Elon Musk Poll: Amid a state of turmoil at Twitter, its new boss, billionaire Elon Musk, asked his followers on Monday whether he should continue or step down. In a poll released on the microblogging site, Musk asked his followers, “Should I resign as head of Twitter?” and said that he would follow the results of the election. In a subsequent tweet, he warned his followers to vote carefully in the poll, as he could invoke the mandate. “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, as you may get it,” he warned. As of the writing of this article, nearly 58 percent of respondents voted against Musk.
The major development comes nearly two days after the forum faced a worldwide backlash following its decision to suspend some journalists. Even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized the move and said he was “deeply troubled” by the decision, calling it a “dangerous precedent”.
chaotic takeover
Significantly, ever since the SpaceX CEO took the stage following dramatic circumstances at the San Francisco-based headquarters, he has been making major changes to Twitter policies. Within hours of taking charge, he fired Indian-American CEO Parag Agarwal and later ousted other top employees from the organization. Later, they announced a paid subscription model, in which verified accounts have to pay for “blue checkmarks”, often referred to as “blue ticks”.
This dealt a major blow to both the platform and Musk, as several companies lost billions of dollars due to impersonation of their accounts. This resulted in Musk temporarily suspending his idea, but later came up with a new plan in which he classified verified accounts by genre.
Musk disbanded his Trust and Safety Advisory Group
Last week, he dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. The safety council on the microblogging site consisted of 100 independent citizens, a group of human rights organisations, which were keeping a tab on hate, suicide, self-harm, abusive and sexual content posted on the platform. It was formed in 2016 following widespread reports of abusive and harmful content on the platform.
Speaking to news agency Associated Press, some of its members revealed that the decision was taken hours before a scheduled meeting with Twitter representatives on Monday night. Some members said that they have received a mail in which the organization has informed them about the dissolution of the council. The email said Twitter is “re-evaluating how to bring in outside insight” and that the council “is not the best structure to do so.”