Comment Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk tweeted Monday encouraging “independent voters” to vote Republican, marking a major departure for the social media company’s leaders, who have typically shied away from partisan political advocacy. “Shared power limits the worst excesses of both parties, so I suggest we vote for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” he tweeted. The remark capped a chaotic weekend in which Musk abruptly reversed course on several important issues for the company, which he acquired for $44 billion just over a week ago. After laying off about half of its workforce on Friday, Twitter began trying to rehire some of those who were laid off. It has delayed the planned launch of its new paid verification product until after the midterm elections. And it suspended popular accounts impersonating Musk, under a new policy the company’s new CEO announced Sunday. To independent voters: Shared power limits the worst excesses of both parties, so I suggest voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022 Musk’s endorsement of GOP candidates to his 115 million Twitter followers, a day before the midterm elections, is likely to intensify the partisan divide over the takeover of the platform. In the past, lawmakers have asked executives at social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube about whether their decisions could influence election results, even though those executives have studiously avoided declaring preferences. them for a particular party or candidate. Meanwhile, Twitter began suspending accounts “engaging in impersonation” on Sunday after Musk announced that all accounts falsely using real people’s names without the “spoof” tag would be immediately banned from the platform. The move came after a flood of users changed their display names to match his own. “Going forward, anyone operating Twitter who engages in impersonation without clearly identifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted Sunday afternoon. “Previously, we issued a warning before the suspension, but now that we have extensive verification, there will be no warning.” “Any name change will cause a temporary loss of the verified check mark,” he added, referring to the blue check mark next to people’s names, which indicates that their account is authentic and not an impersonation. The new impersonation policy appeared to contradict Musk’s assurance last week that he would convene a “content coordination board with widely divergent views” before making any major content decisions. In May, Musk criticized the permanent suspensions, saying they “fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter.” Musk had also previously said he would reinstate permanently suspended accounts, such as former President Donald Trump’s, which was banned after the Jan. 6 uprising under Twitter’s policies against incitement to violence. But last week he said the company would not reinstate Trump or other banned accounts before the midterm elections. In another swift reversal, the company began reaching out over the weekend to try to rehire employees it had just laid off, according to multiple inside sources, including two with direct knowledge of the rehiring efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. . Among the people Twitter is said to be looking to rehire are engineers who worked on the company’s Android app. Several Twitter users, some of whom are verified on the platform, began changing their display names to “Elon Musk” after the billionaire completed his $44 billion purchase of the platform in late October. Many, imitating Musk, mocked his controversial announcement that Twitter would soon charge users $8 a month for verification. Twitter will charge $8 per month for verification. What you need to know. Among those apparently banned from Twitter for changing their display names to “Elon Musk” was comedian Kathy Griffin, who, under Musk’s name, urged Americans to vote Democratic in the midterm elections. “I’ve decided that voting blue for their choice is the right thing to do,” she wrote shortly before her account was suspended. YouTuber Ethan Klein also appeared to be banned from the platform after joining those impersonating Musk. Griffin’s fans called Twitter’s move a crackdown on free speech and a travesty, using the hashtag #freekathy to criticize the platform’s new policy. Later Sunday, Musk, who is the world’s richest man, tweeted that Griffin could have her account back if she paid up. “If she really wants her account back, she can have it,” Musk wrote. “For $8.” Griffin, meanwhile, seems to have moved on to other platforms. Soon after she was banned from her Twitter account, she wrote on Instagram: “I’m trending on Twitter. Long story.” He also joined Mastodon, the six-year-old social media platform that has been steadily gaining new followers since Musk bought Twitter. They swapped Twitter for Mastodon Social. And now what? On Monday, Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko said it was “very cool” that the social network had reached more than 1 million monthly active users and that the network had gained nearly half a million new users since October 27 – the mask day Acquisition of Twitter. Last week, Mastodon acknowledged that its servers are “under very heavy load” as a result of what it said was an “extreme spike in user numbers.” Twitter’s crackdown on parody accounts is a long line of new policy changes introduced after Musk bought the platform. Shortly after taking over the platform, he fired longtime Twitter executives and announced mass layoffs at the company. Elon Musk’s Twitter firings, explained Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.
