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Elon Musk (2020)
Photo: John Raoux/AP
At the moment, hardly a day goes by without messages from Twitter that leave you perplexed.
After job cuts and chaos about verified accounts, it's now about blocked Twitter accounts.
After ex-US President Donald Trump's account was unlocked, the new company owner Elon Musk launched an online survey about a general unblocking of blocked user accounts.
Musk asked Twitter users on Wednesday whether they were for or against a "general amnesty for suspended accounts."
Excluded are users who have violated laws or are responsible for "outrageous spam".
The online survey runs until Thursday noon (local time; early evening CET).
Musk launched a Twitter poll last week asking whether Trump's user account, which was suspended after the Capitol storm on January 6, 2021, should be unblocked.
Of the more than 15 million participants, 51.8 percent voted for approval.
The account of the Republican, who had entered the race for the 2024 presidential election days earlier, was then unblocked.
Trump hasn't tweeted yet.
After buying Twitter, Musk had actually announced that a decision on the activation of blocked user accounts should only be made after the short message service had set up a “Content Moderation Council”.
That seems off the table now.
The boss of the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the richest person in the world took over Twitter at the end of October for 44 billion dollars (around 43 billion euros) and subsequently fired the executive floor and then around half of the workforce.
Important areas were practically gutted in terms of personnel.
It then became known that certain employees were offered to return to the company shortly after they were fired.
Musk's restructuring of the short message service is also extremely chaotic.
Musk put a new subscription model with the blue verification symbol on hold after there were a large number of fake profiles on Twitter.
Several major corporations have suspended advertising on the network over concerns about Twitter's development.
In particular, the question is how Twitter will proceed against hate messages and the spread of false news in the future.
Audi stops all activities on Twitter
The most recent example: According to a media report, Audi is withdrawing completely from Twitter for the time being.
The car manufacturer does not want to place ads there or spread news as a company, reported the “Wirtschaftswoche” on Wednesday, citing insiders.
The Ingolstadt-based company is thus going further than the parent company Volkswagen, which has frozen its advertising activities on Twitter and recommended this to its brands.
Audi was initially unable to comment.
No tweets have been posted to the company account since November 2nd.
The Ingolstadt residents had previously tweeted there almost every day.
A Volkswagen spokesman said none of the group's brands have been running ads on Twitter since early November.
jok/AFP
