Elon Musk started asking Twitter poll questions about account suspensions back in November. Today, he ended up suspending himself as head of Twitter after a poll question – that he said he’ll adhere to – didn’t go in his favor. 57.5 percent of more than 17.5 million participating Twitter users said he should step down as head of the company.
Musk has commented on some of his recent polling results with the phrase “vox populi, vox dei”, Latin for “the voice of the people, the voice of God”, but at the time of writing had not said if he would follow through on the result of the latest poll, which closed at 6.20 a.m. EST on Monday.
The 51-year old bought Twitter in October for approximately $44 billion in what seemed like a spur of the moment decision and has since brought swift, sometimes seemingly erratic changes to the platform, including overhauling the system for verified accounts, so-called blue ticks, as well as the way Twitter filters hate speech, other defamatory language and spam/bot accounts.
Musk’s penchant for question time on Twitter started innocuously enough. On November 12, he gave users the option to chose between “Twitter is more fun”, “Twitter is less fun” and “LMAO”, the latter winning. A week later, he dropped a bigger bombshell, asking whether former President Donald Trump – famously banned after Jan 6, 2021 – should be reinstated on the social network. While a majority of users were in favor, Trump declined.
Another poll carried out on November 23 on unsuspending accounts can be read as a win for Musk, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist. Almost three quarters of users were in favor of reinstating accounts banned before Musk’s takeover. But the tide soon began to turn. Musk’s banning of accounts tracking his private jet caused an outcry over censorship concerns and two polls, the second carried out on December 16, showed that users were now turning against Musk. The now finalized poll about his own future at the company followed unexpectedly three days later.
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