Musk lets Twitter users vote on unblocking all accounts

New Twitter owner Elon Musk is letting users of the short message service vote in a survey about the activation of blocked accounts. On Wednesday evening (local time), he asked in a tweet whether the platform should offer affected users a “general amnesty”. Excluded from such a pardon are users who have broken the law or spread spam messages.

Users of the online service can vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ until Thursday evening. According to business magazine “Forbes”, more than 700,000 votes were received within the first 45 minutes. By Thursday morning there were more than 2.5 million. More than 72 percent of them supported the activation of blocked accounts.

Such surveys are not representative. It is unclear whether and how many votes were cast from automated accounts. According to the latest information, the service has more than 230 million daily active users.

Musk announced in late October that a council would be formed on how to deal with controversial content before Twitter accounts could be reactivated.

Last week, the tech billionaire had former US President Donald Trump’s account activated after a commission-free user survey. Trump has been banned from Twitter since January 2021. On January 6, he expressed his condolences to his supporters who had stormed the seat of the US parliament.

Musk bought Twitter for about $44 billion at the end of October. Since the takeover, the company has been struggling with the unwillingness of large advertising customers, among other things. Advertising revenue recently accounted for about 90 percent of sales. (sda/awp/dpa)