the violent takeover of Congress. Trump is still spreading the lie that he won the election to this day, despite the fact that the Supreme Court, more than 60 lower courts and his own vice president have certified that he lost.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Anti-Defamation League and other advocacy groups have expressed serious concerns about Musk’s plans for Twitter if the sale goes through.

Musk has said that he is a “free speech absolutist” but human rights groups say that “absolute” freedom on the internet would lead to more hate speech and greater violence.

Michael Klainman, director of Amnesty International’s technology and human rights department, told me that social media companies need to “balance” the protection of free speech with the protection of human rights. “Companies have a responsibility to protect human rights,” he told me.

That’s very true. But it’s also true that social media firms can protect human rights through several means, including temporary — rather than permanent — suspensions, eliminating bots that amplify hateful speech and changing algorithms that currently amplify dangerous messages.

To my surprise, Frances Haugen, the former Facebook data engineer who made headlines last year when she disclosed thousands of internal Facebook documents showing that the company may have prioritized profits over public safety, has not joined the chorus of Musk critics. “I think it’s premature to make a judgment either way,” she told me.

Haugen supports Musk’s plan to eliminate bots — or robotic accounts — from social media because these fake accounts often amplify dangerous content. She calls for forcing social media companies to make their algorithms more transparent so that the public can demand they change algorithms that currently maximize fake news to drive up clicks, and profits.

“Remember, good speech and bad speech aren’t on a level playing field right now,” the Facebook whistleblower told me. “People who make us angry get the most distribution, because Twitter, like Facebook, uses something called ‘engagement based’ ranking; Ideas that polarize us, that are extreme, that make our blood run hot, those ideas get the most distribution.”

Maybe she’s right, and Trump should be allowed to return to Twitter under new rules. If Twitter blocks the former president — and other populist demagogues around the world — only when he engages in hate speech or puts lives in danger, it may help remind people how unhinged the former president’s social media postings are.

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