Twitter announced that it will relax its policies on account suspension starting from February 2023. Instead of suspending accounts, the platform will impose less strict measures such as reducing the range of tweets that challenge its policies or asking users to remove tweets.
Quick Facts
- Twitter users will be allowed to appeal account suspension from next month
- Such accounts will only be suspended for extreme or continuous violations
- They will be evaluated under the platform’s new criteria for reinstatement which will be implemented on February 1, 2023
The company on Friday announced that the policies for evaluating account suspension will be changed and new rules will be in place from next month. The new policy that is established after billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of the company in October 2022, Twitter accounts will be suspended for persisting or repeated transgressions.
Such transgressions include participating in illegal activity or perpetuating offensive content, inflicting or threatening violence, and getting involved in planned harassment of other accounts, among many more.
According to the new rules, Twitter would either ask the handles to delete the tweets if they want to continue using the platform or restrict the accounts breaking the rules. The announcement for the revised policies was made on Twitter Safety.
Why is Twitter changing its account suspension policies?
Ever since Musk took over the platform, he revised major policies and initiated several changes that did not sit well with advertisers on the platform. Starting from the restoration of banned accounts by suspending journalists, Musk’s Twitter garnered unfavorable reviews.
So more than 500 of the platform’s advertisers withdrew from Twitter. As most of the platform’s revenue is generated by ads, it incurred big losses. In December 2022, Musk banning accounts of several journalists over a controversy on releasing public information about the billionaire’s plane received heavy criticism.
After that, the platform disabled the accounts of many tech journalists after they posted about the suspension of accounts that shared publicly available data about Elon Musk’s flight whereabouts.
The journalists had highlighted the gap between Musk’s support for free speech, something he would passionately promote, and his decision to ban accounts that he wished to avoid.
After a bad phase of constant criticism, the accounts were finally reinstated. Before that, Musk talked about introducing a council that would decide who had been banned from the site. However, things have played out differently.
Now, Musk is deeply invested in generating new revenue and cutting costs for Twitter which is what motivates most of his decisions.
Twitter co-founder believes Musk is not fit to be the Twitter CEO
Months after his acquisition, the social media giant’s co-founder Biz Stone shared his thoughts on Musk. Stone believes that the tech mogul is not the best fit for the company.
“Improvements to morale and content policies at the business have been reversed’ since the new proprietor joined the company,” Stone stated. Apart from mentioning how Musk unwound the successes of the past year, he shared that running social media companies is “not really a win-win situation…it’s always tough.”
“50% of the people are gonna be happy, 50% of people are gonna be upset with you,” he continued. “It doesn’t seem like it right now, but I could be wrong.”
Musk has been the immovable subject of criticism ever since he became the Twitter CEO particularly due to his unusual methods. He conducted monumental lay-offs and implemented harsh monetization strategies that have not reaped positive results so far.
Stone, with regard to the frequent changes in content policies, said, “We made a lot of improvements in those areas. And that’s all gone now.” Stone co-founded Twitter in 2006 with Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, and Evan Williams.
He rejoined the business in 2017 at the request of the former CEO Dorsey to “guide the company culture, that energy, that feeling”.
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