By Matt O'Brien -
The Associated Press
Most Twitter users want Elon Musk to step down as CEO of the company.
This is reflected on Monday by the result of the survey that the magnate himself launched on his future in the company, and in which 57.5% of the 17.5 million people who participated voted in favor of him taking a step back.
The billionaire promised to abide by the results at the beginning of the vote, but has not yet ruled on the results of the vote.
Musk posted the poll on his own Facebook profile hours after acknowledging that he had erred by activating a new measure that prohibited links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other rival social networks.
The move drew so much criticism that Musk said he will not make any more major policy changes without first asking users through surveys.
"My apologies. It won't happen again," the businessman tweeted, before launching a 12-hour poll asking if he should step back and leave the Twitter address.
The move to block competitors was the latest attempt by Musk to institute a series of crackdowns on certain speech, after last week he shut down an account that tracked the flights of his private jet.
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Banned platforms include mainstream websites like Facebook and Instagram, and rivals like Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and Truth Social, former President Donald Trump's social network.
Twitter gave no explanation as to why the blacklist included those seven websites and not others like Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.
Twitter also said it would at least temporarily suspend accounts that listed banned websites on their profiles, a practice so widespread that it would have been difficult to apply the restrictions to Twitter's millions of users around the world.
According to the company, not only the links, but also the attempts to circumvent the ban by writing the formula
instagram dot com
could have led to a suspension.
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One example of the pushback Musk's decision provoked was the reaction of well-known venture capitalist Paul Graham, who has praised the mogul in the past but told his 1.5 million Twitter followers on Sunday that the new policy was "the drop that broke the camel's back" and that he was off to Mastodon.
His Twitter account was quickly suspended, though reinstated soon after, as Musk vowed to reverse the policy applied just hours earlier.
Musk said Twitter will continue to suspend some accounts in accordance with the policy, but "only when the (asterisk) primary purpose (asterisk) of that account is the promotion of competitors."
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Mastodon has grown exponentially in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users who aren't happy with the drift the social network is taking since Musk acquired it for $44 billion in late October.
One of his first actions was to restore the accounts of some users who violated the rules of the previous Twitter address against hateful conduct and other harm, such as that of Trump himself or that of rapper Kanye West.
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Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet account on Wednesday, then changed Twitter's rules to prohibit sharing another person's current location without their consent.
He then targeted the journalists who reported on that account, which can still be found on other social networks, claiming they were broadcasting "basically murder coordinates."
This argument served to justify Musk reactivating the suspended journalists on Twitter after submitting the decision for consultation on the social network, including reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and Voice of America.
Many of those accounts were restored after another survey launched by the tycoon.
