Following a single poll on Twitter over the weekend, Elon Musk announced Former President Donald Trump’s reinstatement to the social media platform.
Musk asked, via a poll, whether or not Trump should be reinstated on Twitter. The former American led the poll by just 3.6%, leading Musk to make the reinstatement announcement. It’s only Monday. Who knows what’s in store for the rest of the week?
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Trump was banned from the platform in 2021, following the January 6 Capitol riot, for violating Twitter guidelines and the high risk of “further incitement of violence”. This is after he flooded the platform with misinformation as his devoted mob ran wild at the Capitol Building in Washington.
On Sunday Musk announced Trump’s return in a tweet that read:” The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated.”
“The people” referred to by Musk voted in the poll where a slim majority agreed to Trump’s return. After over 15 million (15,085,458) votes, 51.8% said yes to his return and 48.2% said no. On Sunday, Musk said the poll got more than one million votes in an hour and more than 134M people had seen this poll by Sunday.
The people have spoken.
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Where is Trump?
Donald Trump is yet to tweet since the announcement of his reinstatement.
Trump had over 88 million followers on Twitter before his ban on 8 January 2021. His account reflected over 87.3 million followers on Monday this week.
When asked about his return to the platform on Saturday, Trump said “I don’t see any reason for it”. This was seen in a video from the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting.
Read More: Trump is building a social media platform – but keeping it online will be a challenge
According to Reuters, Trump says he plans to stick to Truth Social, an app developed by his startup, the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). He says Truth social is doing “phenomenally well” and has better engagement than Twitter.
Trump says Twitter faces “incredible” problems and that it suffers from fake accounts and bots.
Trump’s non-return (for now) hasn’t stopped everyone, including politicians, human rights activists, and celebrities from giving their two cents on whether the move to reinstate him was the right one or not. Does Elon Musk care? That seems doubtful.
And lead us not into temptation … pic.twitter.com/8qNOXzwXS9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2022
Mixed reactions
Donald Trump hoy:@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/gkL0v3xw6D
— Crisren (@Crisren15) November 20, 2022
For @elonmusk to allow Donald Trump back on Twitter, ostensibly after a brief poll, shows he is not remotely serious about safeguarding the platform from hate, harassment and misinformation. https://t.co/Rf0NjAubpI
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) November 20, 2022
no doubt about it: Donald Trump was absolutely telling the truth about his meeting with Elon Musk.
he’s doing it right now in public pic.twitter.com/N8DuCBbYtb
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) November 21, 2022
Hi! This is me, the cancer patient that Donald Trump blocked on Twitter while trying to strip away our health care. But now Trump is coming back.
I’m at 52k followers. Can you RT & follow me to help get to 60k this weekend? Don’t let them silence us.
— Laura Packard (@lpackard) November 20, 2022
Twitter has unsuspended Donald Trump‼️
(Agaya🤯)#trumpisback #DonaldTrump #DonaldJTrump #PresidentTrump pic.twitter.com/as8u2bNUSP— प्रथम (@Pratham_167) November 20, 2022
Source: Reuters
